This textbook is a revision and expansion of A Manual for Articulatory Phonetics, compiled by Rick Floyd in 1981 and revised in 1986, and again in 2003 by Anita Bickford. It includes many other people's materials from articulatory phonetics courses as taught for over sixty years in the training schools of SIL International. It also includes much information from sources outside of SIL.

It is written in an informal, personal style and is a practical book for teachers and students alike. Most chapters begin with a statement of goals and concludes with a list of key concepts and exercises. Examples, tables, and explanatory figures are distributed liberally throughout.

This book is oriented primarily towards native speakers of American English, particularly with reference to examples used to guide pronunciation of new sounds. However, most of the information included should be profitable to students regardless of their native language.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is used for the phonetic transcription, but the equivalent Americanist symbols are also given in order to equip the student to use other linguists' materials, regardless of which system they use to transcribe their data.