From helping you find your voice to guiding you on the latest MLA and APA documentation guidelines, "Readings for Writers" is designed to help you become a more successful writer. Throughout the text, the authors offer helpful commentary, practical tips and suggestions, real student essays and other writing tools that you can use for any assignment. But even more importantly, they present over 60 readings from a variety of genres and authors that will inspire and inform your writing as you learn what good writing is, and how to create it on your own.
Part I: READING AND WRITING: FROM READING TO WRITING.
1. Reading Critically.
Kinds of Reading. Steps to Critical Reading. Read Actively. Demystify the
Writer. Understand What You Read. Imagine an Opposing Point of View for All
Opinions. Look for Biases and Hidden Assumptions. Separate Emotion from Fact.
If the Issue Is New to You, Look up the Facts. Use Insights from One Subject
to Illuminate or Correct Another. Evaluate the Evidence. Ponder the Values
behind a Claim. Recognize Logical Fallacies. Don't Be Seduced by Bogus
Claims. Annotate Your Reading. Finally, Be Sure You Understand the Writer's
Opening Context. Answers to Critical Reading Questions on Andy Rooney.
2. Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasion.
Road Map to Rhetoric. Grammar and Rhetoric. The Importance of Good Grammar.
Letting the Habits of Literate Writers Be the Final Referee. Exercises. The
Importance of Rhetoric. Audience and Purpose. The Internal Reader/Editor.
Levels of English. Writing as a Process. Writing about Visual Images. Writing
on Social Networks. Advice. What--and How--to Write When You Have No Time to
Write / Donald Murray. Examples. Ain't I a Woman? / Sojourner Truth. MindTap
Only: I Have a Dream / Martin Luther King, Jr.
Chapter Writing Assignments.
Pointer from a Pro: Write Often. Real-Life Student Writing. Email from
Samoa.
3. Synthesis: Incorporating Outside Sources.
Road Map to Synthesis. Building Blocks of Incorporating Outside Sources.
Paraphrase. Exercises. Summary. Exercises. Quotation. Exercises. Guidelines
for Effectively Synthesizing Outside Sources. Guidelines for Thinking and
Reading Critically. Guidelines for Improving Your Use of Outside Sources.
Writers at Work: Strategies for Incorporating Outside Sources. Writers at
Work: Using Paraphrase and Summary. Writers at Work: Using Quotation.
Chapter
Writing Assignment: Writing a Synthesis Essay. Sources. The American Dream Is
Dead: Here's Where It Went / Adele Peters. By Our Own Bootstraps / W. Michael
Cox and Richard Alm. Long Live the American Dream / Shikha Dalmia. Essay
Prompts. Suggestions for Additional Reading.
4. The Writer's Voice.
Road Map to Writer's Voice. Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? Vocabulary.
Syntax. Attitude. Exercises. Advice. Tone: The Writers' Voice in the Reader's
Mind / Mort Castle. Examples. Salvation / Langston Hughes. Mother Tongue /
Amy Tan.
Chapter Writing Assignments. Real-Life Student Writing. A Thank-You
Note to an Aunt.
5. The Writer's Thesis.
Road Map to Thesis. Finding Your Thesis. Key Words in the Thesis.
Characteristics of a Good Thesis. Nine Errors to Avoid in Composing a Thesis.
The Explicit Versus the Implicit Thesis. Exercises. Advice. The Thesis /
Sheridan Baker. Examples. Is Texting Killing the English Language? / John
McWhorter. The Median Isn't the Message / Stephen Jay Gould.
Chapter Writing
Assignments. Real-Life Student Writing. A Eulogy to a Friend Killed in a Car
Wreck.
6. Organizing Ideas.
Road Map to Organizing. Organizing the Short Essay. Organizing the Long
Essay. Planning by Listing Supporting Materials. Organizing with a Formal
Outline. Exercises. Advice. Write to Be Understood / Jim Staylor. Examples.
Rules for Aging / Roger Rosenblatt. That Time of Year (Sonnet 73) / William
Shakespeare.
Chapter Writing Assignments. Real-Life Student Writing. Note
from a Graduate Student to a Department Secretary.
7. Developing Good Paragraphs.
Road Map to Paragraphs. Parts of the Paragraph. Supporting Details. Topic
Sentence Developed over More Than One Paragraph. Position of the Topic
Sentence. Paragraph Patterns. Characteristics of a Well-designed Paragraph.
Writing Your Own Paragraphs. Exercises. Advice. Writing Successful Paragraphs
/ A. M. Tibbetts and Charlene Tibbetts. Examples. Paragraphs with the Topic
Sentence at the Beginning. From the Lessons of the Past / Edith Hamilton.
Paragraphs with the Topic Sentence at the End. The 'Loser Edit' That Awaits
Us All / Colin Whitehead.
Chapter Writing Assignments. Real-Life Student
Writing. Lette
Born in Belgium, the daughter of an American minister, Jo Ray McCuen-Metherell had moved from Brussels to Paris to Bern, Switzerland, by the time she was seven years old. In Bern, she attended the Freies Gymnasium and spoke not only fluent French and German but also English, which was the language spoken to her by her American parents. After World War II, Dr. McCuen-Metherell's parents sent her and her brother to Pacific Union College (in California's Napa Valley), where she received a B. A. in English. She taught English and French in high school for several years and then took night classes at the University of Southern California, where she earned an M.A. and Ph.D. While working on her doctorate, she was hired to teach English at Glendale Community College and later to serve as Dean of the Evening College. A chance meeting in 1973 with Anthony C. Winkler, a successful novelist, led to a literary partnership that has produced 15 co-authored textbooks used at colleges and universities across the United States. Kate Watts was born and raised in a small, rural farming community in southern Idaho. Her father was a millwright and cattle rancher, and her mother was a fruit sorter and homemaker. Cattle ranching is hard work, and Kate learned to care for animals, to mend fences and to grow and preserve a wide variety of vegetables. Kate attended the University of Idaho for both her BA (2004) and MA (2011), and while earning those degrees, she worked as a restaurant manager (20012008). While earning her MA, Kate also worked towards a secondary teaching certification. In 2011, Kate began teaching first-year composition at WSU, and in subsequent years taught composition at the 100, 200, 300 and 400 levels. In 2018, Kate became Assistant Director of Composition, and in 2023, she became Director of Composition. Kate regularly teaches Composition courses, Composition Pedagogy Seminars and English Education courses and she serves on several department, college and university committees and subcommittees connected to writing and writing pedagogy.
