CONTENTS
Preface
Thematic Guide to the Contents
Introduction: How to Use This Book
Henry Louis Gates Jr., “What’s in a Name?”
Responding to an Essay
Responding to Other Kinds of Texts
PART ONE: The Writing Process
1 Reading to Write: Becoming a Critical Reader
Understanding Critical Reading
Assessing Your Prior Knowledge
CHECKLIST: Questions for Assessing Your Prior Knowledge
Determining Your Purpose
CHECKLIST: Questions about Your Purpose
Previewing
Highlighting
Brent Staples, Cutting and Pasting: A Senior Thesis by (Insert Name)
Moisés Naím, The YouTube Effect
“Although international news operations employ thousands of professional journalists, they will never be as omnipresent as millions of people
carrying cellphones that can record video.”
Annotating
CHECKLIST: Questions for Critical Reading
Brent Staples, Cutting and Pasting: A Senior Thesis by (Insert Name) (with sample annotations)
Reading Visual Texts
CHECKLIST: Questions for Previewing
2 Invention
Understanding Your Assignment
Setting Limits
Length
Purpose
Audience
Occasion
Knowledge
CHECKLIST: Setting Limits
Moving from Subject to Topic
Questions for Probing
CHECKLIST: Questions for Probing
Freewriting
A Student Writer: Freewriting
Finding Something to Say
Brainstorming
A Student Writer: Brainstorming
Journal Writing
A Student Writer: Journal Writing
Grouping Ideas
Clustering
A Student Writer: Clustering
Making an Informal Outline
A Student Writer: Making an Informal Outline
Developing a Thesis
Defining the Thesis Statement
Deciding on a Thesis
Stating Your Thesis
Implying a Thesis
A Student Writer: Developing a Thesis
CHECKLIST: Stating Your Thesis
3 Arrangement
Recognizing a Pattern
CHECKLIST: Recognizing a Pattern
Understanding the Parts of the Essay
The Introduction
CHECKLIST: What Not to Do in an Introduction
The Body Paragraphs
CHECKLIST: Effective Support
The Conclusion
CHECKLIST: What Not to Do in a Conclusion
Constructing a Formal Outline
CHECKLIST: Constructing a Formal Outline
A Student Writer: Constructing a Formal Outline
4 Drafting and Revising
Writing Your First Draft
CHECKLIST: Drafting
A Student Writer: Writing a First Draft
Revising Your Essay
Revising with an Outline
Revising with a Checklist
CHECKLIST: Revising
Revising with Your Instructor’s Written Comments
Revising in a Conference
Revising in a Peer-Editing Group
CHECKLIST: Guidelines for Peer Editing
Strategies for Revising
A Student Writer: Revising a First Draft
PEER-EDITING WORKSHEET
Points for Special Attention: First Draft
The Introduction
The Body Paragraphs
The Conclusion
A Student Writer: Revising a Second Draft
Points for Special Attention: Second Draft
The Introduction
The Body Paragraphs
The Conclusion
Working with Sources
The Title
A Student Writer: Preparing a Final Draft
Laura Bobnak, The Price of Silence (Student Essay)
5 Editing and Proofreading
Editing for Grammar
Be Sure Subjects and Verbs Agree
Be Sure Verb Tenses Are Accurate and Consistent
Be Sure Pronoun References Are Clear
Be Sure Sentences Are Complete
Be Careful Not to Run Sentences Together without Proper Punctuation
Be Careful to Avoid Misplaced and Dangling
Modifiers
Be Sure Sentence Elements Are Parallel
CHECKLIST: Editing for Grammar
Editing for Punctuation
Learn When to Use Commas — and When Not to Use Them
Learn When to Use Semicolons
Learn When to Use Apostrophes
Learn When to Use Quotation Marks
Learn When to Use Dashes
Learn When to Use Colons
CHECKLIST: Editing for Punctuation
Editing for Sentence Style and Word Choice
Eliminate Awkward Phrasing
Be Sure Your Sentences Are Concise
Be Sure Your Sentences Are Varied
Use Transitional Words and Phrases to Clarify
Connections between Ideas
Choose Your Words Carefully
CHECKLIST: Editing for Sentence Style and Word Choice
Proofreading Your Essay
Check for Commonly Confused Words
Check for Misspellings and Faulty Capitalization
Check for Typos
CHECKLIST: Proofreading
Checking Your Paper’s Format
CHECKLIST: Checking Your Paper’s Format
PART TWO: Readings for Writers
6 Narration
What Is Narration?
Using Narration
Planning a Narrative Essay
Developing a Thesis Statement
Including Enough Detail
Varying Sentence Structure
Maintaining Clear Narrative Order
Structuring a Narrative Essay
Revising a Narrative Essay
REVISION CHECKLIST: Narration
Editing a Narrative Essay
GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT: Avoiding Run-Ons
EDITING CHECKLIST: Narration
A Student Writer: Literacy Narrative
Erica Sarno, Becoming a Writer (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention
Focus on Revision
A Student Writer: Narration
Tiffany Forte, My Field of Dreams (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention
Focus on Revision
PEER-EDITING WORKSHEET: NARRATION
Visual Text: Marjane Satrapi, from Persepolis II
(Graphic Fiction)
Junot Díaz, The Money
“The summer I was twelve, my family went away
on a ‘vacation’ — one of my father’s half-baked getto-know-our-country-better-by-sleeping-in-the-van extravaganzas — and when we returned to Jersey, exhausted, battered, we found our front door unlocked. . . . The thieves had kept it simple; they’d snatched a portable radio, some of my Dungeons & Dragons hardcovers, and, of course, Mami’s remittances.”
Hanif Abdurraqib, My First Police Stop
“I knew the warnings from my father: Don’t go on a run at night, don’t reach into your pockets too quickly, be polite in front of them. And I had seen the police make life difficult for other people in my home neighborhood, and yet I never learned to be afraid.”
Bonnie Smith-Yackel, My Mother Never Worked
“From her wheelchair she canned pickles, baked bread, ironed clothes, wrote dozens of letters weekly to her friends and her ‘half dozen or more kids, ’ and made three patchwork housecoats and one quilt.”
Martin Gansberg, Thirty-Seven Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police
“For more than half an hour thirty-eight
respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks. . . . Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead.”
George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant
“But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with the preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him.”
Alberto Álvaro Ríos, The Secret Lion (Fiction)
“But my friend Sergio and I, we solved junior high school. We would come home from school on the bus, put our books away, change shoes, and go across the street to the arroyo. It was the one place we were not supposed to go. So we did.”
Joy Harjo, An American Sunrise (Poetry)
“We were running out of breath, as we ran out to meet ourselves.”
Writing Assignments for Narration
Collaborative Activity for Narration
7 Description What Is Description? Using Description
Understanding Objective Description
CHECKLIST: Using Visuals Effectively
Understanding Subjective Description
Using Objective and Subjective Language
Selecting Details
Planning a Descriptive Essay
Developing a Thesis Statement
Organizing Details
Using Transitions
Structuring a Descriptive Essay
Revising a Descriptive Essay
REVISION CHECKLIST: Description
Editing a Descriptive Essay
GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT: Avoiding Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers
EDITING CHECKLIST: Description
A Student Writer: Objective Description
Mallory Cogan, My Grandfather’s Globe (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention Focus on Revision
A Student Writer: Subjective Description
Mary Lim, The Valley of Windmills (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention Focus on Revision
PEER-EDITING WORKSHEET: DESCRIPTION
Visual Text: Ansel Adams, Jackson Lake (Photo)
Bich Minh Nguyen, Goodbye to My Twinkie Days
“For me, a child of Vietnamese immigrants growing up in Michigan in the 1980s, Twinkies were a ticket to assimilation: the golden cake, more golden than the hair I wished I had, filled with sweet white cream. Back then, junk foods seemed to represent an ideal of American indulgence.”
Trevor Noah, Soweto
“For the millions of people who lived in Soweto there were no stores, no bars, no restaurants. There were no paved roads, minimal electricity, inadequate sewerage. But when you put one million people together in one place, they find a way to make a life for themselves.”
Marina Keegan, Stability in Motion
“My car was not gross; it was occupied, cluttered, cramped. It became an extension of my bedroom, and thus an extension of myself.”
Heather Rogers, The Hidden Life of Garbage
“There’s a reason landfills are tucked away, on the edge of town, in otherwise untraveled terrain, camouflaged by hydroseeded, neatly tiered slopes. If people saw what happened to their waste, lived
with the stench, witnessed the scale of destruction, they might start asking difficult questions.”
Jonathan Ababiy, How the Other Half Lives
“We never paid for cable. The photographs weren’t of my family. The carpet I vacuumed I only saw once a week, and the pastel shirts I folded I never wore. The house wasn’t mine. My mother was only the cleaning lady, and I helped.”
Kate Chopin, The Storm (Fiction)
“They did not hear the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made her laugh as she lay in his arms. She was a revelation in that dim, mysterious chamber; as white as the couch she lay upon.”
Writing Assignments for Description
Collaborative Activity for Description
8 Exemplification
What Is Exemplification?
Using Exemplification
Using Examples to Explain and Clarify
Using Examples to Add Interest
Using Examples to Persuade
Planning an Exemplification Essay
Developing a Thesis Statement
Providing Enough Examples
Choosing a Fair Range of Examples
Using Transitions
Structuring an Exemplification Essay
Revising an Exemplification Essay
REVISION CHECKLIST: Exemplification
Editing an Exemplification Essay
GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT: Using Commas in a Series
EDITING CHECKLIST: Exemplification
A Student Writer: Exemplification
Kristy Bredin, Job Application Letter (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention
Focus on Revision
A Student Writer: Exemplification
Zoe Goldfarb, Food Insecurity on Campus (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention
Focus on Revision
PEER-EDITING WORKSHEET: EXEMPLIFICATION
Visual Texts: Four Inventions (Photographs)
Olivia Goldhill, Should Driverless Cars Kill Their Own
Passengers to Save a Pedestrian?
“Pity the poor software designers (and, undoubtedly, lawyers) who are trying to figure this out, because it can
get much more complicated. What if a pedestrian acted recklessly, or even stepped out in front of the car with the intention of making it swerve, thereby killing the passenger? (Hollywood screenwriters, start your engines.)”
Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria
“[Y]ou can leave the island, master the English language, and travel as far as you can, but if you are a Latina, especially one like me who so obviously belongs to Rita Moreno’s gene pool, the island travels with you.”
Brent Staples, Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space
“It was in the echo of that terrified woman’s footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I’d come into — the ability to alter public space in ugly ways.”
Farhad Manjoo, Call Me “They”
“So why does standard English impose a gender requirement on the third-person singular? And why do
elite cultural institutions — universities, publishers, and media outlets like The Times still encourage all this gendering?”
Maia Szalavitz, Ten Ways We Get the Odds Wrong
“And though emotions are themselves critical to making rational decisions, they were designed for a world in which dangers took the form of predators, not pollutants. Our emotions push us to make snap judgments that once were sensible — but may not be anymore.”
Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl” (Fiction)
“[T]his is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving up. . . .”
Writing Assignments for Exemplification
Collaborative Activity for Exemplification 9 Process
What Is Process?
Understanding Instructions
Understanding Process Explanations Using Process
Planning a Process Essay
Accommodating Your Audience
Developing a Thesis Statement
Using Transitions
Structuring a Process Essay
Revising a Process Essay
REVISION CHECKLIST: Process
Editing a Process Essay
GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT: Avoiding Unnecessary Shifts
EDITING CHECKLIST: Process
A Student Writer: Instructions
Mya Nunnally, Steps to the Dream (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention
Focus on Revision
A Student Writer: Process Explanation
Melany Hunt, Medium Ash Brown (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention
Focus on Revision
PEER EDITING WORKSHEET: PROCESS
Visual Text: National Geographic, Yellowstone Fires, Past and Future (Illustration)
Naomi Rosenberg, How to Tell a Mother Her Child Is Dead
“You don’t make a phone call, you do not talk to the medical student, you do not put in an order. You never
make her wait. She is his mother.”
Roger Spranz, How to Make a Waste Pie Chart
“Find out what kind of waste is most common at your next beach clean-up event!”
Brad Plumer and Ruairi Arrieta-Kenna, How Do Hurricanes Form? A Step-by-Step Guide
“When the winds reach sustained speeds of 74 mph or more, the storm system is classified as a hurricane. Hurricanes are categorized according to the SaffirSimpson Scale based on their wind speed and propensity for damage.”
Eugene Kiely and Lori Robertson, How to Spot Fake News
“If a provocative headline drew your attention, read a little further before you decide to pass along the shocking information. Even in legitimate news stories, the headline doesn’t always tell the whole story.”
Jessica Mitford, The Embalming of Mr. Jones
“For those who have the stomach for it, let us part the formaldehyde curtain.”
Shirley Jackson, The Lottery (Fiction)
“There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr.
Summers declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make up — of heads of families, heads of households in each family, members of each household in each family.”
Writing Assignments for Process
Collaborative Activity for Process
10 Cause and Effect
What Is Cause and Effect?
Using Cause and Effect
Understanding Main and Contributory Causes
Understanding Immediate and Remote Causes
Understanding Causal Chains
Avoiding Post Hoc Reasoning
Planning a Cause-and-Effect Essay
Developing a Thesis Statement
Arranging Causes and Effects
Using Transitions
Structuring a Cause-and-Effect Essay
Finding Causes
Describing or Predicting Effects
Revising a Cause-and-Effect Essay
REVISION CHECKLIST: Cause and Effect
Editing a Cause-and-Effect Essay
GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT: Avoiding “The reason is because”; Using Affect and Effect Correctly
EDITING CHECKLIST: Cause and Effect
A Student Writer: Cause and Effect
Evelyn Pellicane, The Irish Famine, 1845–1849 (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention
Focus on Revision
PEER-EDITING WORKSHEET: CAUSE AND EFFECT
Visual Text: Jeffrey Coolidge, Rube Goldberg Machine (Photo)
Ray Fisman and Michael Luca, Did Free Pens Cause the Opioid Crisis?
The prevalence and effectiveness of strategic gifts raise
important questions for each of us as consumers, and for society at large: How can we protect ourselves from unwittingly falling prey to reciprocity? Should government regulators get more involved?
Maggie Koerth, Why Rational People Buy into Conspiracy
Theories
“Perfectly sane minds possess an incredible capacity
for developing narratives, and even some of the wildest conspiracy theories can be grounded in rational thinking, which makes them that much more pernicious.”
Arthur W. Lambert, What Causes Cancer? It’s Complicated
“Exposure to carcinogens influences the risk of developing cancer, which is a function of many factors, including the dose and duration of the exposure. Other factors, such as inherited genetic mutations, also create risk. To say something is a carcinogen encompasses a wide spectrum of risk.”
Linda M. Hasselstrom, A Peaceful Woman Explains Why She Carries a Gun
“People who have not grown up with the idea that they are capable of protecting themselves — in other words, most women — might have to work hard to convince themselves of their ability, and of the necessity. Handgun ownership need not turn us into gunslingers,
but it can be part of believing in, and relying on, ourselves for protection.”
Karen Miller Pensiero, Photos That Change History
“Though the issues have varied greatly over the decades, historians point to other eras when photographs have resonated in the same transformative way, creating new social awareness and spurring changes in policy.”
Martin Espada, Why I Went to College (Poetry)
“You better learn To eat soup”
Writing Assignments for Cause and Effect
Collaborative Activity for Cause and Effect
11 Comparison and Contrast
What Is Comparison and Contrast?
Using Comparison and Contrast
Planning a Comparison-and-Contrast Essay
Recognizing Comparison-and-Contrast Assignments
Establishing a Basis for Comparison
Selecting Points for Discussion
Developing a Thesis Statement
Structuring a Comparison-and-Contrast Essay
Using Subject-by-Subject Comparison
Using Point-by-Point Comparison
Using Transitions
Revising a Comparison-and-Contrast Essay
REVISION CHECKLIST: Comparison and Contrast
Editing a Comparison-and-Contrast Essay
GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT: Using Parallelism
EDITING CHECKLIST: Comparison and Contrast
A Student Writer: Subject-by-Subject Comparison
Mark Cotharn, Brains versus Brawn (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention
Focus on Revision
A Student Writer: Point-by-Point Comparison
Maria Tecson, A Comparison of Two Websites on Attention
Deficit Disorder (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention
Focus on Revision
PEER-EDITING WORKSHEET: COMPARISON AND CONTRAST
Visual Texts: Auguste Rodin, The Kiss, and Robert
Indiana, LOVE (Sculptures)
Robert Weiss, Closer Together or Further Apart: Digital Devices and the New Generation Gap
“Our basic forms of interpersonal communication and interaction have been drastically reformatted.”
Amy Chua, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior
“Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say,
“You’re lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you.” By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they’re not disappointed about how their kids turned out.”
Ellen Laird, I’m Your Teacher, Not Your InternetService Provider
“The honeymoon is over. My romance with distance teaching is losing its spark.”
Deborah Tannen, Sex, Lies, and Conversation
“How can women and men have such different impressions of communication in marriage? Why the widespread imbalance in their interests and expectations?”
Isabel Wilkerson, Emmett Till and Tamir Rice, Sons of the Great Migration
“Consider the story of two mothers whose lives bookend the migration and whose family lines would meet similar, unimaginable fates. The
horrors they were fleeing would follow them in freedom and into the current day.”
Steven Conn, The Twin Revolutions of Lincoln and Darwin
“Lincoln’s war transformed the social, political, and racial landscape in ways that continue to play out.
Darwin transformed our understanding of biology, paving the way for countless advances in science, especially medicine.”
William Shakespeare, Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Poetry)
“But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st”
Writing Assignments for Comparison and Contrast
Collaborative Activity for Comparison and Contrast
12 Classification and Division
What Is Classification and Division?
Understanding Classification Understanding Division
Using Classification and Division
Planning a Classification-and-Division Essay
Selecting and Arranging Categories
Developing a Thesis Statement
CHECKLIST: Establishing Categories
Using Transitions
Structuring a Classification-and-Division Essay
Revising a Classification-and-Division Essay
REVISION CHECKLIST: Classification and Division
Editing a Classification-and-Division Essay
GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT: Using a Colon to Introduce Your Categories
EDITING CHECKLIST: Classification and Division
A Student Writer: Classification and Division
Josie Martinez, What I Learned (and Didn’t Learn) in College (Student Essay)
Points for Special Attention
Focus on Revision