Ninth Edition The St. Martin's Guide to Writing

1093 Pages·2012·12.28 MB·English

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Ninth Edition
The St. Martin’s
Guide to Writing
Rise B. Axelrod
University of California, Riverside
Charles R. Cooper
University of California, San Diego
Bedford / St. Martin’s
Boston (cid:50) New York
For Bedford/St. Martin’s
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Managing Editor: Shuli Traub
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009932161 (with Handbook)
2009932166 (without Handbook)
Copyright © 2010, 2008, 2004, 2001 by Bedford/St. Martin’s
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing
by the Publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
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For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street,
Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000)
ISBN-10: 0-312-53612-7 ISBN-13: 978-0-312-53612-1 (with Handbook)
ISBN-10: 0-312-53613-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-312-53613-8 (without Handbook)
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on pages A1-A3, which consti-
tute an extension of the copyright page.
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Advisory Board
We owe an enormous debt to all the rhetoricians and composition specialists whose
theory, research, and pedagogy have informed The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing.
We would be adding many pages if we were to name everyone to whom we are
indebted.
The members of the Advisory Board for the ninth edition, a group of dedicated
composition instructors from across the country, have provided us with extensive
insights and suggestions for the chapters in Part One and have given us the benefit
of their advice on new features. The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing has been greatly
enhanced by their contributions.
Samantha Andrus-Henry Leona Fisher
Grand Rapids Community College Chaffey College
Melissa Batai Diana Grahn
Triton College Longview Community College
Mary Bishop Dawn Hubbell-Staeble
Holmes Junior College–Ridgeland Bowling Green State University
Jo Ann Buck Amy Morris-Jones
Guilford Technical Community College Baker College of Muskegon
Kevin Cantwell Gray Scott
Macon State College University of California, Riverside
Anne Dvorak Susan Sebok
Longview Community College South Suburban College
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Preface for Instructors
When we first wrote The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, we aimed to demystify writing
and authorize students as writers. We wanted to help students learn to commit them-
selves to writing projects, communicate effectively with chosen readers, and question
their own certainties. We also wanted them to understand that knowledge of writing
comes both from analyzing writing and from working hard on their own writing. To
achieve this aim, we took what we had learned from classical rhetoric and from con-
temporary composition theory and did our best to make it accessible to students.
The response from instructors and students was overwhelmingly positive: The
first edition of The Guide, published in 1985, immediately became the most widely
adopted text of its kind in the nation.
As with every new edition, we began work on this ninth edition with the goal
of adapting the best of current composition research and practice to the needs of
instructors and students. We listened closely to our Advisory Board and dozens of
talented reviewers (students as well as instructors), and we were confirmed in our
belief that the essential purpose and approach of The Guide is more relevant than
ever: Students need clear guidance and practical strategies to harness their potential
as writers—an achievement that will be key to their success in their other college
courses, in their jobs, and in the wider world.
At the same time, we realized that we needed to reach out to these students, and
help them connect with writing, in new ways.
Every aspect of the academic landscape has changed since we wrote the first
edition. The texts we read and write, the tools we use to find them, the options we
have for communicating, the habits of mind we rely on, even the students them-
selves—all are more varied and complex than in the past, sometimes overwhelm-
ingly so. At the same time, students and instructors alike are increasingly burdened
with demands on their time, attention, and energy that emanate from outside the
classroom.
For all of these reasons, this edition represents a bold reimagining of our origi-
nal vision. The chapters containing the Guides to Writing have been reengineered to
reflect and build on the actual writing processes of students, and the Guides them-
selves are streamlined and more visual. Throughout the book, we attempt to help
students focus on what is important, yet offer multiple options for critical reading
and writing. The result of this reimagining is what you hold in your hands: a text
that we believe to be more flexible, more engaging, and more pedagogically effective
than any previous edition.
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PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS
An Overview of the Book
The Guide offers everything you need for the writing course.
Part One: Writing Activities
Part Onepresents nine different genres of writing, all reflecting actual writing assign-
ments that students may encounter both in and out of college. While the chapters
can be taught in any order, we have organized Part One to move from writing based
on personal experience and reflection, through writing based on research and obser-
vation, to writing about controversial issues and problems.
Each chapter follows the same organizational plan:
(cid:115) Three brief illustrated scenarios providing examples of how the genre is used
in college courses, in the community, and in the workplace
(cid:115) A brief introduction to the genre
(cid:115) Acollaborative activity helping students start working in the genre
(cid:115) An orientation to the genre’s basic features and to questions of purpose and
audience specific to the genre
(cid:115) A set of readings illustrating the genreaccompanied by questions and prompts
designed to help students explore connections to their culture and experience
and to analyze the basic features and writing strategies
(cid:115) A“Beyond the Traditional Essay” section discussing examples of the genre drawn
from unexpected contexts—advertising, blogs, museums, even public parks
(cid:115) AGuide to Writing, tailored to the genre, that helps students refine their own
writing processes, with activities for invention and research, easy-reference
guides for drafting and revision, a Critical Reading Guide for peer review, strat-
egies for integrating sources, and more
(cid:115) Editing and proofreading guidelines, based on our nationwide study of errors
in first-year college students’ writing, to help students check for one or two
sentence-level problems likely to occur in a given genre
(cid:115) A section exploring how writers think about document design, expanding on
one of the scenarios presented at the beginning of the chapter
(cid:115) A look at one student writer at work, focusing on one or more aspects of the
writing process of a student whose essay is featured in the chapter
(cid:115) Critical thinking activities designed to help students reflect on what they
learned and consider the social dimensions of the genre taught in the chapter
Part Two: Critical Thinking Strategies
Part Two consists of two chapters that present practical heuristics for invention and
reading. Chapter 11, “A Catalog of Invention Strategies,” covers clustering, looping,
dramatizing, and questioning, among other strategies, while Chapter 12, “A Catalog
of Reading Strategies,” includes annotating, summarizing, exploring the significance
of figurative language, and evaluating the logic of an argument.
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PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS
Part Three: Writing Strategies
Part Threelooks at a wide range of writers’ strategies: paragraphing and coherence;
logic and reasoning; and the familiar methods of presenting information, such as
narrating, defining, and classifying.
In the ninth edition of The Guide, a new Chapter 20 provides students with criteria
for analyzing visuals and illustrates them with several lengthy sample analyses and one
full-length, documented student paper. Part Three concludes with a heavily illustrated
chapter on document design, which provides principles to guide students in construct-
ing a wide range of documents, along with examples of some of the most common
kinds of documents they’ll create in school, at work, and in their everyday lives.
Examples and exercises in Part Three have been drawn from a wide range of
contemporary publications as well as reading selections appearing in Part One. The
extensive cross-referencing between Parts One and Three allows instructors to teach
writing strategies as students work on full essays.
Part Four: Research Strategies
Part Four discusses field as well as library and Internet research and includes
thorough, up-to-date guidelines for using and documenting sources, with detailed
examples of the 2009 Modern Language Association (MLA) and 2010 American
Psychological Association (APA) documentation styles. An annotated sample student
research paper models ways students can integrate citations into their own work in
accordance with the rules for MLA documentation. The final chapter in Part Four,
new to the ninth edition of The Guide, offers detailed guidelines for creating anno-
tated bibliographies and literature reviews.
Part Five: Writing for Assessment
Part Fivecovers essay examinations, showing students how to analyze different kinds of
exam questions and offering strategies for writing answers. It also addresses portfolios,
helping students select, assemble, and present a representative sample of their writing.
Part Six: Writing and Speaking to Wider Audiences
Part Six includes chapters on oral presentations, collaborative learning, and service
learning, offering advice to help students work together on writing projects and to
write in and for their communities.
The Handbook
The Handbook offers a complete reference guide to grammar, word choice, punctua-
tion, mechanics, common ESL problems, sentence structure, and usage. We have
designed the Handbook so that students will find the answers they need quickly, and
we have provided student examples from our nationwide study so that students will see
errors similar to the ones in their own essays. In addition to the section on ESL problems,
boxes throughout the rest of the Handbook offer specific support for ESL students.
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PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS
Proven Features
While this edition of The Guide represents a bold reimagining of the way students
work, it has retained the three central features that have made it a best-seller since
its first edition: the detailed, practical guides to writing in different genres; the sys-
tematic integration of reading and writing; and continuing attention to changes in
composition pedagogy.
Practical Guides to Writing
Each chapter in Part One offers practical, flexible guides that help students with
different aspects of writing, such as invention or revision, as they write. Common-
sensical and easy to follow, these writing guides teach students to assess a rhetorical
situation, identify the kinds of information they will need, ask probing questions
and find answers, and organize writing to achieve a particular purpose for chosen
readers.
In the ninth edition, we’ve done even more to make these guides effective and
easy to use, by streamlining them, by adding easy reference charts and tables, and by
offering students multiple entry points into the composing process.
Systematic Integration of Reading and Writing
Each chapter in Part One introduces a single genre of writing, which students are
led to consider both as readers and as writers. Chapters begin with an essay written
in the genre by a student writer using The Guide; these essays are annotated with
questions designed to encourage students to discover the ways in which the essay
exemplifies that genre’s basic features.
Each of three professional readings in the chapter is accompanied by carefully
focused apparatus to guide purposeful, productive rereading. First is a response
activity, Making Connections, which relates a central theme of the reading to stu-
dents’ own lives and cultural knowledge. The section following, Analyzing Writing
Strategies, asks students to examine how the writer makes use of the basic features
and strategies typical of the genre. Essays that include visuals are followed by an
Analyzing Visuals section, which asks students to write about the way(s) in which
photos, graphs, and other visual elements enhance the text. Finally, in Considering
Topics for Your Own Essay, students approach the most important decision they
have to make with a genre-centered assignment: choosing a workable topic that
inspires their commitment to weeks of thinking and writing.
Continuing Attention to Changes in Composition
With each new edition, we have responded to new thinking and new issues in the
field of composition and turned current theory and research into practical class-
room activities—with a minimum of jargon. As a result, in every new edition The
Guide incorporated new material that contributed to its continued effectiveness,
including more on appropriate methods of argument, research, and working with