The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing: Brief Edition

The most successful college rhetoric published in over a decade, The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing: Brief Edition offers the most progressive and teachable introduction now available to academic and personal writing. The four-color guide offers engaging instruction in rhetoric and composition, a flexible sequence of comprehensive writing assignments, numerous examples of student and professional writing, and a thorough guide to research. Solidly grounded in current theory and research, yet eminently practical and teachable, The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing: Brief Edition has set the new standard for first-year composition courses in writing, reading, critical thinking, and inquiry. Part One, “A Rhetoric for College Writers,” provides a conceptual framework for The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing, Brief Edition, by showing how inquiring writers pose problems, pursue them through discussion and exploratory writing, and solve them within a rhetorical context shaped by the writer's purpose, audience, and genre. Part Two, “Writing Projects,” contains thirteen self-contained assignment chapters arranged according to the purposes for writing. Each chapter guides students through the process of generating and exploring ideas, composing and drafting, and revising and editing. Concluding each chapter are “Guidelines for Peer Reviewers,” which sum up the important features in the assignments and facilitate detailed, helpful peer reviews. Part Three, “A Guide to Composing and Revising,” is comprised of three self-contained chapters of nuts-and-bolts strategies for composing and revising. Part Four “A Rhetorical Guide to Research,” presents pedagogically sequenced instruction for helping students learn to conduct searches, evaluate sources, and incorporate sources into their own writing. Research skills are taught within a rhetorical context with special attention to the rhetoric of websites. Part Five, “A Guide to Special Writing and Speaking Occasions,” gives students helpful advice on working in groups, giving speeches and presentations, writing essay exams, assembling portfolios, and writing reflective self-evaluations.

Table of Contents:
I. A RHETORIC FOR COLLEGE WRITERS.  1. Posing Problems: The Demands of College Writing.  2. Pursuing Problems: Exploratory Writing and Talking.  3. Thinking Rhetorically About Question, Thesis, and Support.  4. Thinking Rhetorically About Purpose, Audience, and Genre. II. WRITING PROJECTS. Writing to Learn.  5. Seeing Rhetorically: The Writer as Shaper/Observer.  6. Reading Rhetorically: The Writer as Strong Reader. Writing to Express.  7. Writing an Autobiographical Narrative. Writing to Explore.  8. Writing an Exploratory Essay. Writing to Inform.  9. Writing an Informative (and Surprising) Essay. Writing to Analyze and Synthesize. 10. Analyzing Images. 11. Analyzing Numerical Data. 12. Analyzing a Short Story. 13. Analyzing and Synthesizing Ideas. 14. Investigating Questions About Causes and Consequences. Writing to Persuade. 15. Writing a Classical Argument. 16. Making an Evaluation. 17. Proposing a Solution. III. A GUIDE TO COMPOSING AND REVISING. 18. Writing as a Problem-Solving Process. 19. Composing and Revising Closed-Form Prose. 20. Composing and Revising Open-Form Prose. IV. A RHETORICAL GUIDE TO RESEARCH. 21. An Introduction to Research. 22. Finding and Evaluating Library and Internet Sources. 23. Citing and Documenting Sources. 24. Advanced or Specialized Research Skills. V. A GUIDE TO SPECIAL WRITING AND SPEAKING OCCASIONS. 25. Oral Communication: Working in Groups and Giving Speeches. 26. Essay Examinations: Writing Well Under Pressure. 27. Assembling a Portfolio and Writing a Self-Reflection.