What is composing?
What is rhetoric?
Purpose
Audience
Context
Strategies
Rhetoric and a process for composing
Understanding your project or assignment
Responding to a written assignment
Sample research paper assignment
Understanding other projects
part 2 finding ideasComposing to learn and composing to communicate
A research process
Getting started with research
Sample research schedule
Finding a topic
Narrowing a general topic
How do you know when you have a narrowed topic?
Other strategies for narrowing a topic
Questions to guide research
Using research questions to guide your search for sources
Kinds of sources, kinds of research
Kinds of research
Determining where to research
Choosing sources
Choosing sources—periodicals
Choosing sources—books
Choosing sources—webpages
Finding sources
Searching online
Using your library’s resources
Archives and special collections
Field research sources
What if you can’t find anything on your narrowed topic?
Starting a paper
Sample research questions
HINTS & TIPS for finding ideas
part 3 evaluating and tracking sources ethicallyWorking with sources 84
Steps for working with sources 86
Evaluating sources 88
Evaluating sources for relevance 90
SAMPLE SOURCES 92
Evaluating sources for credibility: Print 94
SAMPLE PRINT SOURCES 96
Evaluating sources for credibility: Online 98
SAMPLE ONLINE SOURCES 100
Using sources ethically 102
Why cite and document sources? 104
There are five kinds of sources 108
Collecting citation information for books 110
No single person listed as author 112
Collecting citation information for
parts of books 114
Collecting citation information for
periodicals 116
Collecting citation information for
webpages 118
Collecting citation information for articles
you find in a database of journals 122
Collecting citation information for other
kinds of texts 124
Keeping track of sources: Starting a
running source list 126
SAMPLE RUNNING SOURCE LIST 127
Hints & tips for collecting citation
information 128part 4 engaging with sources and analyzing arguments
Engaging with sources 130
What is analysis? 132
Understanding and analyzing texts 134
Developing a sense of the author 136
Understanding appeals to the emotions 138
Understanding arrangement 140
SAMPLE ANALYSIS ESSAY 142
Analyzing arguments 144
Thesis statements 146
What counts as evidence 148
Further questions to guide critical reading 158
Critical reading 160
SAMPLE ANNOTATED ARGUMENT 161
SAMPLE RHETORICAL ANALYSIS 166
Questions to guide critical looking 170
SAMPLE ANALYSIS OF A VISUAL TEXT 172
Summarizing, quoting, and paraphrasing 174
Summarizing the words of others 176
Quoting the words of others 178
Paraphrasing the words of others 184
An annotated bibliography 186
SAMPLE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 187
Putting sources in dialogue with each other 188
SAMPLE SYNTHESIS OF SOURCES 189
Using analysis to compose a thesis statement 190
SAMPLE THESIS STATEMENTS 191
Critical reasoning 192part 5 organizing and shaping texts
What is organization?
Conceptual frameworks and genres
Academic genres
Writing in the humanities
Writing in the sciences
Writing in the social sciences
Using a thesis statement to organize an academic paper
sample thesis statement organizing a paper
Online academic genres 208
Workplace genres 214
Memos 216
E-mail 217
Resumés 218
Cover letters 220
Shaping paragraphs for audience and
purpose 222
Unified and coherent paragraphs 224
Paragraphs that develop 228
Paragraphs that describe 229
Paragraphs that define 230
Paragraphs that narrate 231
Paragraphs that give examples 232
Paragraphs that use analogy 233
Paragraphs that divide 234
Paragraphs that blend organizations 235
Multimodal organization: Visual texts 236
Multimodal organization: Oral
presentations 242
HINTS & TIPS for organizing texts 244
part 6 drafting a paper, connecting with audiences
Understanding your audience 246
What do people know about your topic? 248
Starting to write for an audience 250
How to write a statement of purpose 252
SAMPLE STATEMENT OF PURPOSE 253
A rough draft 254
SAMPLE ROUGH DRAFT 256
Receiving feedback to a draft 264
Responding to the writing of your peers 266
SAMPLE PEER RESPONSE 267
HINTS & TIPS for connecting with audiences 268
HINTS & TIPS for drafting 268part 7 revising with style
Revising your writing 270
Developing a revision plan 272
SAMPLE REVISION PLAN 273
Revising, style, and audience 274
Styles readers expect in different
settings 276
Style in writing 278
Styling paragraphs 280
Concluding paragraphs 282
Introductory paragraphs 284
Transitions between paragraphs 286
Passive voice 288
Styling sentences 290
Academic sentences 292
Sentences that are easy to read 294
Using coordination and subordination 296
Parallelism 298
Figurative language 300
Styling words 302
Dictionary definitions 303
The names we use 304
Action verbs 305
Concrete nouns 306
Clichés 307
Jargon 308
Too many words 309
Using inclusive language 310
Including all ethnicities 314
Including all genders 315
Including all abilities 316
Including all ages 317
Including all sexual orientations 318
Including all religions 319
Multimodal style: Visual texts 320
Multimodal stye: Oral presentations 324
Multimodal style: Slides to support
oral presentations 326
HINTS & TIPS for concluding paragraphs 328
part 8 MLA DocumentationA paper in MLA format
Sample research paper
For in-text citations
Variations on the pattern
For works cited
Sample works cited page
For periodicals
For articles from databases
For webpages
For books
For parts of books
For other kinds of texts
Author’s name
Titles
Periodical volume, issue, number, and date
Page numbers for articles from periodicals
Place of publication
Year of publication
Website titles
Additional information
For other kinds of texts
APA DocumentationA paper in APA format
Sample research paper
A reference list page in APA format
Sample references page
In-text citations
Reference list entries
CSE DocumentationIn text
References
CMS DocumentationIn text
References
part 9 editing and proofreading your workEditing and Proofreading
How to edit
How to proofread
Subject-verb agreement
Academic verb tenses
Shifts in verb tenses
Shifts in grammatical forms
Sentence fragments
Run-on sentences
Pronoun reference and agreement
Misplaced and dangling modifiers
Varieties of English
Academic English
English as a global language
Writing English when English is not your home language
Using an ESL dictionary
part 10 grammar, punctuation, mechanics
Grammar
Parts of speech
Nouns
Pronouns
Adjectives
Articles
Verbs
Adverbs
Prepositions
Conjunctions
Sentence functions
Sentence patterns
Simple sentences
Subjects and predicates
Independent clauses
Compound sentences
Complex sentences
Compound-complex sentences
PunctuationCommas
With numbers, place names, and dates
When you are quoting the words of others
To separate words in lists
To build sentences that contain multiple parts
When not to use commas
Semicolons
Colons
In conventional patterns
For information at the end of a sentence
To link two sentences
Parentheses
Dashes
Brackets
Hyphens
Slashes
Ellipses
Apostrophes
Quotation marks
For titles of short works
To indicate you are using a word as a word
To indicate technical terms
To show irony
To indicate direct quotation
To indicate speech
Periods
Question marks
Exclamation points
MechanicsUsing italics and underlining
Spelling
Capitalizing words
Abbreviations
Numbers
EXERCISES
Glossary of grammatical terms and usage
Index
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