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9780205238613

A Short Guide to College Writing

by ; ;
  • ISBN13:

    9780205238613

  • ISBN10:

    0205238610

  • Edition: 5th
  • Format: Paperback
  • Copyright: 2012-01-12
  • Publisher: Longman
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Summary

One of the high-quality, low-priced entries in Longman's Penguin Academics Series, A Short Guide to College Writingis a clear and authoritative brief rhetoric that emphasizes analysis, argument, and research in academic writing. Engagingly written by a well-known author team, A Short Guide to College Writingoffers students clear, practical guidance. Students can turn to this book for help with everything from choosing a topic, writing an analysis, and documenting sources to constructing a paragraph and punctuating a quotation. Separate chapters provide support for revising a draft, editing a revision, or preparing a final copy. Discussion and examples of description and narration are included, but the emphasis throughout is on the most common college writing assignments: analysis, argument, and research. Students are taught the essential skills for effective college writing-skills they will need when writing for a first-year composition course, or for any other college-level course.

Author Biography

Sylvan Barnet was born in Brooklyn, New York, and educated at Erasmus Hall High School, New York University (BA), and Harvard University(MA, PhD). For a while he was a

semiprofessional magician, but whenhe found that he could fool all of the people all of the time the work became boring, and so he became a college professor. He taught composition and

English literature at Tufts University for thirty years, published scholarly articles on Shakespeare, and is the author and coauthor of several books about the art of writing.

 

 

Pat Bellanca was born in East Hanover, New Jersey; she holds degrees in English from Wellesley College (BA) and Rutgers University (MA, PhD). She teaches in the Harvard College Writing

Program and is Director of Writing Programs at the Harvard Extension School, the university’s open-enrollment evening division. Her research interests include composition studies and Gothic fiction,

fields that are not unrelated.

 

 

Marcia Stubbs was born in Newark, New Jersey, where she was drum majorette ofWeequahic High School’s band, and she was educated at Stanford University and the University

of Michigan. She has taught at Tufts University, Harvard University,and Wellesley College, where she has directed the Writing Program. In addition to annotations on students’

compositions, she has written poems and verse translations, and she is the coauthor of several books on writing.

 

Table of Contents

Preface xvii

PART ONE The Writing Process 1

CHAPTER 1 Developing Ideas 2

STARTING 2

How to Write: Writing as a Physical Act 2

Some Ideas About Ideas: Strategies for Invention 2

Asking Questions and Answering Them 3

Listing 5

Clustering 7

Scratch Outlining 7

Freewriting 9

FOCUSING 9

Critical Thinking: Subject, Topic, Thesis 9

Finding a Topic 10

Developing a Thesis 11

CHECKLIST for a Thesis Sentence 13

DEVELOPING IDEAS 13

Thinking About Audience and Purpose: The Reader

as Collaborator 14

Writing the Draft 15

 

CHAPTER 2 Drafting and Revising 17

READING DRAFTS 17

Imagining Your Audience and Asking Questions 17

PEER REVIEW: THE BENEFITS OF HAVING A REAL

AUDIENCE 20

From Assignment to Essay: A Case History 21

CHECKLIST for Peer Review 24

First Draft 24

Summary of Peer Group Discussion 26

Final Version 28

Suki Hudson

Two Sides of a Story (Student Essay) 28

CHECKLIST for Drafting And Revising 30

 

CHAPTER 3 Shaping Paragraphs 31

PARAGRAPH FORM AND SUBSTANCE 31

The Shape of a Paragraph 33

PARAGRAPH UNITY: TOPIC SENTENCES, TOPIC IDEAS 34

Examples of Topic Sentences at Beginning and at End,

and of Topic Ideas 34

UNITY IN PARAGRAPHS 36

ORGANIZATION IN PARAGRAPHS 37

COHERENCE IN PARAGRAPHS 38

Transitions 39

Repetition 40

LINKING PARAGRAPHS TOGETHER 41

Cheryl Lee

The Story Behind the Gestures 41

PARAGRAPH LENGTH 45

The Use and Abuse of Short Paragraphs 45

INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPHS 48

CONCLUDING PARAGRAPHS 55

CHECKLIST for Revising Paragraphs 56

 

CHAPTER 4 Revising for Conciseness 57

INSTANT PROSE 58

How to Avoid Instant Prose 59

EXTRA WORDS AND EMPTY WORDS 60

Weak Intensifiers 61

Circumlocutions 61

Wordy Beginnings 62

Empty Conclusions 63

Wordy Uses of the Verbs To Be, To Have , and To Make 63

Redundancy 64

Negative Constructions 65

EXTRA SENTENCES, EXTRA CLAUSES:

SUBORDINATION 66

Who, Which, That 67

It Is, This Is, There Are 67

SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS ABOUT CONCISENESS 68

CHECKLIST for Revising For Conciseness 68

 

CHAPTER 5 Revising for Clarity 70

CLARITY 70

CLARITY AND EXACTNESS: USING

THE RIGHT WORD 72

Denotation 72

Connotation 73

Avoiding Sexist Language 74

Quotation Marks as Apologies 75

Being Specific 76

Using Examples 77

Jargon and Technical Language 79

Clichés 80

Metaphors and Mixed Metaphors 81

Euphemisms 83

Passive or Active Voice? 84

The Writer’s “I” 86

CLARITY AND COHERENCE 87

Cats Are Dogs 88

Items in a Series 88

Modifiers 89

Misplaced Modifiers 89

Squinting Modifiers 90

Dangling Modifiers 91

Reference of Pronouns 91

Vague Reference of Pronouns 92

Shift in Pronouns 92

Ambiguous Reference of Pronouns 93

Agreement 93

Noun and Pronoun 93

Subject and Verb 94

Three Additional Points 94

Repetition and Variation 95

CLARITY AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE: PARALLELISM 97

CHECKLIST for Revising for Clarity 98

 

CHAPTER 6 Writing with Style 99

ACADEMIC STYLES, ACADEMIC AUDIENCES 99

DEFINING STYLE 102

STYLE AND TONE 103

ACQUIRING STYLE 105

Clarity and Texture 106

Originality and Imitation 106

 

PART TWO College Writing 107

CHAPTER 7 Using Sources 108

WHAT IS A SOURCE? 108

SUMMARIZING SOURCES 109

Writing a Summary 109

Steven Pinker

Mind Over Mass Media 110

PARAPHRASING SOURCES 115

QUOTING SOURCES 118

ACKNOWLEDGING SOURCES 122

Using Sources without Plagiarizing 122

Acknowledging a Direct Quotation 124

Acknowledging a Paraphrase or Summary 124

Acknowledging an Idea 127

Fair Use of Common Knowledge 128

“But How Else Can I Put It?” 128

CHECKLIST for Avoiding Plagiarism 129

A PLAGIARISM SELF-TEST 130

QUIZ YOURSELF: HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT

CITING SOURCES? 130

Section 1: Plagiarism and Academic

Dishonesty 130

Section 2: Common Knowledge 131

Section 3: Quoting, Paraphrasing, and

Summarizing Texts 132

ANSWER KEY TO PLAGIARISM QUIZ 134

Section 1: Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty 134

Section 2: Common Knowledge 134

Section 3: Quoting, Paraphrasing,

and Summarizing Texts 135

Illegal Trade Passage 135

Romance Nove Passage 135

 

CHAPTER 8 Analyzing Texts 136

ANALYZING AN IMAGE 136

ANALYZING ADVERTISEMENTS (VISUAL RHETORIC) 137

Who’s That Girl? An Analysis of a 2010 Dolce & Gabbana

Advertisement 139

CHECKLIST for Analyzing Advertisements 141

ANALYZING TEXTS 141

CLASSIFYING AND THINKING 142

Examples of Classifying 142

CAUSE AND EFFECT 143

Dolores Hayden

Advertisements, Pornography, and Public Space 159

ANALYSIS AND DESCRIPTION 148

Description at Work in the Analytic Essay 149

COMPARING 150

Organizing Short Comparisons 151

Longer Comparisons 154

Ways of Organizing an Essay Devoted to a Comparison 155

CHECKLIST for Revising Comparisons 158

PROCESS ANALYSIS 158

Anne Hebald Mandelbaum

It’s the Portly Penguin That Gets the Girl, French Biologist Claims 159

EXPLAINING AN ANALYSIS 161

 

CHAPTER 9 Persuading Readers 162

EMOTIONAL APPEALS 162

MAKING REASONABLE ARGUMENTS 163

CLAIMS AND EVIDENCE 165

THREE KINDS OF CLAIMS: CLAIMS OF FACT, VALUE, AND

POLICY 165

Claims of Fact 165

Claims of Value 166

Claims of Policy 167

THREE KINDS OF EVIDENCE: EXAMPLES, TESTIMONY,

STATISTICS 167

Examples 168

Testimony 169

Statistics 170

A NOTE ON DEFINITION IN THE PERSUASIVE ESSAY 171

HOW MUCH EVIDENCE IS ENOUGH? 172

TWO KINDS OF REASONING: INDUCTION

AND DEDUCTION 172

AVOIDING FALLACIES 173

WIT 177

Avoiding Sarcasm 177

TONE AND ETHICAL APPEAL 178

CRITICAL THINKING: ASSUMPTIONS

AND IMPLICATIONS 179

ORGANIZING AN ARGUMENT 180

CHECKLIST for Revising Drafts

of Persuasive Essays 181

PERSUASION AT WORK: TWO PROFESSORS CONSIDER

LAPTOPS IN THE CLASSROOM 182

Carlo Rotella

Tuition Lost on the Tecno-Dependent 182

An Analysis of Rotella’s Argument 184

Elena Choy

Laptops in the Classroom? No Problem 185

An Analysis of Choy’s Argument 189

 

CHAPTER 10 Writing the Research Essay 190

WRITING RESEARCH ESSAYS 190

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY MATERIALS 192

WHAT TO DO WITH SOURCES 193

DEVELOPING A RESEARCH TOPIC 194

Finding Sources 194

THE LIBRARY’S CENTRAL INFORMATION

SYSTEM 195

EVALUATING WEB SOURCES AND A NOTE

ON WIKIPEDIA 196

CHECKLIST for Evaluating Web Sites 198

READING AND TAKING NOTES ON SECONDARY

SOURCES 198

A Guide to Note-Taking 199

WRITING THE ESSAY 202

CHECKLIST for Revising Drafts of

Research Essays 205

A SAMPLE RESEARCH ESSAY (MLA FORMAT) 206

Beatrice Cody

Politics and Psychology in The Awakening

(Student Essay) 207

An Analysis of Cody’s Use of Sources 221

A SAMPLE RESEARCH ESSAY (APA FORMAT) 222

Jacob Alexander

Nitrite: Preservative or Carcinogen? (Student Essay) 223

An Analysis of Alexander’s Use of Sources 238

 

PART THREE A Writer’s Handbook 241

CHAPTER 11 Punctuating Sentences 242

A Word on Computer Grammar and Punctuation Checks 244

THREE COMMON ERRORS: FRAGMENTS, COMMA SPLICES,

AND RUN-ON SENTENCES 244

Fragments and How to Correct Them 244

How to Correct Comma Splices and Run-on Sentences 246

THE PERIOD 248

THE QUESTION MARK 248

THE COLON 249

THE SEMICOLON 250

THE COMMA 251

THE DASH 257

PARENTHESES 258

ITALICS 259

CAPITAL LETTERS 260

THE HYPHEN 262

THE APOSTROPHE 263

ABBREVIATIONS 265

NUMBERS 266

 

CHAPTER 12 Using the Right Word 268

A NOTE ON IDIOMS 269

A WRITER’S GLOSSARY 270

 

CHAPTER 13 Documenting Sources 294

DOCUMENTATION 294

MLA FORMAT 295

Citations Within the Text 295

Author and Page Number in Parenthetic Citation 298

Title and Page Number in Parentheses 298

Author, Title, and Page Number in Parentheses 299

A Government Document or a Work of Corporate Authorship 299

A Work by Two or Three Authors 299

Parenthetic Citation of an Indirect Source (Citation of Material That

Itself Was Quoted or Summarized in Source) 300

Parenthetic Citation of Two or More Works 300

A Work in More Than One Volume 300

An Anonymous Work 301

A Literary Work 301

A Personal Interview 304

Lectures 304

Electronic Sources 304

A Note on Footnotes in an Essay Using Parenthetic Citations 305

The List of Works Cited 306

Alphabetic Order 306

Form on the Page 306

The Elements of the Citation 306

Print Sources 307

Author’s Name 307

Title of Book 308

Place of Publication, Publisher, Date, and Medium of

Publication 308

A Book by More Than One Author 309

Government Documents 310

Works of Corporate Authorship 310

Republished Work 310

A Book in Several Volumes 310

One Book with a Separate Title in a Set of Volumes 311

A Book with an Author and an Editor 311

A Revised Edition of a Book 311

A Translated Book 312

An Introduction, Foreword, or Afterword 312

A Book with an Editor but No Author 312

A Work in a Volume of Works by One Author 312

A Work in a Collection of Works by Several Authors 313

A Book Review 313

An Article or Essay—Not a Reprint—in a Collection 314

An Article or Essay Reprinted in a Collection 314

An Encyclopedia or Other Alphabetically Arranged

Reference Work 315

An Article in a Scholarly Journal 315

An Article in a Weekly, Biweekly, or Monthly Publication 316

An Article in a Newspaper 316

Web Sources 317

Sources Found Through Web Sites 318

Entire Online Site 318

Part of a Site 318

Online Magazine Article 318

Online Newspaper Article 318

Online Reference Article 318

Online Scholarly Journal Article 318

Wiki 319

Blog 319

Podcast 319

Online Audio or Video 319

Sources Found Through a Database or Scholarly Project 319

Book Accessed from a Scholarly Project 319

Scholarly Journal Accessed from a Database 319

Magazine Article Accessed from a Database 320

Government Document Accessed from a Database 320

Electronic Sources Also Available in Another Medium 320

Work of Art Accessed Online 320

Film Accessed Online 320

Other Common Sources 321

An Electronic Book 321

A Video Recording or Film 321

A CD or Other Sound Recording 321

A Television or Radio Program 321

An Interview 321

An E-mail Message 322

An Oral Presentation (A Lecture, Address, or Speech) 322

Visual Art 322

Digital File 323

APA FORMAT 323

Citations Within the Text 324

A Summary of an Entire Work 324

A Reference to a Page or Pages 324

A Reference to an Author Represented by More Than One Work

Published in a Given Year in the References 325

The List of References 325

Form on the Page 325

Alphabetic Order 325

Form of Title 326

Sample References 327

A Book by One Author 327

A Book by More Than One Author 327

A Collection of Essays 327

A Work in a Collection of Essays 327

Government Documents 327

A Journal Article 327

An Article from a Monthly or Weekly Magazine 328

An Article in a Newspaper 328

A Book Review 328

Electronic Sources 328

A NOTE ON OTHER SYSTEMS OF DOCUMENTATION 330

Biology and Other Sciences 330

Chemistry 330

Journalism 330

Law 330

Medicine 330

Physics 330

 

CHAPTER 14 Preparing the Manuscript 331

BASIC MANUSCRIPT FORM 331

Last Words 336

\

Credits 000

Index 000

 

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