A gringo in the lettuce fields main idea

Gun Control Analyzing Or Reporting Essay.

The “Analyzing and Synthesizing Opposing Arguments” essay will require you to analyzing opposing points of view on a controversial issue. For this essay, you will be required to conduct research. You will need to find at least two sources on your topic, in addition to the sources I provide, for a total of four sources. You will document your sources in a Works Cited page using MLA formatting style.

A Guide You Can Trust for a Solid Foundation There is no better text to help you read analytically and write successfully in first-year composition and in your coursework across campus. The Guide’s acclaimed step-by- step writing guides offer the surefire invention strategies you need to get started, the sentence strategies you need to keep writing, and the thoughtful revision strategies you need to make your writing the best it can be. This book includes the essays and assignments you need in order to do your work.

The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing is available in a variety of e-Book formats. For details, visit macmillanhighered.com/ebookpartners.

Did your instructor assign LaunchPad for The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing?

macmillanhighered.com/theguide11e The St. Martin’s Guide is enhanced by the video, audio, and practice activities in LaunchPad for The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing. If your book did not come packaged with an access code, you can purchase access to LaunchPad for The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing at macmillanhighered.com/theguide11e.

Endsheet 1Endsheet 4

mech_AxelrodCooper-SMG11-Long_Case-SE-EndPP-101415

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK The best way to become a good writer is to study examples of good writing and apply what you learn from those examples to your own work. That’s why each of the nine chapters in Part 1, Writing Activities, includes

a Guide to Reading that highlights the color-coded basic features of the genre and provides four examples of the genre (one student essay and three professional reading selections).

a Guide to Writing that will help you draft, revise, edit, and proofread your own writing projects, with Starting Points charts to help you find the information you need, Ways In activities to help you get writing, Peer Review Guides to help you get—and give— useful feedback, and Troubleshooting Guides that will help you solve your writing problems.

The Part 1 chapters in this edition also include a Remix activity to help you think through how to transform your writing into a new genre or medium. In these pages, you will see, for example, how one student remixed a portion of her remembered event essay as a graphic memoir and how another turned his profile into a treatment for a documentary.

The other parts of the book provide resources you can draw on as you need them. Do you need help with analyzing a reading? Chapter 12 provides a catalog of useful strategies. Do you need to know how to cite sources? Then turn to Chapter 24 (MLA style) or 25 (APA style) for detailed advice and examples. Do you need tips for writing essay exams? Then Chapter 26 can help you prepare for and take the test.

To find the information you need, when you need it:

The brief contents (on the facing page) lists all the chapters in the book.

The detailed contents (starting on p. xxi) lists all the readings and activities in the book.

The first page in each part lists all the chapters in that section.

The first page of each Guide to Writing provides a mini table of contents for that section.

The Starting Points chart shows you where to find the information you need to get started, and the Troubleshooting Guide helps you improve your draft.

The subject index and the index for multilingual writers at the end of the book (the blue-edged pages) list all the items you might look for in alphabetical order.

We’ve tried to create a complete resource for the college writer. We hope this book helps you master the skills you will need to succeed in college and on the job.

Best,

1 Composing Literacy 1

PART 1 Writing Activities 2 Remembering an Event 12 3 Writing Profiles 59 4 Explaining a Concept 119 5 Analyzing and Synthesizing Opposing

Arguments 170 6 Arguing a Position 229 7 Proposing a Solution 283 8 Justifying an Evaluation 335 9 Arguing for Causes or Effects 385 10 Analyzing Stories 440

PART 2 Critical Thinking Strategies 11 A Catalog of Invention and Inquiry

Strategies 488 12 A Catalog of Reading Strategies 500

PART 3 Writing Strategies 13 Cueing the Reader 524 14 Narrating 538 15 Describing 550 16 Defining 562 17 Classifying 569 18 Comparing and Contrasting 576 19 Arguing 582

Brief Contents

PART 4 Research Strategies 20 Planning a Research Project 602 21 Finding Sources and Conducting Field

Research 609 22 Evaluating Sources 625 23 Using Sources to Support Your

Ideas 632 24 Citing and Documenting Sources in

MLA Style 644 25 Citing and Documenting Sources in

APA Style 674

PART 5 Composing Strategies for College and Beyond

26 Taking Essay Examinations 686 27 Creating a Portfolio 700 28 Analyzing Visuals 704 29 Writing in Business and Scientific

Genres 718 30 Writing for and about Your

Community 729 31 Writing Collaboratively 734 32 Designing for Page and Screen 738 33 Composing Multimodal

Presentations 751

Handbook H–1

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Preface i

The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing

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Preface iii

ELEVENTH EDITION

Bedford/St. Martin’s A Macmillan Education Imprint

The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing

Rise B. Axelrod University of California, Riverside

Charles R. Cooper University of California, San Diego

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For Bedford/St. Martin’s Vice President, Editorial, Macmillan Higher Education Humanities: Edwin Hill Editorial Director, English and Music: Karen S. Henry Senior Publisher for Composition, Business and Technical Writing, Developmental Writing:

Leasa Burton Executive Editor: Molly Parke Executive Development Manager: Jane Carter Associate Media Editor: Jonathan Douglas Senior Project Editor: Peter Jacoby Media Producer: Melissa Skepo-Masi Senior Production Supervisors: Dennis J. Conroy and Lisa McDowell Marketing Manager: Emily Rowin Copy Editor: Diana Puglisi George Director of Rights and Permissions: Hilary Newman Senior Art Director: Anna Palchik Text Design: Jerilyn Bockorick Cover Design: Marine Miller Composition: Cenveo Publisher Services Printing and Binding: RR Donnelley and Sons

Copyright © 2016, 2013, 2010, 2008 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, pho- tocopying, 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.

0 9 8 7 6 5 f e d c b a

For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000)

ISBN 978-1-4576-9848-4 (hardcover with Handbook) ISBN 978-1-319-01603-6 (paperback with Handbook) ISBN 978-1-319-01606-7 (paperback without Handbook)

Acknowledgments Text acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on pages A-1–A-2, which constitute an extension of the copyright page. Art acknowledg- ments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art selections they cover. It is a violation of the law to reproduce these selections by any means whatsoever with- out the written permission of the copyright holder.

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v

Our goal for The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing has always been to provide the clear guidance and practical strategies students need to harness their potential as writers, both in college and in the wider world. We also strive to provide both experienced and novice instructors with the time-tested tools they need to coach their students as they develop skills for writing successfully in college and beyond. These goals have guided our development of the core features of the Guide as well as the many exciting features that keep the eleventh edition fresh and useful.

Core Features of the Guide The St. Martin’s Guide retains its emphasis on active learning by providing practical guides to writing and integrating reading and writing through hands-on activities for critical thinking, reading, analysis, and synthesis.

Practical Guides to Writing Each chapter in Part One offers practical, flexible guides that help students draft and revise a variety of analytical and persuasive essays. Honed by experience, the acclaimed writing guides offer surefire invention strategies to get students started, sentence strate- gies to get students writing, and thoughtful peer review and troubleshooting strategies to help students make their writing effective for any rhetorical situation.

Commonsensical and easy to follow, the Guides to Writing teach students how to

assess the rhetorical situation, focusing on purpose and audience, with special attention to the basic features of each assignment type;

ask probing analytical questions about what they’re reading that can help make students more reflective writers;

practice finding answers through various kinds of research, including memory search, field research, and traditional source-based research.

Each Guide to Writing begins with a Starting Points chart, offering students multiple ways of finding the help they need when they need it. Each also includes a Peer Review Guide to help students assess their own writing and the writing of their classmates and a Troubleshooting Guide to help students find ways to improve their drafts. All of these guides are organized and color-coded to emphasize the assignment’s basic features. In short, the Guides to Writing help students make their writing thoughtful, clear, organized, compelling—and effective for the rhetorical situation.

Preface

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Prefacevi

Purpose-Driven Assignment Chapters Each chapter in Part One introduces a commonly assigned reason for writing. By working through several assignment types, students learn to identify and use relevant and effective strategies to achieve their purpose with their readers. “Remembering an Event,” a memoir assignment, challenges students to reflect on the autobiographical and cultural significance of their experience, for example. “Explaining a Concept,” an analysis assignment, asks students to make a new subject interesting and informative for their readers. A cluster of argument chapters — from “Arguing a Position” and “Proposing a Solution” to “Justifying an Evaluation” and “Arguing for Causes or Effects” — requires students to develop an argument that is not only well reasoned and well supported but also responds constructively to readers’ likely questions and concerns.

Systematic Integration of Critical Reading and Reflective Writing Students are asked to read and analyze a range of contemporary selections, attending both to the writer’s ideas and to the strategies the writer uses to present those ideas to readers. Each Guide to Reading provides

an annotated student essay that prompts readers to answer questions about how it is composed;

a range of compelling professional selections to demonstrate the basic features of writing with that purpose;

activities following each professional selection that prompt students to read actively by asking them to reflect on the essay and relate it to their own experience and also to read like writers by focusing their attention on the writer’s strategies. (Chapter 12 also provides an array of strategies students can use to read critically.)

What’s New Although the eleventh edition of The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing builds on the suc- cess of previous editions, many of the strategies the Guide employs have changed in order to connect more effectively with students who are used to visual rhetoric online and are increasingly challenged by demands on their time, attention, and energy.

New Literacy Narrative Chapter A new introductory chapter, “Composing Literacy,” offers a quick and engaging way to start off a course. Students first learn about the rhetorical situation, a basic literacy concept. They are then invited to read several brief, engaging literacy narra- tives that demonstrate an array of literacies. Humorist David Sedaris, for example, writes hilariously about the challenges of learning a foreign language. Naturalist Annie Dillard recalls a critical moment when the joy of scientific discovery led her to break free of the need for parental approval. Novelist Amy Tan reflects on the differ- ences between the ways she uses language with family members and the ways she communicates with academic audiences, and cartoonist Lynda Barry looks back on

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Preface vii

her imaginative interaction with the classifieds. Finally, students are invited to reflect on their own literacy experiences and to compose a literacy narrative.

New Analyzing and Synthesizing Opposing Arguments Project A newly revised Chapter 5 provides a bridge to help move students from personal and expository to argumentative writing by modeling how to review and critique a variety of positions in preparation for adopting and defending a position of their own. The Guide to Reading shows student Maya Gomez as she works through the stages of analyzing an academic conversation — from summarizing a source to creating an an- notated bibliography to reporting on an array of positions to analyzing conflicting positions, all on the same issue. The Guide to Writing provides a host of activities to help students develop their own summary, annotated bibliography, report, or analysis. The argument chapters that follow show students how to apply what they’ve learned by analyzing a variety of claims and then thoughtfully defending their own.

An Invitation to Reimagine Writing across Genres and Media Each Guide to Reading in Part One concludes with a Remix activity that invites stu- dents to reimagine their writing in a new genre or medium — moving, for example, from remembered event narrative to graphic memoir, from concept analysis to poster presentation, from position argument to Prezi presentation, and more. Considering a change in one aspect of the rhetorical situation forces students to question their earlier composition decisions and deepens their understanding of the rhetorical situation.

Council of Writing Program Administrator’s Outcomes Statement The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Eleventh Edition, helps students build proficiency in the four categories of learning that writing programs across the country use to assess their students’ work: rhetorical knowledge; critical thinking, reading, and writing; writing processes; and knowledge of conventions. The chart below shows in detail how The St. Martin’s Guide helps students develop these proficiencies. (Note: This chart aligns with the latest WPA Outcomes Statement, ratified in July 2014.)

DESIRED OUTCOMES RELEVANT FEATURES OF THE ST. MARTIN’S GUIDE TO WRITING, ELEVENTH EDITION

Rhetorical Knowledge

Learn and use key rhetorical concepts through analyzing and composing a variety of texts.

Composing Literacy

Writing Assignments students read analyze compose a variety of texts. A Guide to Reading asks

terms of purpose audience genre. Each Guide to Writing supports students

(continued)

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Prefaceviii

A Catalog of Reading Strategies

Composing Strategies for College and Beyond

Taking Essay Examinations Creating a Portfolio Analyzing Visuals Writing in Business and Scientific Genres Writing for and about Your Community

Designing for Page and Screen

Gain experience reading and composing in several genres

conventions shape and are

practices and purposes.

reading and composing

Analyzing and Synthesizing Opposing Arguments summary to annotated bibliography

to report and analysis

remix

readings focus students on key

features of the assignment

Develop facility in responding to a variety of situations and

and/or structure.

responding to a variety of rhetorical situations and contexts

voice tone formality.

Remix

Designing for Page and Screen rhetorical choices involved in the design of any text.

Understand and use a variety of technologies to address a range of audiences. text.

The St. Martin’s Guide include how-tos for using technology audiences

Designing for Page and Screen needs and requirements involved in the design in print and online.

Composing Multimodal Presentations

DESIRED OUTCOMES RELEVANT FEATURES OF THE ST. MARTIN’S GUIDE TO WRITING, ELEVENTH EDITION

Rhetorical Knowledge (continued)

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Preface ix

Match the capacities of different

situations.

Remix of medium shapes composition.

Designing for Page and Screen

and font sizes to adding visuals and screen shots.

Taking Essay Examinations

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing

Use composing and reading

and communicating in various rhetorical contexts.

Composing Literacy experiences and to extrapolate from the literacy narratives they are reading.

Analyze and Write activities read like a writer

Make Connections

Thinking Critically

social/political context.

Analyzing and Synthesizing Opposing Arguments

positions on a controversial issue.

A Catalog of Invention and Inquiry Strategies A Catalog of Reading Strategies

Read a diverse range of

for different audiences and situations.

range of professional selections and student essays. effective

strategies for supporting claims, both textual and visual include assignment-specific suggestions for organization specific types of audiences.

framing topics to appeal to the audience and recommend techniques and strategies for responding to alternative views readers may hold.

Remix

Research Strategies Using Sources to Support Your Ideas using evidence

Locate and evaluate primary and Research Strategies finding evaluating using

DESIRED OUTCOMES RELEVANT FEATURES OF THE ST. MARTIN’S GUIDE TO WRITING, ELEVENTH EDITION

Rhetorical Knowledge (continued)

(continued)

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Prefacex

Finding Sources and Conducting Field Research finding sources using catalogs and databases field research primary and secondary research.

Evaluating Sources evaluating print and digital sources scholarly and popular sources.

Use strategies—such as

redesign—to compose texts that

those from appropriate sources.

Analyzing and Synthesizing Opposing Arguments

a variety of informative and persuasive documents in preparation for adopting and

anticipate and respond to opposing positions and readers’ objections

Arguing strategies for making assertions offering support avoiding logical fallacies.

Using Sources to Support Your Ideas strategies for integrating research

offer additional support.

Processes

multiple drafts. compose and

revise inventing researching planning composing evaluating revising multiple drafts.

A Writer at Work

advice on reading drafting rethinking revising

different challenges.

A Catalog of Invention and Inquiry Strategies helpful suggestions for idea generation.

A Catalog of Reading Strategies reading analytically and critically.

collaborative and social aspects of

DESIRED OUTCOMES RELEVANT FEATURES OF THE ST. MARTIN’S GUIDE TO WRITING, ELEVENTH EDITION

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing (continued)

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Preface xi

Use composing processes and tools as a means to discover and reconsider ideas.

composing to discover ideas especially through the Ways In activities in each Guide to Writing. Strategies for evaluating revising editing help students reconsider their ideas over the course of multiple drafts.

A Writer at Work

A Catalog of Invention and Inquiry Strategies Planning a Research Project

processes.

collaborative activities Practicing the Genre Make Connections activities after

Test Your Choice activities and Peer Review Guides

Writing for and about Your Community

Writing Collaboratively Chapter 31

Learn to give and act on

offer students specific advice on constructively criticizing—and praising—their

Writing Collaboratively

Adapt composing processes for a variety of technologies and modalities.

is that most students compose in digital spaces for varied audiences and use

Remix

Designing for Page and Screen Composing Multimodal Presentations modalities.

LaunchPad version of The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing offers a digital course

online how-tos for using technology

Reflect on the development of

those practices influence their Thinking Critically

composing experiences.

DESIRED OUTCOMES RELEVANT FEATURES OF THE ST. MARTIN’S GUIDE TO WRITING, ELEVENTH EDITION

Processes (continued)

(continued)

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Prefacexii

through practice in composing and revising.

editing and proofreading advice appears in the Editing and

Guide

mechanics vary. Remix

Assignment-specific issues of structure paragraphing tone mechanics are

Gain experience negotiating variations in genre conventions.

read analyze compose a variety of texts Writing Assignments students to analyze texts in terms of purpose audience basic features of the genre.

Research Strategies compose an academic research project.

Composing Strategies for College and Beyond

Learn common formats and/or design features for different kinds of texts.

Designing for Page and Screen

specific formats for a range of texts

Explore the concepts of

documentation conventions.

Analyzing and Synthesizing Opposing Arguments

A Catalog of Reading Strategies

for integrating and citing Using

Sources to Support Your Ideas

conventions systematically students to recognize differences in citation conventions in popular and academic citations or lists of links to sources.

Research sections

DESIRED OUTCOMES RELEVANT FEATURES OF THE ST. MARTIN’S GUIDE TO WRITING, ELEVENTH EDITION

Knowledge of Conventions

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Preface xiii

Acknowledgments 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 to an already long book if we were to name everyone to whom we are indebted; suffice it to say that we have been eclectic in our borrowing.

We must also acknowledge immeasurable lessons learned from all the writers, pro- fessional and student alike, whose work we analyzed and whose writing we used in this and earlier editions.

Many instructors and students have contributed ideas and criticism over the years. For responding to detailed questionnaires about the tenth edition, we thank Kara Poe Alexander, Baylor University; Berniece Alspach, California Baptist College; Sarah Anti- nora, California State University, San Bernardino; Leontine Armstrong, California Bap- tist College; Chris Blankenship, Emporia State University; Mary Brantley, Holmes Com- munity College; Brieanna Casey, Texas Woman’s University; Catherine Cucinella, California State University, San Marcos; Cheryl Edelson, Chaminade University; Leona Fisher, Chaffey College; Phyllis Gowdy, Tidewater Community College; Lisa Haag, St. Louis Community College; Lesa Beth Hildebrand, Triton College; Tina Hultgren, Kish- waukee College; Jamie Jones, Texas Woman’s University; Mary Jo Keiter, Harrisburg Area Community College; Jason Kolodzyk, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater; Julie Kratt, Cowley College; Courtney Patrick Weber, Texas Woman’s University; Kelli Prejean, Marshall University; Dr. Dana Prodoehl, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater; Zina Rodriguez, Moreno Valley College; Matthew Schmeer, Johnson County Commu- nity College; Graham (Gray) Scott, Texas Woman’s University; Marcia Seabury, Univer- sity of Hartford; Wes Spratlin, Motlow State Community College; Jenna West, Murray State College; and Marc Wilson, Ivy Tech Community College.

For helping us select new readings, we thank Gretchen Bartels, California Baptist University; Chris Blankenship, Emporia State University; Mary Brantley, Holmes Community College; Wallace Cleaves, University of California, Riverside; Leona Fish- er, Chaffey College; Sayanti Ganguly Puckett, Johnson County Community College; Phyllis Gowdy, Tidewater Community College; Laurie Hughes, Richland Community

Research Strategies Using Sources to Support Your Ideas

MLA and APA style in addition to an annotated sample student research paper.

Analyzing Visuals documentation.

DESIRED OUTCOMES RELEVANT FEATURES OF THE ST. MARTIN’S GUIDE TO WRITING, ELEVENTH EDITION

Knowledge of Conventions (continued)

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Prefacexiv

College; Tina Hultgren, Kishwaukee College; Sarah Hunt, Savannah Technical Col- lege; Stephanie Kay, University of California, Riverside; Jason Kolodzyk, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater; Dr. Dana Prodoehl, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater; Matthew Schmeer, Johnson County Community College; Annie Schnarr, Skagit Val- ley College; Graham (Gray) Scott, Texas Woman’s University; Wes Spratlin, Motlow State Community College; David Taylor, St. Louis Community College–Meramec; Karol Walchak, Alpena Community College; Alison Warriner, California State Univer- sity, East Bay; and Jenna West, Murray State College.

In addition, we’d like to thank reviewers who provided invaluable feedback on a draft of this chapter: Kara Alexander, Baylor University; Gretchen Bartels, California Baptist University; Mary Brantley, Holmes Community College; Sayanti Ganguly Puckett, Johnson County Community College; Julie Kratt, Cowley County Community College; Dana Prodoehl, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater; Matthew Schmeer, Johnson County Community College; Marcia Seabury, University of Hartford; David Taylor, St. Louis Community College–Meramec; Jeana West, Murray State College.

In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the contributions of a number of thought- ful instructors who participated in a focus group that helped us fine-tune the Remix activities that now appear at the end of each Guide to Reading in Part One: Kara Poe Alexander, Baylor University; Daniel Cleary, Lorain County Community College; Sara Fuller, Cuyahoga Community College and Lorain County Community College; Kim Haimes-Korn, Kennesaw State College; Dauvan Mulally, Grand Valley State Universi- ty; and Amy Rubens, Francis Marion University.

For this new edition of the Guide, we are particularly grateful to Alison Warriner, who helped revise several of the Part One chapters; and Gray Scott and Wallace Cleaves, who made recommendations of reading selections, helped draft some of the reading apparatus, and were generally available as a sounding board and a font of good advice, especially in rethinking Chapter 5. Wallace Cleaves we also thank for his astute revisions and updates to the instructor’s manual, including writing entirely new content on teaching Chapters 1 and 5 and reading comprehension and summary quiz- zes (with model summaries as feedback) for all the new reading selections in the text. (The reading comprehension quizzes are auto-graded in the LaunchPad version of The St. Martin’s Guide, and model summaries are provided as feedback for the summary quizzes. Both are also available in the online instructor’s manual.) Danise Hoover, Hunter College, provided expert advice as we updated the research coverage. Finally, we are especially grateful to the student authors for allowing us to use their work in Sticks and Stones and the Guide.

We want to thank many people at Bedford/St. Martin’s, especially Jane Carter, Executive Development Manager and our editor, whose invaluable expertise and indomitable good humor made this book possible; Senior Project Editor Peter Jacoby, who worked miracles keeping all the details straight and keeping the book on schedule; and Associate Media Editor Jonathan Douglas, who singlehandedly managed multiple reviews, while also editing Sticks and Stones and overseeing the editorial work on LaunchPad, our customizable course space and interactive e-book for The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing.

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Preface xv

Diana George made many valuable contributions to this revision with her careful copyediting, as did Steve Patterson and Will Rigby with their meticulous proofread- ing, and Kirsten Kite, with her indexing of the text. Elise Kaiser, Dennis Conroy, and Lisa McDowell kept the whole process running smoothly. Thanks also to the im- mensely talented design team — book designer Jerilyn Bockorick as well as Bedford/ St. Martin’s art director Anna Palchik. Our gratitude also goes to Hilary Newman, Rosemary Spano, Linda Winters, Kathleen Karcher, Julie Tesser, and Martha Friedman for their thoughtful and conscientious work on the permissions program for text and visuals.

We also thank Karen Henry, Editorial Director for English and Music, Leasa Burton, Senior Publisher for Composition, and Molly Parke, Executive Editor for Rhetorics — all of whom offered valued advice at many critical stages in the process. Thanks as well to Edwin Hill, Vice President–Editorial (Humanities), for his adroit leadership of Bedford/St. Martin’s, and Marketing Manager Emily Rowin for her tire- less efforts on behalf of the Guide.

Rise dedicates this book to her husband Steven and their son Jeremiah, who are both distinguished teachers and scholars, and to Sophie and Amalia, two young women whose writing she very much looks forward to reading.

Get the Most Out of Your Course with The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing Bedford/St. Martin’s offers resources and format choices that help you and your stu- dents get even more out of your book and course. To learn more about or to order any of the following products, contact your Bedford/St. Martin’s sales representative, e-mail sales support (sales_support@bfwpub.com), or visit the Web site at macmillanhighered.com/theguide/catalog.

LaunchPad for The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing: Where Students Learn LaunchPad provides engaging content and new ways to get the most out of your book. Get an interactive e-book combined with useful, highly relevant materi- als in a fully customizable course space; then assign and mix our resources with yours.

Autoscored reading quizzes — a five-question multiple-choice comprehen- sion quiz and a summary quiz with a model summary as feedback — are available for every professional selection in the text.

Prebuilt units — including readings, videos, quizzes, discussion groups, and more — are easy to adapt and assign by adding your own materials and mix- ing them with our high-quality multimedia content and ready-made assessment options, such as LearningCurve adaptive quizzing.

More than forty additional student essays from Sticks and Stones and Other Student Essays, written using earlier editions of the Guide.

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Prefacexvi

Gradebook that provides a clear window on the performance of your whole class, individual students, and even results of individual assignments.

streamlined interface helps students focus on what’s due, and social com- menting tools let them engage, make connections, and learn from each other. Use LaunchPad on its own or integrate it with your school’s learning management system so that your class is always on the same page.

To get the most out of your book, order LaunchPad for The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Eleventh Edition, packaged with the print book. (LaunchPad for The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing can also be purchased on its own.) An activation code is required. To order LaunchPad for The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing with

The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Eleventh Edition (hardcover), use ISBN 978-1-319- 05435-9.

The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Eleventh Edition (paperback), use ISBN 978-1-319- 05433-5.

The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Short Eleventh Edition, use ISBN 978-1-319- 05437-3.

Choose from Alternative Formats of The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing Bedford/St. Martin’s offers a range of affordable formats, allowing students to choose the one that works best for them. For details, visit macmillanhighered.com / theguide/catalog.

Hardcover. To order The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Eleventh Edition, in hard- cover, use ISBN 978-1-4576-9848-4.

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Other popular e-book formats. For details, visit macmillanhighered.com/ebooks.

Select Value Packages Add value to your text by packaging one of the following resources with The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing. To learn more about package options for any of the following products, contact your Bedford/St. Martin’s sales representative or visit macmillanhighered .com/theguide/catalog.

LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers allows students to work on whatever they need help with the most. At home or in class, students learn at their own pace, with instruction tailored to each student’s unique needs. LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers features:

Prebuilt units that support a learning arc. Each easy-to-assign unit is com- prised of a pretest check; multimedia instruction and assessment; a posttest that

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Preface xvii

assesses what students have learned about critical reading, the writing process, using sources, grammar, style, and mechanics; and help for multilingual writers.

A video introduction to many topics. Introductions offer an overview of the unit’s topic, and many include a brief, accessible video to illustrate the con- cepts at hand.

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The ability to monitor student progress. Use our Gradebook to see which students are on track and which need additional help with specific topics.

LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers can be packaged at a significant discount. To ensure that your students can take full advantage, use the following ISBNs:

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LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers plus The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Short Eleventh Edition, use ISBN 978-1-319-05563-9.

Visit macmillanhighered.com/readwrite for more information.

Writer’s Help 2.0 is a powerful online writing resource that helps students find an- swers, whether they are searching for writing advice on their own or as part of an assignment.

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Student access is packaged with The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing at a significant dis- count. To ensure that your students have easy access to online writing support, use the following ISBNs:

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The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Short Eleventh Edition: ISBN 978-1-319-05560-8

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Prefacexviii

Writer’s Help 2.0 for Lunsford Handbooks plus

The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Eleventh Edition (hardcover): ISBN 978-1-319-05564-6

The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Eleventh Edition (paperback): ISBN 978-1-319-05565-3

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Students who rent a book or buy a used book can purchase access to Writer’s Help 2.0 at macmillanhighered.com/writershelp2. Instructors may request free access by registering as an instructor at macmillanhighered.com/writershelp2. For technical support, visit macmillanhighered.com/getsupport.

Sticks and Stones and Other Student Essays, Ninth Edition, provides nearly forty essays written by students across the nation using earlier editions of the Guide. Each essay is accompanied by a headnote that spotlights some of the ways the writer uses the genre successfully, invites students to notice other achievements, and sup- plies context where necessary. Sticks and Stones is available for free when packaged with new copies of the Guide. To order Sticks and Stones with

The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Eleventh Edition (hardcover), use ISBN 978-1-319- 05432-8.

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Portfolio Keeping, Third Edition, by Nedra Reynolds and Elizabeth Davis, provides all the information students need to use the portfolio method successfully in a writing course. Portfolio Teaching, a companion guide for instructors, provides the practical information instructors and writing program administrators need to use the portfolio method successfully in a writing course. To order Portfolio Keeping packaged with The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Eleventh Edition, or Short Eleventh Edition, contact your sales representative for a package ISBN.

Instructor Resources macmillanhighered.com/theguide/catalog

You have a lot to do in your course. Bedford/St. Martin’s wants to make it easy for you to find the support you need — and to get it quickly.

The Instructor’s Resource Manual for The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing is available as a PDF that can be downloaded from the Bedford/St. Martin’s online catalog at the URL above; it is also available through LaunchPad. In addition to detailed support for teaching each chapter in The St. Martin’s Guide (including in-class activities, learning objectives, special challenges, suggestions for teaching, and more), the manual in- cludes teaching and evaluation practices, tips for integrating technology into your teaching, suggested course plans, and a bibliography in composition studies.

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http://www.macmillanhighered.com/getsupport
http://www.macmillanhighered.com/theguide/catalog
Preface xix

Teaching Central offers the entire list of Bedford/St. Martin’s print and online pro- fessional resources in one place. You’ll find landmark reference works, sourcebooks on pedagogical issues, award-winning collections, and practical advice for the class- room—all free for instructors. Visit macmillanhighered.com/teachingcentral.

Bedford Bits collects creative ideas for teaching a range of composition topics in a frequently updated blog. A community of teachers — leading scholars, authors, and editors such as Andrea Lunsford, Elizabeth Losh, Jack Solomon, and Elizabeth Wardle — discuss assignments, activities, revision, research, grammar and style, multimodal composition, technology, peer review, and much more. Take, use, adapt, and pass the ideas around. Then, come back to the site to comment or share your own suggestion. Visit community.macmillan.com.

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xxi

Understanding the Rhetorical Situation 2

Reflecting on Your Own Literacy 3

Composing Your Own Literacy Narrative 9

Contents

Apply the rhetorical framework: who? what? when? where? how? and why? 10 Devise a topic. 10

Preface v

1 Composing Literacy 1

13

GUIDE TO READING 14

Analyzing Remembered Event Essays 14 Determine the writer’s purpose and audience. 14 Assess the genre’s basic features. 15

Readings 18 Jean Brandt, Calling Home 18

Annie Dillard, From An American Childhood 22

Jenée Desmond-Harris, Tupac and My Non-thug Life 27

Peter Orner, Writing about What Haunts Us 32

Essay 37

GUIDE TO WRITING 38

The Writing Assignment 38

Event 38

Writing a Draft: Invention, Research, Planning, and Composing 39

Choose an event to write about. 40

and Audience 40

Shape your story. 41

Developing a Dramatic Arc 41

43

Clarify the sequence of actions. 43 Describe key people and places vividly, and show their significance. 44 Use dialogue to portray

PART 1 Writing Activities

2 Remembering an Event 12

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xxii Contents

people and dramatize relationships. 45 Clarify your story’s significance. 45

Helping Readers Understand the Significance 46

Write the opening sentences. 47 Draft your story. 47

Evaluating the Draft: Using Peer Review 48

48

Improving the Draft: Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 49

Revise your draft. 50

50

Edit and proofread your draft. 52

A WRITER AT WORK 54

Developing Significance in Jean Brandt’s Remembered Event Essay 54

THINKING CRITICALLY 57

Reflecting on What You Have Learned 57

Reflecting on the Genre 57

60

GUIDE TO READING 61

Analyzing Profiles 61 Determine the writer’s purpose and audience. 61 Assess the genre’s basic features. 61

Readings 65 Brian Cable, The Last Stop 65

Jon Ronson, The Hunger Games 71

Amanda Coyne, The Long Good-Bye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison 77

Gabriel Thompson, A Gringo in the Lettuce Fields 83

90

GUIDE TO WRITING 91

The Writing Assignment 91 91

Writing a Draft: Invention, Research, Planning, and Composing 92

Choose a subject to profile. 93

93

Conduct your field research. 94

94

95

97

98

Use quotations that provide information and reveal character. 99 Consider adding visual or audio elements. 99 Create an outline that will organize your profile effectively for your readers. 100 Determine your role in the profile. 100

Determining Your Role 101

Develop your perspective on the subject. 102

102

Clarify the dominant impression. 103

104

Write the opening sentences. 104 Draft your profile. 105

Evaluating the Draft: Using Peer Review 105

105

3 Writing Profiles 59

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Improving the Draft: Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 107

Revise your draft. 107

107

Edit and proofread your draft. 110

A WRITER AT WORK 113

Brian Cable’s Interview Notes and Write-Up 113

THINKING CRITICALLY 117

Reflecting on What You Have Learned 117

Reflecting on the Genre 118

4 Explaining a Concept 119 Explaining an

120

GUIDE TO READING 121

Analyzing Concept Explanations 121 Determine the writer’s purpose and audience. 121 Assess the genre’s basic features. 122

Readings 124 Jonathan Potthast, Supervolcanoes: A Catastrophe of Ice and Fire 124

Anastasia Toufexis, Love: The Right Chemistry 129

John Tierney, Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue? 135

Susan Cain, Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic? 141

Explanation 148

GUIDE TO WRITING 149

The Writing Assignment 149

149

Writing a Draft: Invention, Research, Planning, and Composing 151

Choose a concept to write about. 151

152

Conduct initial research on the concept. 152

Determining What You Already 152

Focus your explanation of the concept. 153

You and Your Readers 153

Evaluating Your 154

Conduct further research on your focused concept. 154 Draft your working thesis. 154 Create an outline that will organize your concept explanation effectively for your readers. 155 Design your writing project. 155 Consider the explanatory strategies you should use. 155

156

Use summaries, paraphrases, and quotations from sources to support your points. 157

157

Use visuals or multimedia illustrations. 157 Use appositives to integrate sources. 158 Use descriptive verbs in signal phrases to

introduce information from sources. 159 Write the opening sentences. 159 Draft your explanation. 160

Evaluating the Draft: Using Peer Review 160

Contents xxiii

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161

Improving the Draft: Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 162

Revise your draft. 162

162

Edit and proofread your draft. 165

A WRITER AT WORK 167

Jonathan Potthast’s Use of Sources 167

THINKING CRITICALLY 168

Reflecting on What You Have Learned 168

Reflecting on the Genre 169

5 Analyzing and Synthesizing Opposing Arguments 170

Arguments 172

GUIDE TO READING 173

Analyzing Four Genres 173 Determine the writer’s purpose and audience. 173 Assess the genres’ basic features. 174

Readings 178 Maya Gomez, Summary: “A Moral Market” 178

Maya Gomez, Annotated Bibliography: Compensating Kidney Donors 179

Maya Gomez, Report: Possible Solutions to the Kidney Shortage 181

Maya Gomez, Analysis: Satel vs. the National Kidney Foundation: Should Kidney Donors Be Compensated? 187

Research 192

GUIDE TO WRITING 193

The Writing Assignment 193

Analysis 193

Writing a Draft: Invention, Research, Planning, and Composing 195

Choose a controversial topic to write about. 195

196

Conduct research to find sources. 197 Summarize sources and annotate your

working bibliography. 197

Writing a Summary 197

199

Analyze your audience. 200

or Analysis 200

Brainstorm subtopics for a report. 200 Choose opposing argument essays to analyze. 201 Synthesize sources for a report or analysis. 201 Analyze and compare the opposing argument essays. 202

Arguments 203

Evaluating Your Analysis 204

Draft a working thesis for your report or analysis. 204 Create an outline to organize your report or analysis effectively for your readers. 205 Develop your report or analysis. 206

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206

strategies 207

Use visuals or multimedia illustrations to enhance your explanation. 208 Write the opening sentences. 208 Draft your report or analysis. 209

Evaluating the Draft: Using Peer Review 209

210

Improving the Draft: Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 211

Revise your draft. 211

212

Edit and proofread your draft. 214

A WRITER AT WORK 215

Analyzing Opposing Arguments 215 Gomez’s Annotations on Satel’s Op-Ed 216 Gomez’s Comparative Analysis Chart 217

THINKING CRITICALLY 218

Reflecting on What You Have Learned 218

Reflecting on the Genres 219

CASEBOOK 220

National Kidney Foundation, Financial Incentives for Organ Donation 220

Gary S. Becker and Julio J. Elías, Cash for Kidneys: The Case for a Market for Organs 222

Sally Satel, When Altruism Isn’t Moral 225

Eric Posner, A Moral Market 228

6 Arguing a Position 229

230

GUIDE TO READING 231

Analyzing Position Arguments 231 Determine the writer’s purpose and audience. 231 Assess the genre’s basic features. 231

Readings 236 Jessica Statsky, Children Need to Play, Not Compete 236

Noam Bramson, Child, Home, Neighborhood, Community, and Conscience 242

Amitai Etzioni, Working at McDonald’s 247

Daniel J. Solove, Why Privacy Matters Even If You Have “Nothing to Hide” 253

260

GUIDE TO WRITING 261

The Writing Assignment 261 261

Writing a Draft: Invention, Research, Planning, and Composing 263

Choose a controversial issue on which to take a position. 263

264

Frame the issue for your readers. 264

and Determining What Your Readers 265

266

Formulate a working thesis stating your position. 266

266 Develop the reasons supporting your position. 267

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Devising Reasons to Support Your 267

Research your position. 267 Use sources to reinforce your credibility. 268 Identify and respond to your readers’ likely reasons and objections. 269

269

Create an outline that will organize your argument effectively for your readers. 271 Consider document design. 272 Write the

opening sentences. 272 Draft your position argument. 272

Evaluating the Draft: Using Peer Review 273

273

Improving the Draft: Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 274

Revise your draft. 275

275

Edit and proofread your draft. 276

A WRITER AT WORK 278

Jessica Statsky’s Response to Opposing Positions 278

Listing Reasons for the Opposing Position 279 Conceding a Plausible Reason 279 Refuting an Implausible Reason 280

THINKING CRITICALLY 280

Reflecting on What You Have Learned 281

Reflecting on the Genre 281

7 Proposing a Solution 283

284

GUIDE TO READING 285

Analyzing Proposals 285 Determine the writer’s purpose and audience. 285 Assess the genre’s basic features. 285

Readings 290 Patrick O’Malley, More Testing, More Learning 290

Naomi Rose, Captivity Kills Orcas 296

Eric Posner, A Moral Market 302

Kelly D. Brownell and Thomas R. Frieden, Ounces of Prevention — The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared Beverages 308

315

GUIDE TO WRITING 316

The Writing Assignment 316

316

Writing a Draft: Invention, Research, Planning, and Composing 318

Choose a problem for which you can propose a solution. 318 Frame the problem for your readers. 319

319

Defining the 321

Assess how the problem has been framed, and reframe it for your readers. 321

321

Develop a possible solution. 322

322

Explain your solution. 323

Explaining the Solution and 323

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Research your proposal. 324 Develop a response to objections or alternative solutions. 324

Drafting a Refutation or 324

Create an outline that will organize your proposal effectively for your readers. 325 Write the opening sentences. 326 Draft

your proposal. 326

Evaluating the Draft: Using Peer Review 327

327

Improving the Draft: Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 329

Revise your draft. 329

329

Edit and proofread your draft. 330

A WRITER AT WORK 332

Patrick O’Malley’s Revision Process 332

THINKING CRITICALLY 333

Reflecting on What You Have Learned 333

Reflecting on the Genre 334

8 Justifying an Evaluation 335

336

GUIDE TO READING 337

Analyzing Evaluations 337 Determine the writer’s purpose and audience. 337 Assess the genre’s basic features. 337

Readings 341 William Akana, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: A Hell of a Ride 341

Emily Nussbaum, The Aristocrats: The Graphic Arts of Game of Thrones 346

Malcolm Gladwell, What College Rankings Really Tell Us 352

Sherry Turkle, The Flight from Conversation 358

Remixing Your Evaluation 364

GUIDE TO WRITING 365

The Writing Assignment 365 Justifying an

Evaluation 365

Writing a Draft: Invention, Research, Planning, and Composing 366

Choose a subject to evaluate. 367

367

Assess your subject and consider how to present it to your readers. 368

Determining What You and Your 368

Formulate a working thesis stating your overall judgment. 369

Judgment 370

Develop the reasons and evidence supporting your judgment. 370

Devising Reasons and Evidence to Support Your Judgment 370

Research your evaluation. 371 Respond to a likely objection or alternative judgment. 371

Responding Effectively to Your Readers 372

Organize your draft to appeal to your readers. 373 Consider document design. 374 Write the opening sentences. 375 Draft your evaluation. 375

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Evaluating the Draft: Using Peer Review 376

376

Improving the Draft: Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 378

Revise your draft. 378

378

Edit and proofread your draft. 380

A WRITER AT WORK 382

William Akana’s Thesis and Response to Objections 382

THINKING CRITICALLY 383

Reflecting on What You Have Learned 383

Reflecting on the Genre 384

9 Arguing for Causes or Effects 385

386

GUIDE TO READING 387

Analyzing Causal Arguments 387 Determine the writer’s purpose and audience. 387 Assess the genre’s basic features. 387

Readings 391 Clayton Pangelinan, #socialnetworking: Why It’s Really So Popular 391

Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies 396

Claudia Wallis, The Multitasking Generation 401

Shankar Vedantam, The Telescope Effect 409

417

GUIDE TO WRITING 418

The Writing Assignment 418

Effects 418

Writing a Draft: Invention, Research, Planning, and Composing 420

Choose a subject to analyze. 420

421

Present the subject to your readers. 422

422

Analyze possible causes or effects. 423

Effects 423

Conduct research. 424 Cite a variety of sources to support your causal analysis. 425 Formulate a working thesis stating your

preferred cause(s) or effect(s). 425

426

Draft a response to objections readers are likely to raise. 426

427

Draft a response to the causes or effects your readers are likely to favor. 427

428

Create an outline that will organize your causal argument effectively for your readers. 429 Write the opening sentences. 430 Draft your causal argument. 430

Evaluating the Draft: Using Peer Review 430

431

Improving the Draft: Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 432

Revise your draft. 432

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433

Edit and proofread your draft. 434

A WRITER AT WORK 436

Clayton Pangelinan’s Analysis of Possible Causes 436

THINKING CRITICALLY 438

Reflecting on What You Have Learned 438

Reflecting on the Genre 438

10 Analyzing Stories 440 Analyzing a Story

441

GUIDE TO READING 442

Analyzing Essays That Analyze Stories 442 Determine the writer’s purpose and audience. 442 Assess the genre’s basic features. 442

Readings 446 Iris Lee, Performing a Doctor’s Duty 446

Isabella Wright, “For Heaven’s Sake!” 450

Remixing Your Literary Analysis 454

GUIDE TO WRITING 455

The Writing Assignment 455 Analyzing Stories 455

Writing a Draft: Invention, Research, Planning, and Composing 456

Find a story to write about. 456 Analyze the story. 457

an Element to Analyze and an Approach to 457

460

461

Formulate a working thesis. 461

461

Provide support for your argument. 463

Story 463

To build on your support, consider doing outside research. 464 Create an outline that will organize your argument effectively. 464 Write the opening sentences. 465 Draft your analysis. 466

Evaluating the Draft: Using Peer Review 466

467

Improving the Draft: Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 468

Revise your draft. 468

468

Edit and proofread your draft. 469

A WRITER AT WORK 472

Isabella Wright’s Invention Work 472

THINKING CRITICALLY 475

Reflecting on What You Have Learned 475

Reflecting on the Genre 475

AN ANTHOLOGY OF SHORT STORIES 476

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour 476

James Joyce, Araby 478

William Carlos Williams, The Use of Force 482

Jamaica Kincaid, Girl 484

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xxx Contents

Mapping 488 Create a cluster diagram to reveal relationships among ideas. 489 Make a list to generate a plan quickly. 490 Create an outline to invent and organize. 490

Writing 494 Use cubing to explore a topic from six perspectives. 494 Construct a dialogue to

explore an experience or alternative view. 495 Use dramatizing to analyze behavior. 495 Freewrite to generate ideas freely and

creatively. 496 Use looping to explore aspects of a topic. 496 Take notes in a journal. 497 Ask questions to explore a subject systematically. 498

PART 2 Critical Thinking Strategies

11 A Catalog of Invention and Inquiry Strategies 488

12 A Catalog of Reading Strategies 500 Annotating 501

Martin Luther King Jr., An Annotated Sample from “Letter from Birmingham Jail” 501

Taking Inventory 507

Outlining 508

Paraphrasing 510

Summarizing 511

Synthesizing 512

Contextualizing 513

Exploring the Significance of Figurative Language 514

Looking for Patterns of Opposition 516

Reflecting on Challenges to Your Beliefs and Values 517

Evaluating the Logic of an Argument 518 Test for appropriateness. 518 Test for believability. 518 Test for consistency and completeness. 519

Recognizing Emotional Manipulation 520

Judging the Writer’s Credibility 521 Test for knowledge. 521 Test for common ground. 521 Test for fairness. 522

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Orienting Statements 524 Use thesis statements to announce the main idea. 524 Use forecasting statements to preview topics. 525

Paragraphing 526 Paragraph indents signal related ideas. 526 Topic sentences announce the paragraph’s

focus. 527

Cohesive Devices 530 Pronouns connect phrases or sentences. 530 Word repetition aids cohesion. 530 Synonyms connect ideas. 531 Repetition of sentence

structure emphasizes connections. 531 Collocation creates networks of meaning. 532

Transitions 533 Transitions emphasize logical relationships. 533 Transitions can indicate a sequence in time. 534 Transitions can indicate relationships in space. 535

Headings and Subheadings 536 Headings indicate sections and levels. 536 Headings are not common in all genres. 536 At least two headings are needed at each

level. 537

PART 3 Writing Strategies

13 Cueing the Reader 524

14 Narrating 538 Narrating Strategies 538

Use calendar and clock time to create a sequence of events. 538 Use temporal transitions to establish an action sequence. 540 Use verb tense to place actions in time. 541

Use action sequences for vivid narration. 543 Use dialogue to dramatize events. 544

Narrating a Process 545 Use process narratives to explain. 546 Use process narratives to instruct. 547

Sentence Strategies for Narration 548

15 Describing 550 Naming 550

Detailing 551

Comparing 553

Using Sensory Description 554

Describe what you saw. 554 Describe what you heard. 555 Describe what you smelled. 556 Describe tactile sensations. 557 Describe flavors. 558

Creating a Dominant Impression 559

Sentence Strategies for Description 560

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xxxii Contents

Sentence Definitions 563

Extended Definitions 564

Historical Definitions 566

Stipulative Definitions 567

Sentence Strategies for Definition 568

16 Defining 562

17 Classifying 569 Organizing Classification 569

Illustrating Classification 571

Maintaining Clarity and Coherence 573

Sentence Strategies for Classification 574

18 Comparing and Contrasting 576 Organizing Comparisons and Contrasts 576

Using Analogy to Compare 579

Sentence Strategies for Comparison and Contrast 581

19 Arguing 582 Asserting a Thesis 582

Make arguable assertions. 583 Use clear and precise wording. 584 Qualify the thesis appropriately. 584

Giving Reasons and Support 585 Use representative examples for support. 586 Use up-to-date, relevant, and accurate statistics. 587 Cite reputable authorities on relevant topics. 588 Use vivid, relevant anecdotes. 589 Use relevant textual evidence. 590

Responding to Objections and Alternatives 592

Acknowledge readers’ concerns. 592 Concede readers’ concerns. 593 Refute readers’ objections. 594

Logical Fallacies 595

Sentence Strategies for Argument 595

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xxxiiiContents

Analyzing Your Rhetorical Situation and Setting a Schedule 603

Choosing a Topic and Getting an Overview 604

Focusing Your Topic and Drafting Research Questions 606

Establishing a Research Log 606

Creating a Working Bibliography 606

Annotating Your Working Bibliography 607

Taking Notes on Your Sources 608

PART 4 Research Strategies

20 Planning a Research Project 602

21 Finding Sources and Conducting Field Research 609

Searching Library Catalogs and Databases 609

Use appropriate search terms. 610 Broaden or narrow your results. 610 Find books (and other sources). 611 Find articles in periodicals. 612 Find government documents and statistical information. 613 Find Web sites and interactive sources. 614

Conducting Field Research 616

Conduct observational studies. 617

618

Conduct interviews. 618

620

Conduct surveys. 621

22 Evaluating Sources 625 Choosing Relevant Sources 625

Choosing Reliable Sources 627 Who wrote it? 627 How recently was it published? 628 Is the source scholarly,

popular, or for a trade group? 628 Who published it? 629 How is the source written? 631 What does the source say? 631

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Synthesizing Sources 632

Acknowledging Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism 633

What does and does not need to be acknowledged? 633 Avoid plagiarism by acknowledging sources and quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing carefully. 634

Using Information from Sources to Support Your Claims 635

Decide whether to quote, paraphrase, or summarize. 636 Copy quotations exactly, or use italics, ellipses, and brackets to indicate changes. 636 Use in-text or block quotations. 639 Use punctuation to integrate quotations into your writing. 641 Paraphrase sources carefully. 641 Write summaries that present the source’s main ideas in a balanced and readable way. 643

23 Using Sources to Support Your Ideas 632

24 Citing and Documenting Sources in MLA Style 644

Citing Sources in the Text 645 DIRECTORY TO IN-TEXT-CITATION MODELS 645

Creating a List of Works Cited 649 DIRECTORY TO WORKS-CITED-LIST MODELS 649

Format your list of works cited. 650 Cite all sources, regardless of medium. 650

Student Research Project in MLA Style 665

25 Citing and Documenting Sources in APA Style 674

Citing Sources in the Text 674 DIRECTORY TO IN-TEXT-CITATION MODELS 674

Creating a List of References 676 DIRECTORY TO REFERENCE-LIST MODELS 676

A Sample Reference List 683

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xxxvContents

Preparing for an Exam 686

Taking the Exam 687

Read the exam carefully. 687 Review typical essay exam questions. 688 Write your answer. 693

PART 5 Composing Strategies for College and Beyond

26 Taking Essay Examinations 686

27 Creating a Portfolio 700 Purposes of a Writing Portfolio 700

Assembling a Portfolio for Your Composition Course 700

Select your work. 701 Reflect on your work and what you have learned. 702 Organize your portfolio. 703

28 Analyzing Visuals 704 Criteria for Analyzing Visuals 705 A Sample Analysis 707

29 Writing in Business and Scientific Genres 718 Business Letters 718

E-mail 720

Résumés 722

Job-Application Letters 722

Web Pages 724

Lab Reports 726

Writing about Your Service Experience 729 Find a topic. 731 Gather sources. 731

Writing for Your Service Organization 732

30 Writing for and about Your Community 729

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xxxvi Contents

How to Use This Handbook H-2

Keeping a Record of Your Own Errors H-3

S Sentence Boundaries H-5

S1 Comma Splices S2 Fused Sentences S3 Sentence Fragments

G Grammatical Sentences H-10

G1 Pronoun Reference G2 Pronoun Agreement G3 Relative Pronouns

G4 Pronoun Case G5 Verbs G6 Subject- Verb Agreement G7 Adjectives and Adverbs

E Effective Sentences H-27

E1 Missing Words E2 Shifts E3 Noun Agreement E4 Modifiers E5 Mixed Constructions E6 Integrated Quotations, Questions, and Thoughts E7 Parallelism E8 Coordination and Subordination

31 Writing Collaboratively 734 Working with Others on Your Individual Writing Projects 734

Collaborating on Joint Writing Projects 736

32 Designing for Page and Screen 738 The Impact of Design 738

Considering Purpose, Audience, Context, and Medium 739

Elements of Design 740 Choose readable fonts. 740 Use headings to organize your writing. 741 Use lists to highlight steps or key points. 742 Use colors

with care. 742 Use white space to make text readable. 744

Adding Visuals 744 Number, title, and label visuals. 748 Cite visual sources. 748 Integrate the visual into the text. 749 Use common sense when creating visuals on a computer. 750

33 Composing Multimodal Presentations 751 Preparing 751

Understand the kind of presentation you have been asked to give. 751 Assess your audience and purpose. 752 Determine how much information you can present in the allotted time. 752 Use cues to orient listeners. 753

Prepare effective and appropriate multimedia aids. 753 Verify that you will have the correct equipment and supplies. 754 Rehearse your presentation. 755

Delivering Your Presentation 755

Handbook

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xxxviiContents

W Word Choice H-43

W1 Concise Sentences W2 Exact Words W3 Appropriate Words

P Punctuation H-51

P1 Commas P2 Unnecessary Commas P3 Semicolons P4 Colons P5 Dashes P6 Quotation Marks P7 Apostrophes P8 Parentheses P9 Brackets P10 Ellipsis Marks P11 Slashes P12 Periods P13 Question Marks P14 Exclamation Points

M Mechanics H-71

M1 Hyphens M2 Capitalization M3 Spacing M4 Numbers M5 Italics M6 Abbreviations M7 Spelling

T Troublespots for Multilingual Writers H-85

T1 Articles T2 Verbs T3 Prepositions T4 Omitted or Repeated Words T5 Adjective Order T6 Participles

R Review of Sentence Structure H-95

R1 Basic Sentence Structure R2 Basic Sentence Elements

GL Glossary of Frequently Misused Words H-111

Index I-1

Index for Multilingual Writers I-27

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1

1

M ore people are writing today than ever before, and many are switching comfortably from one genre or medium to another — from tweeting to blogging to creating multimedia Web

pages. Learning to be effective as a writer is a continuous process

as you find yourself in new writing situations using new technolo-

gies and trying to anticipate the concerns of different audiences.

“The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who

cannot read and write,” futurist Alvin Toffler predicted, “but those

who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Composing Literacy

1

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CHAPTER 1 Composing Literacy2

Understanding the Rhetorical Situation Central to success in writing across the spectrum of possibilities today is understand- ing your rhetorical situation, any situation in which you produce or receive a text. Ask yourself these questions whenever you encounter a new rhetorical situation:

1. Who is the audience? How does the audience’s prior knowledge, values, and beliefs influence the production and reception of the text?

2. What genre or type of text is it? How do genre conventions (what we call the text’s basic features) influence the production and reception of the text?

3. When—at what time or for what occasion—is the text produced? Is it timely?

4. Where — in what social or cultural context — will the communication take place? How does the situation influence the production and reception of the text?

5. How — in what medium — is the text experienced? How does the medium influ- ence the production and reception of the text?

6. Why communicate? What is the purpose or goal driving the author’s choices and affecting the audience’s perceptions of the text?

Composing with an awareness of the rhetorical situation means writing not only to express yourself but also to engage your readers and respond to their concerns. You write to influence how your readers think and feel about a subject and, depending on the genre, perhaps also to inspire them to act.

Genres are simply ways of categorizing texts — for example, we can distinguish between fiction and nonfiction; subdivide fiction into romance, mystery, and science fiction genres; or break down mystery even further into hard-boiled detective, police procedural, true crime, and classic whodunit genres. Composing with genre aware- ness affects your choices — what you write about (topic), the claims you make (thesis), how you support those claims (reasons and evidence), and how you organize it all.

Each genre has a set of conventions, or basic features, readers expect texts in that genre to use. Although individual texts within the same genre vary a great deal — for example, no two proposals, even those arguing for the same solution, will be identical — they nonetheless include the same basic features. For example, everyone expects a proposal to identify the problem (usually establishing that it is serious enough to re- quire solving) and to offer a solution (usually arguing that it is preferable to alterna- tive solutions because it is less expensive or easier to implement).

Still, these conventions are not recipes but broad frameworks within which writ- ers are free to be creative. Most writers, in fact, find that frameworks make creativity possible. Depending on the formality of the rhetorical situation and the audience’s openness to innovation, writers may also remix features of different genres or media, as you will see in the Genre Remix sections of each Part One chapter.

Like genre, the medium in which you are working also affects many of your de- sign and content choices. For example, written texts can use color, type fonts, charts, diagrams, and still images to heighten the visual impact of the text, delivering infor- mation vividly and persuasively. If you are composing Web pages or apps, you have many more options to make your text truly multimedia — for example, by adding hyperlinks, animation, audio, video, and interactivity to your written text.

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Reflecting on Your Own Literacy 3

Reflecting on Your Own Literacy Learning — especially learning to communicate with new audiences and in new genres — benefits from what we call reflection (or metacognition) — thinking criti- cally about how as well as what you are learning. Extensive research confirms that reflection makes learning easier and faster. In fact, recent studies show that writing even a few sentences about your thoughts and feelings before a high-stress paper or exam can help you reduce stress and boost performance.

Spend a few minutes thinking about your own literacy experiences: What memo- ries stand out as formative? You may define literacy narrowly as the ability to read and write, as it has been traditionally defined, or you may think of it more broadly as the ability to make meaning in the multiplicity of languages and genres, media and com- munication practices we are increasingly called upon to use. Here are several ques- tions and examples that may help you remember and reflect on your own literacy experiences:

When did you realize that you use language differently for different audiences and purposes?

Recently, I was made keenly aware of the different Englishes I do use. I was giving a talk . . . about my writing, my life, and my book, The Joy Luck Club. The talk was going along well enough, until I remembered one major difference that made the whole talk sound wrong. My mother was in the room. And it was perhaps the first time she had heard me give a lengthy speech, using the kind of English I have never used with her. I was saying things like, “The intersection of memory upon imagination” and “There is an aspect of my fiction that relates to thus-and-thus”— a speech filled with carefully wrought grammatical phrases, burdened, it suddenly seemed to me, with nominalized forms, past perfect tenses, conditional phrases, all the forms of standard English that I had learned in school and through books, the forms of English I did not use at home with my mother.

— Novelist Amy Tan, from “Mother Tongue”

What do you think are the personal and cultural effects of acquiring new literacies (such as learning another language, using social media, playing sports or video games)?

I can remember my father bringing home our first [television] set — this ornate wooden cabinet that was the size of a small refrigerator, with a round cathode-ray picture tube and wooden speaker grilles over elaborate fabric. Like a piece of archaic furniture, even then. Everybody would gather around at a particular time for a broadcast — a baseball game or a variety show or something. . . . We know that something happened then. We know that broadcast television did some- thing — did everything — to us, and that now we aren’t the same, though broadcast television, in that sense, is already almost over. I can remember seeing the emer- gence of broadcast television, but I can’t tell what it did to us because I became that which watched broadcast television.

— Science fiction author William Gibson, from “The Art of Fiction No. 211” The Paris Reviews Interviews

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CHAPTER 1 Composing Literacy4

When did you discover that you had a talent or enthusiasm for a particular academic subject (such as history, math, literature, or science)?

Although I usually had to save my tiny allowance for things I wanted, that year for Christmas my parents gave me a microscope kit. . . . All that winter I played with the microscope. I prepared slides from things at hand, as the books suggested. I looked at the transparent membrane inside an onion’s skin and saw the cells. I looked at a section of cork and saw the cells, and at scrapings from the inside of my cheek, ditto. I looked at my blood and saw not much; I looked at my urine and saw long iridescent crystals, for the drop had dried.

All this was very well, but I wanted to see the wildlife I had read about. I wanted especially to see the famous amoeba, who had eluded me. He was supposed to live in the hay infusion, but I hadn’t found him there. He lived outside in warm ponds and streams, too, but I lived in Pittsburgh, and it had been a cold winter. Finally late that spring I saw an amoeba. . . . In the basement at my microscope table I spread a scummy drop of Frick Park puddle water on a slide, peeked in, and lo, there was the famous amoeba. He was as blobby and grainy as his picture; I would have known him anywhere.

Before I had watched him at all, I ran upstairs. My parents were still at the table, drinking coffee. They, too, could see the famous amoeba. I told them, bursting . . . Mother regarded me warmly. She gave me to understand that she was glad I had found what I had been looking for, but that she and Father were happy to sit with their coffee, and would not be coming down. She did not say, but I understood at once, that they had their pursuits (coffee) and I had mine. She did not say, but I began to understand then, that you do what you do out of your private passion for the thing itself.

— Naturalist and author Annie Dillard, from An American Childhood

How did reading stimulate your imagination?

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Reflecting on Your Own Literacy 5

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CHAPTER 1 Composing Literacy6

— Cartoonist and author Lynda Barry, an excerpt from “Lost and Found”

What was your experience when you were first learning something new (such as another language, an unfamiliar technology, a musical instrument)?

At the age of forty-one, I am returning to school and have to think of myself as what my French textbook calls “a true debutant.” After paying my tuition, I was issued a student ID, which allows me a discounted entry fee at movie theaters, puppet shows, and Festyland, a far-flung amusement park that advertises with billboards picturing a cartoon stegosaurus sitting in a canoe and eating what appears to be a ham sandwich.

I’ve moved to Paris with hopes of learning the language. My school is an easy ten-minute walk from my apartment, and on the first day of class I arrived early, watching as the returning students greeted one another in the school lobby. Vacations were recounted, and questions were raised concerning mutual friends with names like Kang and Vlatnya. Regardless of their nationalities, everyone spoke in what sounded to me like excellent French. Some accents were better than others, but the students exhibited an ease and confidence I found intimidating. As an added discomfort, they were all young, attractive, and well dressed, causing me to feel not unlike Pa Kettle trapped backstage after a fashion show.

The first day of class was nerve-racking because I knew I’d be expected to perform. That’s the way they do it here — it’s everybody into the language pool, sink or swim. The teacher marched in, deeply tanned from a recent vacation, and proceeded to rattle off a series of administrative announcements. I’ve spent quite a few summers in Normandy, and I took a monthlong French class before leaving

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Reflecting on Your Own Literacy 7

New York. I’m not completely in the dark, yet I understood only half of what this woman was saying.

“If you have not meimslsxp or lgpdmurct by this time, then you should not be in this room. Has everyone apzkiubjxow? Everyone? Good, we shall begin.” She spread out her lesson plan and sighed, saying, “All right, then, who knows the alphabet?”

It was startling because (a) I hadn’t been asked that question in a while and (b) I realized, while laughing, that I myself did not know the alphabet. They’re the same letters, but in France they’re pronounced differently. I know the shape of the alphabet but had no idea what it actually sounded like.

“Ahh.” The teacher went to the board and sketched the letter a. “Do we have anyone in the room whose first name commences with an ahh?”

Two Polish Annas raised their hands, and the teacher instructed them to pre sent themselves by stating their names, nationalities, occupations, and a brief list of things they liked and disliked in this world. The first Anna hailed from an industrial town outside of Warsaw and had front teeth the size of tombstones. She worked as a seamstress, enjoyed quiet times with friends, and hated the mosquito.

“Oh, really,” the teacher said. “How very interesting. I thought that everyone loved the mosquito, but here, in front of all the world, you claim to detest him. How is it that we’ve been blessed with someone as unique and original as you? Tell us, please.”

The seamstress did not understand what was being said but knew that this was an occasion for shame. Her rabbity mouth huffed for breath, and she stared down at her lap as though the appropriate comeback were stitched somewhere alongside the zipper of her slacks.

The second Anna learned from the first and claimed to love sunshine and detest lies. It sounded like a translation of one of those Playmate of the Month data sheets, the answers always written in the same loopy handwriting. “Turn-ons: Mom’s famous five-alarm chili! Turnoffs: insecurity and guys who come on too strong!!!!”

The two Polish Annas surely had clear notions of what they loved and hated, but like the rest of us, they were limited in terms of vocabulary, and this made them appear less than sophisticated. The teacher forged on, and we learned that Carlos, the Argentine bandonion player, loved wine, music, and, in his words, “making sex with the womens of the world.” Next came a beautiful young Yugoslav who identified herself as an optimist, saying that she loved everything that life had to offer.

The teacher licked her lips, revealing a hint of the saucebox we would later come to know. She crouched low for her attack, placed her hands on the young woman’s desk, and leaned close, saying, “Oh yeah? And do you love your little war?”

While the optimist struggled to defend herself, I scrambled to think of an answer to what had obviously become a trick question. How often is one asked what he loves in this world? More to the point, how often is one asked and then publicly ridiculed for his answer? I recalled my mother, flushed with wine,

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CHAPTER 1 Composing Literacy8

pounding the tabletop late one night, saying, “Love? I love a good steak cooked rare. I love my cat, and I love . . .” My sisters and I leaned forward, waiting to hear our names. “Tums,” our mother said. “I love Tums.”

The teacher killed some time accusing the Yugoslavian girl of masterminding a program of genocide, and I jotted frantic notes in the margins of my pad. While I can honestly say that I love leafing through medical textbooks devoted to severe dermatological conditions, the hobby is beyond the reach of my French vocabu- lary, and acting it out would only have invited controversy.

When called upon, I delivered an effortless list of things that I detest: blood sausage, intestinal pâtés, brain pudding. I’d learned these words the hard way. Having given it some thought, I then declared my love for IBM typewriters, the French word for bruise, and my electric floor waxer. It was a short list, but still I managed to mispronounce IBM and assign the wrong gender to both the floor waxer and the typewriter. The teacher’s reaction led me to believe that these mistakes were capital crimes in the country of France.

“Were you always this palicmkrexis?” she asked. “Even a fiuscrzsa ticiwelmun knows that a typewriter is feminine.”

I absorbed as much of her abuse as I could understand, thinking — but not saying — that I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object inca- pable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself. Why refer to Lady Crack Pipe or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?

The teacher proceeded to belittle everyone from German Eva, who hated laziness, to Japanese Yukari, who loved paintbrushes and soap. Italian, Thai, Dutch, Korean, and Chinese — we all left class foolishly believing that the worst was over. She’d shaken us up a little, but surely that was just an act designed to weed out the deadweight. We didn’t know it then, but the coming months would teach us what it was like to spend time in the presence of a wild animal, something completely unpredictable. Her temperament was not based on a series of good and bad days but, rather, good and bad moments. We soon learned to dodge chalk and protect our heads and stomachs whenever she approached us with a question. She hadn’t yet punched anyone, but it seemed wise to protect ourselves against the inevitable.

Though we were forbidden to speak anything but French, the teacher would occasionally use us to practice any of her five fluent languages.

“I hate you,” she said to me one afternoon. Her English was flawless. “I really, really hate you.” Call me sensitive, but I couldn’t help but take it personally.

After being singled out as a lazy kfdtinvfm, I took to spending four hours a night on my homework, putting in even more time whenever we were assigned an essay. I suppose I could have gotten by with less, but I was determined to create some sort of identity for myself: David the hard worker, David the cut-up. We’d have one of those “complete this sentence” exercises, and I’d fool with the thing for hours, invariably settling on something like “A quick run around the lake? I’d love to! Just give me a moment while I strap on my wooden leg.” The teacher, through word and action, conveyed the message that if this was my idea of an identity, she wanted nothing to do with it.

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Composing Your Own Literacy Narrative 9

My fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom and accompanied me out onto the wide boulevards. Stopping for a coffee, asking directions, depositing money in my bank account: these things were out of the question, as they involved having to speak. Before beginning school, there’d been no shutting me up, but now I was convinced that everything I said was wrong. When the phone rang, I ignored it. If someone asked me a question, I pretended to be deaf. I knew my fear was getting the best of me when I started wondering why they don’t sell cuts of meat in vending machines.

My only comfort was the knowledge that I was not alone. Huddled in the hallways and making the most of our pathetic French, my fellow students and I engaged in the sort of conversation commonly overheard in refugee camps.

“Sometime me cry alone at night.” “That be common for I, also, but be more strong, you. Much work and

someday you talk pretty. People start love you soon. Maybe tomorrow, okay.” Unlike the French class I had taken in New York, here there was no sense of

competition. When the teacher poked a shy Korean in the eyelid with a freshly sharpened pencil, we took no comfort in the fact that, unlike Hyeyoon Cho, we all knew the irregular past tense of the verb to defeat. In all fairness, the teacher hadn’t meant to stab the girl, but neither did she spend much time apologizing, saying only, “Well, you should have been vkkdyo more kdeynfulh.”

Over time it became impossible to believe that any of us would ever improve. Fall arrived and it rained every day, meaning we would now be scolded for the water dripping from our coats and umbrellas. It was mid-October when the teacher singled me out, saying, “Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.”

And it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word that someone was saying.

Understanding doesn’t mean that you can suddenly speak the language. Far from it. It’s a small step, nothing more, yet its rewards are intoxicating and deceptive. The teacher continued her diatribe and I settled back, bathing in the subtle beauty of each new curse and insult.

“You exhaust me with your foolishness and reward my efforts with nothing but pain, do you understand me?”

The world opened up, and it was with great joy that I responded, “I know the thing that you speak exact now. Talk me more, you, plus, please, plus.”

— Author and comedian David Sedaris, “Me Talk Pretty One Day”

Composing Your Own Literacy Narrative This chapter invites you to compose a literacy narrative. Your instructor may add specific requirements to this assignment, but in general you are to write about a memorable literacy experience—learning, unlearning, or relearning, as Toffler would say, to communicate with others. Below are some questions and examples to help you choose a subject. But let’s begin by considering the assignment’s rhetorical situation.

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CHAPTER 1 Composing Literacy10

Apply the rhetorical framework: who? what? when? where? how? and why? Since this is the beginning of a new course, you could view this assignment as an op- portunity to introduce yourself to your instructor and classmates by choosing a litera- cy experience, genre, or medium (assuming your instructor gives you leeway to choose) that would enable you to make a particular impression on your readers. For example, if you want to emphasize the importance of reading graphic novels or play- ing video games in your literacy development, you might consider composing your literacy narrative as a graphic memoir (like the Lynda Barry selection on pp. 4–6) or video game.

Like the remembered event narrative in Chapter 2, a literacy narrative tells a story about a person or event from your own life. To be effective, it must

tell a compelling story;

vividly describe the people and places;

convey the event or person’s significance in your life, how the event or person affected your literacy practices or your understanding of the power and complex- ity of the ways we try — and sometimes fail — to communicate with one another.

These are the basic features of the genre. The first part of the Guide to Reading in Chapter 2 (pp. 14–37) provides a more

detailed introduction to the basic features of remembered event narratives, and the Guide to Writing in that chapter (pp. 38–54) supports their drafting and revision. Use those sections to help you invent as you draft and revise your literacy narrative.

Devise a topic. You may already have an idea about what you’d like to write about. But if not, the fol- lowing ideas may give you a jumping-off point:

an influential person who played a role — for good or ill — in your literacy education;

a challenging project that required using a literacy you had not yet mastered;

an occasion when you had to display literacy in a particular academic discipline;

a new literacy you had to learn at a workplace;

an experience learning how to communicate better with classmates, team mem- bers, siblings, or people in your community.

Your instructor may ask you to post your thoughts to a class discussion board or com- pose a fully developed literacy narrative like the example by David Sedaris on pp. 6–9. If your instructor approves, you might also consider using multimedia — for example, creating a Web page with visuals, audio, and video.

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2 Remembering an Event 00

3 Writing Profiles 00

4 Explaining a Concept 00

5 Finding Common Ground 00

6 Arguing a Position 00

7 Proposing a Solution 00

8 Justifying an Evaluation 00

9 Speculating about Causes 00

10 Analyzing Stories 00

PART 1

Writing Activities

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2 Remembering an Event 12

3 Writing Profiles 59

4 Explaining a Concept 119

5 Analyzing and Synthesizing Opposing Arguments 170

6 Arguing a Position 229

7 Proposing a Solution 283

8 Justifying an Evaluation 335

9 Arguing for Causes or Effects 385

10 Analyzing Stories 440

PART ONE

Writing Activities

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CHAPTER 2 Remembering an Event12

12

2 Remembering an Event

W ere you arrested—when you were thirteen? Why would a child remember being chased by an adult stranger as glorious? Have you been haunted by something you did? These

are just a few of the exhilarating, disquieting, even terrifying sub-

jects remembered in this chapter. The kind of autobiography you

will be reading and writing in this chapter is public, intended to be

read by others. Writing for others enables us not only to revisit our

past, but also gives us an opportunity to represent ourselves to

others. Our own and other people’s life stories can help us see

ourselves differently. They can give us insight into the cultural

influences that helped shape who we are and what we value. They

can show us what we have in common with others as well as what

makes each of us distinctive.

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13Remembering an Event

People write memoirs for various purposes and audiences and publish them as narratives or graphics in a variety of media (print, digital, audiovisual). In college courses, you may be invited to use your own experience as an example or a kind of case study to apply, analyze, or evaluate ideas you are studying. A student in a linguis- tics course, for example, might analyze a conversation she had with her brother by looking at it through the lens of Deborah Tannen’s theory that women tend to view problems as opportunities to share their feelings whereas men typically treat prob- lems as occasions for practical solutions. In the community, writers may reveal per- sonal stories to educate and inspire. For example, a blogger may reveal her own history of domestic violence to help readers understand how some victims become trapped by their own hope and denial. Even in professional and business settings, personal stories can play a role. At a conference, a manager might use the story of his encounter with a disgruntled employee to open a discussion of ways to defuse confrontations in the workplace.

In this chapter, we ask you to write about an event you remember. Choose one that will engage your instructor and classmates, that has significance for you, and that you feel comfortable sharing. From reading and analyzing the selections in the Guide to Reading that follows, you will learn how to make your own story interest- ing, even exciting, to read. The Guide to Writing (pp. 38–54) will show you ways to use the basic features of the genre to tell your story vividly and dramatically, to enter- tain readers but also to give them insight into the event’s significance — its meaning and importance.

PRACTICING THE GENRE

Telling a Story The success of remembered event writing depends on how well you tell your story. The challenge is to make the story compelling and meaningful for readers, to make readers care about the storyteller and curious to know what happened. To practice creating an intriguing story about an event in your life, get together with two or three other students and follow these guidelines:

Part 1. Choose an event that you feel comfortable describing and think about what makes it memorable (for example, a conflict with someone else or within yourself, the strong or mixed feelings it evokes, the cultural attitudes it reflects). What will be the turning point, or climax, and how will you build up to it? Then take turns telling your stories.

Part 2. After telling your stories, discuss what you learned: What did you learn about the genre from listening to others’ stories? Tell each other what struck you most on hearing each other’s stories. For example, identify something in the story that was engaging (by being suspenseful, edgy, or funny, perhaps) or that helped you identify with the storyteller. What do you think the point or significance of the story is — in other words, what makes the event so memorable?

Think of a storytelling strategy someone else used that you could try in your own story. For example, could you use dialogue to show how someone talks and acts, vivid details to describe how the scene looked and felt, action verbs to make the story excit- ing, reflection to clarify why the story was significant to you?

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Analyzing Remembered Event Essays As you read the selections in this chapter, you will see how different authors craft sto- ries about an important event in their lives.

Jean Brandt looks back on getting caught shoplifting (pp. 18–22)

Annie Dillard recalls the consequences of a childhood prank (pp. 22–24)

Jenée Desmond-Harris reflects on the death of her idol, rapper Tupac Shakur (pp. 27–29)

Peter Orner struggles to understand why he swiped something his father valued (pp. 32–34)

Analyzing how these writers tell a dramatic, well-focused story; use vivid, specific de- scription to enliven their writing; and choose details and words that help readers un- derstand why the event was so memorable will help you see how you can employ these same techniques when writing your own autobiographical story.

Determine the writer’s purpose and audience. Many people write about important events in their lives to archive their memories and to learn something about themselves. Choosing events that are important to them personally, writers strive to imbue their stories with meaning and feeling that will reso- nate with readers. That is, they seek to help readers appreciate what we call the event’s autobiographical significance — why the event is so memorable for the writer and what it might mean for readers. Often writers use autobiographical stories to reflect on a conflict that remains unresolved or one they still do not fully understand. Autobio- graphical stories may not only prompt readers to reflect on the writer’s complicated and ambivalent emotions, puzzling motivations, and strained relationships. They may also help readers see larger cultural themes in these stories or understand implications the writer may not even have considered.

When reading the selections about remembered events that follow, ask yourself questions like these:

What seems to be the writer’s purpose (or multiple, perhaps even conflicting purposes)?

to understand what happened and why, perhaps to confront unconscious and possibly uncomplimentary motives?

to relive an intense experience that might resonate with readers and lead them to reflect on similar experiences of their own?

to win over readers, perhaps to justify or rationalize choices made, actions taken, or words used?

to use personal experience as an example that readers are likely to understand?

to reflect on cultural attitudes at the time the event occurred, perhaps in contrast to current ways of thinking?

GUIDE TO READING

14

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15GUIDE TO READINGGUIDE TO WRITING A WRITER AT WORK THINKING CRITICALLY

Analyzing Remembered Event Essays

How does the author want readers to react?

to understand or empathize with the writer?

to think anew about a similar experience of their own?

to see the writer’s experience as symptomatic of a broader social phenomenon?

to assess how well the story applies to other people and situations?

Assess the genre’s basic features. As you read about the remembered events in this chapter, analyze and evaluate how different authors use the basic features of the genre. The examples that follow are taken from the reading selections that appear later in this Guide to Reading.

A WELL-TOLD STORY

Read first to see how the story attempts to engage readers:

by letting readers into the storyteller’s (or narrator’s) point of view (for example, by using the first-person pronoun I to narrate the story);

by arousing curiosity and suspense;

by clarifying or resolving the underlying conflict through a change or discovery of some kind.

Many of these basic narrative elements can be visualized in the form of a dramatic arc (see Figure 2.1), which you can analyze to see how a story creates and resolves dramatic tension.

Basic Features A Well-Told Story Vivid Description Significance

Exposition/ Inciting Incident

Rising Action

Climax

Falling Action

Conclusion/ Reflection

Exposition/Inciting Incident: Background information and scene setting, introducing the characters and the initial conflict or problem that sets off the action, arousing curiosity and suspense

Rising Action: The developing crisis, possibly leading to other conflicts and complications

Climax: The emotional high point, often a turning point marking a change for good or ill

Falling Action: Resolution of tension and unraveling of conflicts; may include a final surprise

Conclusion/Reflection: Conflicts come to an end but may not be fully resolved, and writer may reflect on the event’s meaning and importance—its significance

FIGURE 2.1 Dramatic Arc The shape of the arc varies from story to story: Not all stories devote the same amount of space to each element, and some may omit an element or include more than one.

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CHAPTER 2 Remembering an Event16

Notice the narrating strategies used to create action sequences. Narrating action se- quences relies on such strategies as using action verbs (such as walked ) in different tenses or in conjunction with prepositional phrases or other cues of time or location to depict movement and show the relation among actions in time. In the following example, notice that I walked occurred in the past — after I had found and before I was about to drop it:

I walked back to the basket where I had found the button and was about to drop it when suddenly, instead, I took a quick glance around, assured myself no one could see, and slipped the button into the pocket of my sweatshirt. (Brandt, par. 3)

In addition to moving the narrative along, action sequences may also contribute to the overall or dominant impression and help readers understand the event’s signifi- cance. In this example, Brandt’s actions show her ambivalence or inner conflict. While her actions seem impulsive (“suddenly”), they are also self-conscious, evidenced by her stopping midway to see if anyone is watching.

VIVID DESCRIPTION OF PEOPLE AND PLACES

Look for the describing strategies of naming, detailing, and comparing. In this example, Annie Dillard uses all three strategies to create a vivid description of a Pittsburgh street on one memorable winter morning:

The cars’ tires laid behind them on the snowy street a complex trail of beige chunks like crenellated castle walls. I had stepped on some earlier; they squeaked. (Dillard, par. 5)

Notice the senses the description evokes. In the example above, Dillard relies mainly on visual details to identify color, texture, and shape of the snowy tire tracks. But she also tells us what the chunks of snow sounded like when stepped on.

Think about the impression made by the descriptions, particularly by the comparisons (similes and metaphors). For example, Dillard’s comparison of tire tracks to crenellated castle walls suggests a kind of starry-eyed romanticism, an impression that is echoed by her reflections at the end of the story. As you will see, descriptions like this contribute to an overall or dominant impression that helps readers grasp the event’s significance.

Finally, notice how dialogue is used to portray people and their relationships. Autobi- ographers use dialogue to characterize the people involved in the event, showing what they’re like by depicting how they talk and interact. Speaker tags identify who is speak- ing and indicate the speaker’s tone or attitude. Here’s a brief example that comes at the climax of Dillard’s story when the man finally catches the kids he’s been chasing:

“You stupid kids,” he began perfunctorily. (Dillard, par. 18)

Consider why the writer chose to quote, paraphrase, or summarize. Quoting can give dialogue immediacy, intensify a confrontation, and shine a spotlight on a relation- ship. For example, Brandt uses quoting to make an inherently dramatic interaction that much more intense.

Action verbs

Speaker tag

Naming

Detailing

Comparing

For more on describing strategies, see Chapter 15.

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17Analyzing Remembered Event Essays

“I don’t understand. What did you take? Why did you do it? You had plenty of money with you.”

“I know but I just did it. I can’t explain why. Mom, I’m sorry.”

“I’m afraid sorry isn’t enough. I’m horribly disappointed in you.” (pars. 33–35)

Paraphrasing enables the writer to choose words for their impact or contribution to the dominant impression.

Next thing I knew, he was talking about calling the police and having me arrested and thrown in jail, as if he had just nabbed a professional thief instead of a terrified kid. (Brandt, par. 7)

The clichés (thrown in jail and nabbed ) mock the security guard, aligning Brandt with her father’s criticism of the police at the story’s end.

Summarizing gives the gist. Sometimes writers use summary because what was said or how it was said isn’t as important as the mere fact that something was said:

. . . the chewing out was redundant, a mere formality, and beside the point. (Dillard, par. 19)

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Look for remembered feelings and thoughts from the time the event occurred. Notice in the first example that Brandt announces her thoughts and feelings before describing them, but in the second example she simply shows her feelings by her actions:

The thought of going to jail terrified me. . . . I felt alone and scared. (par. 17)

Long after we got off the phone,. . . I could still distinctly hear the disappointment and hurt in my mother’s voice. I cried. (36)

Look also for present perspective reflections about the past. In this example, Desmond- Harris uses rhetorical questions (questions she poses and then answers) to set up her present-day adult perspective on her past.

Did we take ourselves seriously? Did we feel a real stake in the life of this “hard-core” gangsta rapper, and a real loss in his death? We did, even though we were two mixed-race girls raised by our white moms in a privileged community. . . . (par. 8)

Notice that writers sometimes express both their past and present feelings, possibly to contrast them or to show that they have not changed. Observe the time cues Orner and Desmond-Harris use to distinguish between past and present feelings:

Now that he is older and far milder, it is hard to believe how scared I used to be of my father. (Orner, par. 8)

I mourned Tupac’s death then, and continue to mourn him now, because his music represents the years when I was both forced and privileged to confront what it meant to be black. (Desmond-Harris, par. 9)

Paraphrase cue

Summary cue

Emotional response

Rhetorical questions

Time cues

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CHAPTER 2 Remembering an Event18

Mark word choices in descriptive and narrative passages that contribute to the dominant impression and help to show why the event or person was significant. For example, Brandt shows her feeling of shame vividly in this passage:

As the officers led me through the mall, I sensed a hundred pairs of eyes staring at me. My face flushed and I broke out in a sweat. (par. 18)

Consider whether the story’s significance encompasses mixed or ambivalent feelings and still-unresolved conflicts. For example, notice the seesawing of feelings Brandt reports:

Right after shoplifting, Brandt tells us “I thought about how sly [I] had been” and that “I felt proud of [my] accomplishment” (par. 5).

After she is arrested, she acknowledges mixed feelings: “Being searched, although embarrassing, somehow seemed to be exciting. . . . I was having fun” (19).

It is only when she has to face her mother that Brandt lets her intense feelings show: “For the first time that night, I was close to tears” (26).

At the end, however, by transferring the blame from Brandt to the police, her father seems to leave the conflict essentially unresolved and repressed: “Although it would never be forgotten, the incident was not mentioned again” (38).

Readings

Jean Brandt Calling Home

AS a first-year college student, Jean Brandt wrote about a memorable event that occurred when she was thirteen: She shoplifted and was caught. As you read about Brandt’s experi- ence, you might want to think about these shoplifting factoids (unreliable because they show who is getting caught, but not necessarily who is shoplifting): According to the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention (NASP), shoplifting is pretty equal among genders, socioeconomic classes, and ethnicities, and contrary to expectation, only about 25 percent of shoplifters are kids, including teenagers (shopliftingprevention.org); Christmas season is a peak shoplifting period; some shoplifters report a “high” after getting away with it; shoplifting is seldom premeditated, and is possibly related to peer pressure and what is often called “consumer culture,” the ideology that buying things brings intangibles like happiness, status, identity, belonging.

As you read,

Brandt or your understanding of her story.

she does, given that she was writing for her instructor and classmates.

answers to a class blog or discussion board or bring your responses to class.

To learn about Brandt’s process of writing this essay, turn to A Writer at Work on pp. 54–56. How did Brandt discover the central conflict and significance of her story?

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19Brandt Calling Home

How well do these descriptive details help you visualize the scene?

Basic Features A Well-Told Story Vivid Description Significance

As we all piled into the car, I knew it was going to be a fabulous day. My

grandmother was visiting for the holidays; and she and I, along with my older brother

and sister, Louis and Susan, were setting off for a day of last-minute Christmas

shopping. On the way to the mall, we sang Christmas carols, chattered, and laughed.

With Christmas only two days away, we were caught up with holiday spirit. I felt

light-headed and full of joy. I loved shopping — especially at Christmas.

The shopping center was swarming with frantic last-minute shoppers like

ourselves. We went first to the General Store, my favorite. It carried mostly knickknacks

and other useless items which nobody needs but buys anyway. I was thirteen years old

at the time, and things like buttons and calendars and posters would catch my fancy.

This day was no different. The object of my desire was a 75-cent Snoopy button. Snoopy

was the latest. If you owned anything with the Peanuts on it, you were “in.” But since

I was supposed to be shopping for gifts for other people and not myself, I couldn’t

decide what to do. I went in search of my sister for her opinion. I pushed my way

through throngs of people to the back of the store where I found Susan. I asked her

if she thought I should buy the button. She said it was cute and if I wanted it to go

ahead and buy it.

When I got back to the Snoopy section, I took one look at the lines at the cashiers

and knew I didn’t want to wait thirty minutes to buy an item worth less than one dollar.

I walked back to the basket where I had found the button and was about to drop it when

suddenly, instead, I took a quick glance around, assured myself no one could see, and

slipped the button into the pocket of my sweatshirt.

I hesitated for a moment, but once the item was in my pocket, there was no

turning back. I had never before stolen anything; but what was done was done. A few

seconds later, my sister appeared and asked, “So, did you decide to buy the button?”

“No, I guess not.” I hoped my voice didn’t quaver. As we headed for the

entrance, my heart began to race. I just had to get out of that store. Only a few

more yards to go and I’d be safe. As we crossed the threshold, I heaved a sigh of

relief. I was home free. I thought about how sly I had been and I felt proud of my

accomplishment.

An unexpected tap on my shoulder startled me. I whirled around to find a

middle-aged man, dressed in street clothes, flashing some type of badge and politely asking

1

2

3

4

5

6

What is your first impression of Brandt?

How do these action verbs (highlighted) and dialogue contribute to the drama?

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CHAPTER 2 Remembering an Event20

me to empty my pockets. Where did this man come from? How did he know? I was so

sure that no one had seen me! On the verge of panicking, I told myself that all I had to

do was give this man his button back, say I was sorry, and go on my way. After all, it

was only a 75-cent item.

Next thing I knew, he was talking about calling the police and having me arrested

and thrown in jail, as if he had just nabbed a professional thief instead of a terrified

kid. I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“Jean, what’s going on?”

The sound of my sister’s voice eased the pressure a bit. She always managed to get

me out of trouble. She would come through this time too.

“Excuse me. Are you a relative of this young girl?”

“Yes, I’m her sister. What’s the problem?”

“Well, I just caught her shoplifting and I’m afraid I’ll have to call the police.”

“What did she take?”

“This button.”

“A button? You are having a thirteen-year-old arrested for stealing a button?”

“I’m sorry, but she broke the law.”

The man led us through the store and into an office, where we waited for the police

officers to arrive. Susan had found my grandmother and brother, who, still shocked,

didn’t say a word. The thought of going to jail terrified me, not because of jail itself,

but because of the encounter with my parents afterward. Not more than ten minutes

later, two officers arrived and placed me under arrest. They said that I was to be taken

to the station alone. Then, they handcuffed me and led me out of the store. I felt alone

and scared. I had counted on my sister being with me, but now I had to muster up the

courage to face this ordeal all by myself.