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Models for Writers Short Essays for Composition THIRTEENTH EDITION

Alfred Rosa Paul Eschholz University of Vermont

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For Bedford/St. Martin’s

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Acknowledgments

Text acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on pages 661–64, which constitute an extension of the copyright

page. Art acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art selections they cover.

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Preface

Models for Writers, now in its thirteenth edition, continues to offer students and instructors brief, accessible, high-interest models of rhetorical elements, principles, and patterns. As important as it is for students to read while they are learning to write college-level essays, Models for Writers offers more than a collection of essays. Through the abundant study materials that accompany each selection, students master the writing skills they will need for all their college classes. Writing activities and assignments give students the chance to stitch together the various rhetorical elements into coherent, forceful essays of their own. This approach, which has helped several million students become better writers, remains at the heart of the book.

In this edition, we continue to emphasize the classic features of Models for Writers that have won praise from teachers and students alike. In addition, we have strengthened the book by introducing new selections and new perspectives, and we have emphasized the student voices that resound throughout the book. For the first time, this edition is also available with LaunchPad, which has an interactive e-book, reading quizzes, extra practice with reading and writing through LearningCurve adaptive quizzing, and more.

Favorite Features of Models for Writers

Brief, lively readings that provide outstanding models. Most of the seventy professional selections and all seven of the sample student essays in Models for Writers are comparable in length (two to four pages) to the essays students will write themselves, and each clearly illustrates a basic rhetorical element, principle, or pattern. Just as important, the essays deal with subjects that we know from our own teaching experience will spark the interest of most college students. In addition, the range of voices, cultural perspectives, and styles represented in the essays will resonate with today’s students. They will both enjoy and benefit from reading and writing about selections by many well-known authors, including Judith Ortiz Cofer, Stephen King, Anne Lamott, Amy Tan, Maya Angelou, David Sedaris, Langston Hughes, Bharati Mukherjee, Mary Sherry, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Introductory chapters on reading and writing. Throughout the chapters in Part One, students review the writing process from fresh angles and learn how to use the essays they read to improve their own writing. Chapter 1, The Writing Process, details the steps in the writing process and illustrates them with a student essay in progress. A dedicated section

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on thesis statements, Develop Your Thesis, includes a clear five-step process to help students through the challenge of arriving at an effective thesis statement from a broad topic. Chapter 2, From Reading to Writing, shows students how to use the apparatus in the text, provides them with guidelines for critical reading, and demonstrates with three student essays (narrative, responsive, and argumentative) how they can generate their own writing from reading.

An easy-to-follow rhetorical organization. Each of the twenty-one rhetorically based chapters in Models for Writers is devoted to a particular element or pattern important to college writing. Chapters 3 through 10 focus on the concepts of thesis, unity, organization, beginnings and endings, paragraphs, transitions, effective sentences, and writing with sources. Chapter 11 illustrates the importance of controlling diction and tone, and Chapter 12, the uses of figurative language. Chapters 13 through 21 explore the types of writing most often required of college students: illustration, narration, description, process analysis, definition, division and classification, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and argument. Chapter 22, Combining Models, shows students how these writing strategies can be combined to achieve a writer’s purpose.

Flexible arrangement. Each chapter is self-contained so that instructors can easily follow their own teaching sequences, omitting or emphasizing certain chapters according to the needs of their students or the requirements of the course.

Abundant study materials. To help students use the readings to improve their writing, every essay is accompanied by ample study materials.

Reflecting on What You Know activities precede each reading and prompt students to explore their own ideas and experiences regarding the issues presented in the reading.

Thinking Critically about This Reading questions follow each essay and encourage students to consider the writer’s assumptions, make connections not readily apparent, or explore the broader implications of the selection.

Questions for Study and Discussion focus on the selection’s content, the author’s purpose, and the particular strategy the author used to achieve that purpose. To remind students that good writing is never one-dimensional, at least one question in each series focuses on a writing concern other than the one highlighted in the chapter.

Classroom Activities provide brief exercises that enable students to work (often in groups) on rhetorical elements, techniques, or patterns. These activities range from developing thesis statements to using strong action verbs and building argumentative evidence, and they

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encourage students to apply concepts modeled in the readings to their own writing. Several activities throughout the book also provide students with examples of career-related writing to demonstrate that critical reading, writing, and thinking skills are crucial beyond the college classroom. Several new activities invite students to employ different learning strategies and understand a concept through movement, visuals, or other hands-on and collaborative practice.

Suggested Writing Assignments provide at least two writing assignments for each essay, encouraging students to use the reading selection as a direct model, asking them to respond to the content of the reading, or expanding the selection topic to include their personal experience or outside research.

Concise and interesting chapter introductions. Writing instructors who use Models for Writers continue to be generous in their praise for the brief, clear, practical, and student- friendly chapter introductions that explain the various elements and patterns. In each introduction, students will find illuminating examples — many written by students — of the feature or principle under discussion.

Practical instruction on working with sources. One of the biggest challenges student writers face is incorporating supporting evidence from other writers into their essays. In Chapter 1, The Writing Process, students find clear advice on developing strong thesis statements and marshaling evidence and support. Chapter 10 models strategies for taking effective notes from sources; using signal phrases to integrate quotations, summaries, and paraphrases smoothly; synthesizing sources; and avoiding plagiarism. Further reviewing the steps and skills involved in research and synthesis, Chapter 23, A Brief Guide to Writing a Research Paper, provides one full-length MLA-style model student research paper and the cover sheet, first page, and list of references for one APA-style model student research paper (the entire paper is offered online in LaunchPad). Thus, students become more confident in joining academic conversations and in writing the kinds of essays that they will be called on to write in their college courses.

Targeted instruction on sentence grammar. Chapter 24, Editing for Grammar, Punctuation, and Sentence Style, addresses editing concerns that instructors across the country have identified as the most problematic for their students, such as run-on sentences, verb tense shifts, comma splices, sentence fragments, and dangling and misplaced modifiers. Brief explanations and hand-edited examples show students how to find and correct these common errors in their own writing. Also available in this new

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edition are a host of online tutorials and self-paced, adaptive activities for further practice with grammatical and mechanical concepts.

An alternate table of contents showing thematic clusters. The alternate table of contents (pp. xxxi–xxxvi) groups readings into twenty-four clusters, each with three to eight essays sharing a common theme. Students and instructors attracted to the theme of one essay in Models for Writers can consult this alternate table of contents to find other essays in the book that address the same theme.

Glossary of Useful Terms. Cross-referenced in many of the questions and writing assignments throughout the book, this list of key terms defines rhetorical and literary terms that student writers need to know. Terms that are explained in the Glossary (pp. 647–60) are shown in boldface the first time they appear in a chapter.

New to the Thirteenth Edition of Models for Writers

Engaging, informative, and diverse new readings. Twenty-three of the book’s seventy readings are new to this edition of Models for Writers — ideal models by both new and established writers. We selected these essays for their brevity and clarity, for their effectiveness as models, and for their potential to develop critical thinking and writing on interesting and relevant topics. Among the new readings are Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Against Meat,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “We Should All Be Feminists,” Jonah Berger’s “The Power of Conformity,” Misty Copeland’s “Life in Motion,” and Marie Kondo’s “Designate a Place for Each Thing.”

More attention to student writing. A clearer design emphasizes the student writing in each chapter introduction, showing students the power of their words to serve as models for each chapter theme. A new student essay by Libby Marlowe in the Chapter 21 argument cluster on crime demonstrates how to enter a conversation and use texts from Models for Writers to write an effective argument.

Compelling new examples of argument. A timely new argument cluster in Chapter 21, Argument, features a new group of readings on “Conflict: Using Language to Seek Resolution” by diverse voices: an expert on conflict resolution, a political journalist, and a Cincinnati police officer.

Updated MLA coverage. A section in Chapter 23, A Brief Guide to Writing a Research Paper, aligns formatting and citation examples with the 2016 Modern Language

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Association guidelines.

LaunchPad for Models for Writers. LaunchPad, Macmillan’s customizable online course space, includes auto-scored reading comprehension quizzes and an interactive e-Book version of the text. A digital tutorial in Chapter 1 transforms the writing process into an interactive walk-through, and annotation activities in Chapter 2 allow students to practice close reading in the digital environment. The LaunchPad also offers an array of new materials, including LearningCurve adaptive quizzing, multimedia tutorials, and other resources that you can adapt, assign, and mix with your own.

Acknowledgments

In response to the many thoughtful reviews from instructors who use this book, we have maintained the solid foundation of the previous edition of Models for Writers while adding fresh readings and writing topics to stimulate today’s student writers.

We are indebted to many people for their advice as we prepared this thirteenth edition. We are especially grateful to Michael Alvarez, Southern Maine Community College; Shannon G. Blair, Central Piedmont Community College; Elizabeth Catanese, Community College of Philadelphia; Tamera Davis, Northern Oklahoma College: Stillwater; Stacey Frazier, Northern Oklahoma College; Cynthia C. Galvan, Milwaukee Area Technical College; Maria Gonzalez, Miami Dade College; Jacqueline Gray, St. Charles Community College; Nile Hartline, DMACC; Liz Mathews, University of the Incarnate Word; Jean E. Mittelstaedt, Chemeketa Community College; Carrie Myers, Lehigh Carbon Community College; Michelle Patton, Fresno City College; Jose Reyes, El Paso Community College; Donald Stinson, Northern Oklahoma College; Stephen Turner, Milwaukee Area Technical College; Magdeleine Vandal, Carroll Community College; Robert Vettese, Southern Maine Community College; Vita Watkins, Glendale Community College; and Katherine Woodbury, Southern Maine Community College.

It has been our good fortune to have the editorial guidance and good cheer of Leah Rang, our developmental editor on this book, and Stephanie Cohen, assistant editor. We have also benefited from the great contributions to this edition by Andrew J. Hoffman, Elizabeth Catanese, and Jonathan Douglas, as well as the careful eye of Pamela Lawson, our content project manager, and the rest of the excellent team at Bedford/St. Martin’s — Edwin Hill, Leasa Burton, John Sullivan, and Joy Fisher Williams — as we planned, developed, and wrote this new edition. Our special thanks go to the late Tom Broadbent — our mentor and

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original editor at St. Martin’s Press — who helped us breathe life and soul into Models for Writers in its earliest editions. The lessons that he shared with us during our fifteen-year partnership have stayed with us throughout our careers.

Thanks also to Sarah Federman, who authored the new material for the Instructor’s Manual. Our greatest debt is, as always, to our students — especially James Duffy, Trena Isley, Jake Jamieson, Zoe Ockenga, and Jeffrey Olesky, whose papers appear in this text — for all they have taught us over the years. Finally, we thank each other, partners in this writing and teaching venture for over four decades.

Alfred Rosa Paul Eschholz

We’re All In. As Always.

Bedford/St. Martin’s is as passionately committed to the discipline of English as ever, working hard to provide support and services that make it easier for you to teach your course your way.

Find community support at the Bedford/St. Martin’s English Community (community.macmillan.com), where you can follow our Bits blog for new teaching ideas, download titles from our professional resource series, and review projects in the pipeline.

Choose curriculum solutions that offer flexible custom options, combining our carefully developed print and digital resources, acclaimed works from Macmillan’s trade imprints, and your own course or program materials to provide the exact resources your students need.

Rely on outstanding service from your Bedford/St. Martin’s sales representative and editorial team. Contact us or visit macmillanlearning.com to learn more about any of the options below.

LaunchPad for Models for Writers: 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 assessment tools in a fully customizable course space; then assign and mix our resources with yours.

A digital tutorial in Chapter 1 transforms the writing process into an interactive walk- through, and annotation activities in Chapter 2 allow students to practice close reading in the digital environment.

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Reading comprehension quizzes accompany every professional reading selection in this edition.

Diagnostics provide opportunities to assess areas for improvement and assign additional exercises based on students’ needs. Visual reports show performance by topic, class, and student as well as improvement over time.

Pre-built units — including readings, videos, quizzes, and more — are easy to adapt and assign by adding your own materials and mixing them with our high-quality multimedia content and ready-made assessment options, such as LearningCurve adaptive quizzing and Exercise Central.

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.

LaunchPad for Models for Writers can be purchased on its own or packaged with the print book at a significant discount. An activation code is required. To order LaunchPad for Models for Writers with the print book, use ISBN 978-1-319-14476-0. For more information, go to launchpadworks.com

Choose from Alternative Formats of Models for Writers

Bedford/St. Martin’s offers a range of formats. Choose what works best for you and your students:

Paperback To order the paperback edition, use ISBN 978-1-319-05665-0.

High school To order the hardcover high school edition, use ISBN 978-1-319-05668-1.

Popular e-Book formats For details about our e-Book partners, visit macmillanlearning.com/ebooks.

Select Value Packages

Add value to your text by packaging one of the following resources with Models for Writers.

LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers allows students to work on what 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:

Pre-built units that support a learning arc.Each easy-to-assign unit is comprised of a pre-

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test check, multimedia instruction and assessment, and a post-test that assesses what students have learned about critical reading, the writing process, using sources, grammar, style, and mechanics. Dedicated units also offer help for multilingual writers.

Diagnostics that help establish a baseline for instruction. Assign diagnostics to identify areas of strength and for improvement and to help students plan a course of study. Use visual reports to track performance by topic, class, and student as well as improvement over time.

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 concepts at hand.

Twenty-five reading selections with comprehension quizzes. Assign a range of classic and contemporary essays each of which includes a label indicating Lexile level to help you scaffold instruction in critical reading.

Adaptive quizzing for targeted learning. Most units include LearningCurve, game-like adaptive quizzing that focuses on the areas in which each student needs the most help.

Additional reading comprehension quizzes. Models for Writers includes multiple-choice quizzes, which help you quickly gauge your students’ understanding of the assigned reading. These are available in LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers.

LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers can be packaged with Models for Writers at a significant discount. For more information, contact your sales representative or visit macmillanlearning.com/readwrite.

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

Smart search. Built on research with more than 1,600 student writers, the smart search in Writer’s Help provides reliable results even when students use novice terms, such as flow and unstuck.

Trusted content from our best-selling handbooks. Choose Writer’s Help 2.0, Hacker Version, or Writer’s Help 2.0, Lunsford Version, and ensure that students have clear advice and examples for all of their writing questions.

Diagnostics that help establish a baseline for instruction. Assign diagnostics to identify areas of strength and areas for improvement and to help students plan a course of study. Use visual reports to track performance by topic, class, and student as well as improvement

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over time.

Adaptive exercises that engage students. Writer’s Help 2.0 includes LearningCurve, game- like online quizzing that adapts to what students already know and helps them focus on what they need to learn.

Reading comprehension quizzes. Models for Writers includes multiple-choice quizzes, which help you quickly gauge your students’ understanding of the assigned reading. These are available in Writer’s Help 2.0.

Writer’s Help 2.0 can be packaged with Models for Writers at a significant discount. For more information, contact your sales representative or visit macmillanlearning.com/writershelp2.

Instructor Resources

You have a lot to do in your course. We want to make it easy for you to find the support you need — and to get it to you quickly.

Instructor’s Manual for Models for Writers is available as a PDF that can be downloaded from macmillanlearning.com. Visit the instructor resources tab for Models for Writers. In addition to suggested answers for each selection’s critical reading and study questions, the instructor’s manual includes essay analysis and discussion, as well as tips to help students think critically about what they have read. Also included in the manual are two sample course plans for first-year composition courses — one fifteen weeks, one ten weeks — and a complete sample syllabus for a fifteen-week developmental English course.

Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA) Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition

In 2014 the Council of Writing Program Administrators updated its desired outcomes for first-year composition courses. The following chart provides detailed information on how Models for Writers helps students build proficiency and achieve the learning outcomes 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.

WPA Outcomes | Relevant Features of Models for Writers,13e

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Rhetorical Knowledge

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

The organization of Models for Writers supports students’ understanding of rhetorical strategy. Part Two (Chs. 3–10) focuses on elements of the essay; Part Three (Chs. 11–12) highlights the language and style of the essay; Part Four (Chs. 13–22) explores the different writing strategies most often required of college students. Concise and practical chapter introductions explain how the elements and strategies suit authors’ purposes.

Chapter 1 shows students how to identify their audience (p. 20) and introduces them to purpose through an understanding of rhetorical methods of development (pp. 20–22).

In Chapter 2, students learn how to understand context through headnotes and how to read rhetorically and read as a writer (p. 53), analyzing and evaluating texts according to their rhetorical purpose.

Dedicated boxes such as Audience Questions (p. 20) and Questions to Ask Yourself as You Read (p. 45) provide additional support for analyzing and composing texts.

Questions for Study and Discussion following each reading focus on the author’s purpose and the particular strategy used to achieve that purpose.

Suggested Writing Assignments following each reading prompt students to write using the rhetorical element or strategy focused on in that chapter.

A dedicated section in Chapter 21, Argument, asks students to Consider Ethos, Logos, and Pathos (p. 497).

Gain experience reading and composing in several genres to

The seventy readings in the book span a variety of topics, disciplines, and genres. Part Three is organized by rhetorical pattern, with three reading options per chapter to give students experience and practice.

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understand how genre conventions shape and are shaped by readers’ and writers’ practices and purposes

Each reading selection features a robust apparatus that gives students practice analyzing and writing for a variety of purposes and in a range of styles. In addition to Questions for Study and Discussion and Suggested Writing Assignments (see above), Classroom Activities provide opportunities for applied learning with exercises that enable students to work (often in groups) on rhetorical elements, techniques, or patterns. Several activities connect rhetorical strategies to real-world genres such as application letters and memos.

Develop facility in responding to a variety of situations and contexts calling for purposeful shifts in voice, tone, level of formality, design, medium, and/or structure

Chapter introductions explain how each rhetorical element and strategy is used to achieve an author’s purpose.

Part Two (Chs. 3–10) emphasizes the Elements of the Essay, with dedicated chapters and model professional readings focused on organized writing: Thesis, Unity, Organization, Beginnings and Endings, Paragraphs, Transitions, Effective Sentences, and Writing with Sources.

Part Three (Chs. 11–12) emphasizes the Language of the Essay, with chapters dedicated to Diction/Tone and Figurative Language.

While most essays and instruction highlight the writer’s chosen organization, students are introduced to the importance of structure in the section Map Your Organization in Chapter 1 (p. 23), and Chapter 5, Organization, focuses especially on essay structure.

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

Several of the Classroom Activities encourage students to engage other learning styles and use other technologies, from drawing on paper to creating storyboards.

The book’s LaunchPad invites students to interact with the readings in a digital environment with highlighting and annotation tools. Online tutorials on important writing concepts help students learn through interaction. In addition, adaptive, game-like LearningCurve quizzing allows students to practice

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reading and writing skills.

Match the capacities of different environments (e.g., print and electronic) to varying rhetorical situations

Research coverage in Chapter 10 and Chapter 23 gives instructions specific to research and project planning, from taking notes to finding and evaluating sources, in both print and online spaces.

See also the previous WPA Outcomes section, “Understand and use a variety of technologies to address a range of audiences.”

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing

Use composing and reading for inquiry, learning, critical thinking, and communicating in various rhetorical contexts

Chapter 1, The Writing Process, presents writing as inquiry, as a tool for gathering ideas and exploring topics.

Chapter 2, From Reading to Writing, gives students tools to read critically and learn to read as a writer (p. 53); students learn to understand the rhetorical context and the writer’s choices in order to apply those tools to their own writing.

Thinking Critically about This Reading, Questions for Study and Discussion, and Suggested Writing Assignments encourage students to write to learn through small-stakes journal or homework writing or full essays appropriate to the rhetorical strategy of the chapter.

Read a diverse range of texts, attending especially to relationships between assertion and evidence, to patterns of

A lively collection of seventy brief classic and contemporary essays provide outstanding models for students. Each selection has been carefully chosen to engage students and to clearly illustrate

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organization, to the interplay between verbal and nonverbal elements, and to how these features function for different

audiences and situations

a basic rhetorical element or pattern at work in the chapter.

Thematic clusters (pp. xxxi–xxxvi) offer flexibility, grouping readings by topic so students can use the selection in the book to collect and analyze information on their subject of choice. Themes include The American Dream, The Immigrant Experience, The Natural World, Social Issues and Activism, and Technology, among others.

A new Chapter 22, Combining Models, explains more varied organizational writing strategies, showing how to combine patterns for effective writing.

Several readings include images to encourage students to analyze the relationship between visual and verbal elements (see Wei-Haas, Shaughnessy, Krulwich, Morris).

Chapter 21, Argument, provides thorough coverage of making and supporting claims.

Locate and evaluate (for credibility, sufficiency, accuracy, timeliness, bias, and so on) primary and secondary research materials, including journal articles and essays, books, scholarly and professionally established and maintained databases or archives, and informal electronic networks and Internet sources

Models for Writers offers practical instruction on working with sources to guide students in one of their biggest writing challenges: incorporating supporting evidence from other writers into their essays.

Chapter 1, The Writing Process, offers students clear advice and steps for developing strong thesis statements and marshaling evidence and support.

Chapter 10, Writing with Sources, and Chapter 23, A Brief Guide to Writing a Research Paper, review the steps and skills involved in research and synthesis, with dedicated sections on Finding and Using Sources in print and online (p. 597),

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Evaluating Your Print and Online Sources (p. 599), and Analyzing Your Sources for Position and Bias (p. 601). The chapter includes model MLA- and APA-style research papers and models

for citations.

Helpful charts in Chapter 23 make useful reference tools; see, for example, Refining Keyword Searches on the Web (p. 598) and Strategies for Evaluating Print and Online Sources (p. 599).

Use strategies — such as interpretation, synthesis, response, critique, and design/redesign — to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those from appropriate sources

The questions and prompts that accompany each reading ask students to interpret, respond, and critique the reading and the writer’s choices, engaging in academic conversation.

Chapter 10, Writing with Sources, models strategies for taking effective notes from sources; using signal phrases to integrate quotations, summaries, and paraphrases smoothly; synthesizing sources; and avoiding plagiarism.

The Checklist for Analyzing a Writer’s Position and Bias (p. 602) in Chapter 23 urges students to analyze writers’ purposes and assumptions as they incorporate outside sources into their own writing.

A new student essay, “Shame: The Ultimate Clickbait,” in the Chapter 21 argument cluster, Crime: Finding an Effective Punishment, demonstrates how to enter a conversation, synthesize selections from Models for Writers, and organize an effective written argument.

See also the previous WPA Outcomes section, “Locate and evaluate….”

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Processes

Develop a writing project through multiple drafts

Chapter 1, The Writing Process, leads students from Prewriting through Drafting, Revising, Editing, and Proofreading to present a final draft. See, especially, Choose a Subject Area and Focus on a Topic (p. 11), Get Ideas and Collect Information (p. 12), and the step-by-step process in Develop Your Thesis (p. 14).

Chapter 24, Editing for Grammar, Punctuation, and Sentence Style, provides sound advice, examples, and solutions for the editing problems that trouble students most.

Develop flexible strategies for reading, drafting, reviewing, collaborating, revising, rewriting, rereading, and editing

In Chapter 1, a sample student essay by Jeffrey Olesky (pp. 34–38) illustrates one student’s choices during the process for each stage and is also available as an interactive tutorial activity in LaunchPad.

Most Classroom Activities that accompany each reading encourage students to work collaboratively to understand and apply rhetorical concepts and strategies in writing or other exploratory methods.

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

As part of the instruction on the writing process, Chapter 1 includes dedicated sections to help students brainstorm and prewrite with notes, clustering, and outlining: Choose a Subject Area and Focus on a Topic (p. 11) and Get Ideas and Collect Information (p. 12).

Experience the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes

The Reflecting on What You Know and Thinking Critically about the Reading prompts that immediately precede and follow each reading selection, respectively, can be used for group discussion and writing.

The Classroom Activities that accompany each reading frequently ask students to share their writing and ideas with their classmates and discuss them, learning from each other.

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Learn to give and to act on productive feedback to works in progress

Dedicated boxes in Chapter 1, such as Questions for Revising (p. 27), guide students through the writing process and assist in peer revision workshops.

Adapt composing processes for a variety of technologies and modalities

The book assumes that most students compose in digital spaces, and instructions in a number of Suggested Writing Assignments and other prompts reflect and encourage this use of the digital space.

Instructions for research and collecting notes on sources in Chapter 10 and Chapter 23 assume that students are working mostly online and with technology, so the advice offers strategies for collecting and managing data in digital formats.

The LaunchPad version of Models for Writers offers a digital course space and an interactive e-book as well as integrated digital tutorials to teach core concepts of writing.

Reflect on the development of composing practices and how those practices influence their work

Reflecting on What You Know prompts before each reading ask students to discover and apply their prior knowledge to the reading selection.

Knowledge of Conventions

Develop knowledge of linguistic structures, including grammar, punctuation, and

A dedicated Part Three focuses particularly on the Language of the Essay, drawing students’ attention to the rhetorical effectiveness of diction, tone, and figurative language.

Chapters in Part Two, The Elements of the Essay, emphasize the importance of linguistic structure at various levels of the essay, including Transitions (Ch. 8) and Effective Sentences (Ch. 9).

Chapter 24, Editing for Grammar, Punctuation, and Sentence

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spelling, through practice in composing and

revising

Style, covers common grammar and mechanical errors and presents clear examples of corrections to help students write with minimal errors. Coverage includes run-ons and comma splices, sentence fragments, subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement, verb tense shifts, misplaced and dangling modifiers, faulty parallelism, weak nouns and verbs, and academic diction and

tone.

In the LaunchPad, LearningCurve adaptive quizzing on common grammar, mechanics, and writing topics lead students to online self-guided practice that lets them learn at their own pace.

Understand why genre conventions for structure, paragraphing, tone, and mechanics vary

Chapter introductions for each rhetorical element in Parts Two and Three and for each rhetorical pattern in Part Four explain how each strategy serves a writer’s purpose.

Dedicated chapters on Paragraphs (Ch. 7), Tone (Ch. 11), and Mechanics (Ch. 24) further emphasize rhetorical importance and variation.

Gain experience negotiating variations in genre conventions

In addition to the support in chapter introductions mentioned above, the Classroom Activities and Suggested Writing Assignments following each reading selection encourage students to apply the rhetorical strategies to real-world genres and situations and to use them in their writing.

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

Model student essays in the book are presented in MLA formatting. Chapter 23 features fully formatted examples of MLA- and APA- style student research papers, with annotations highlighting the genre design conventions.

Explore the concepts of intellectual property (such as fair use and

Chapter 10, Writing with Sources, explains why outside sources are rhetorically useful and helps writers articulate positions in the conversation and extend their own ideas, and how doing so requires thoughtful documentation when integrating quotation, paraphrase, or summary.

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copyright) that motivate documentation

conventions

A dedicated section, Avoid Plagiarism (p. 238), further defines and explores these concepts.

Practice applying citation conventions systematically in their own work

Chapter 23, A Brief Guide to Writing a Research Paper, offers detailed guidance on taking notes to avoid plagiarism as well as model citations in both MLA and APA styles.

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Contents

Preface Thematic Clusters Introduction for Students

part one On Reading and Writing Well

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1 The Writing Process Prewriting

Understand Your Assignment Choose a Subject Area and Focus on a Topic Get Ideas and Collect Information Understand What a Thesis Is Develop Your Thesis Know Your Audience Determine Your Method of Development Map Your Organization

Writing the First Draft Create a Title Focus on Beginnings and Endings

Revising Editing Proofreading Writing an Expository Essay: A Student Essay in Progress Jeffrey Olesky, Golf: A Character Builder (student essay)

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2 From Reading to Writing Reading Critically

Step 1: Prepare Yourself to Read the Selection Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address

Step 2: Read the Selection Step 3: Reread the Selection Step 4: Annotate the Text with Marginal Notes Step 5: Analyze and Evaluate the Text with Questions An Example: Annotating Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address”

Rachel Carson, Fable for Tomorrow Using Reading in the Writing Process

Reading as a Writer Writing from Reading: Three Sample Student Essays

A Narrative Essay: Trena Isley, On the Sidelines (student essay) A Response Essay: Zoe Ockenga, The Excuse “Not To” (student essay) An Argumentative Essay: James Duffy, One Dying Wish (student essay)

part two The Elements of the Essay

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3 Thesis Laura Lee, Lucy and Her Friends

A writer explores the surprising connections between weather and some of our most important archaeological discoveries.

David Pogue, The End of Passwords A technology critic and consumer advocate argues that passwords are ineffective and predicts the future of technology privacy methods.

James Lincoln Collier, Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name A writer asserts that we can “accomplish wonders” if we “accept anxiety as another name for challenge.”

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4 Unity Thomas L. Friedman, My Favorite Teacher

A Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist describes the high school teacher who had the most influence on his career as a journalist.

Helen Keller, The Most Important Day The celebrated blind and deaf writer recalls her discovery of language.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Against Meat The award-winning novelist presents a case for vegetarianism, at the expense of cultural memory and tradition.

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5 Organization Cherokee Paul McDonald, A View from the Bridge

An encounter with a young fisherman teaches the author a lesson in what it means to see.

Bruce Catton, Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts A Pulitzer Prize–winning historian compares two war generals who met to negotiate the terms for the surrender of the Confederate Army.

Julie Zhuo, Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt A writer defines the term trolling, explains why it is problematic, and offers a solution to the problem.

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6 Beginnings and Endings Dick Gregory, Shame

A civil rights advocate recalls a painful childhood incident. Sean McElwee, The Case for Censoring Hate Speech

A writer responds to the objections of free-speech advocates, arguing that websites that allow hate speech “don’t make speech more free, but rather, more constrained.”

Omar Akram, Can Music Bridge Cultures and Promote Peace? A Grammy-winning recording artist considers the power of music to bring people of different backgrounds together.

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7 Paragraphs Jamie Mackay, The Art of Communal Bathing

A writer on global society and politics proposes reinstating the community baths in modern society.

Judith Ortiz Cofer, My Rosetta A celebrated author remembers a woman who played a small but significant role in her life.

Jimmy Carter, The Home Place The thirty-ninth president of the United States describes the workings of his father’s peanut farm during Carter’s boyhood.

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8 Transitions Maya Wei-Haas, How Chuck Taylor Taught America How to Play Basketball

A science and an innovation writer relays the history of one of the most popular sneakers in shoe history.

Roland Merullo, The Phantom Toll Collector A memoirist and novelist reminisces about his summer as a highway toll collector and contemplates the loss of such jobs to automation.

Dan Shaughnessy, Teammates Forever Have a Special Connection A celebrated baseball writer recalls an old teammate and describes the unique bond they shared.

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9 Effective Sentences Erin Murphy, White Lies

A writer recalls a painful childhood memory of bullying and questions the reliability of memory.

Langston Hughes, Salvation A famous poet remembers a church revival meeting at which he pretended to be “saved from sin.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists The best-selling author and speaker confronts gender roles and the harmful role they play in society.

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10 Writing with Sources Tara Haelle, How to Teach Children That Failure Is the Secret to Success

A health and science writer investigates the ways parents can positively or negatively influence how their children respond to failure.

Jake Jamieson, The English-Only Movement: Can America Proscribe Language with a Clear Conscience? A student writer evaluates the merits of a movement in the United States that would require immigrants to learn English.

Terry Tempest Williams, The Clan of One-Breasted Women A prolific writer and naturalist explores the connection between nuclear testing in the Nevada desert and the high incidence of breast cancer in her family.

part three The Language of the Essay

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11 Diction and Tone Robert Krulwich, How Do Plants Know Which Way Is Up and Which Way Is

Down? An Emmy Award–winning reporter uses writing and illustrations to answer a seemingly simple question.

David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day A popular American essayist recounts his experience trying to learn French in Paris.

Maya Angelou, Momma, the Dentist, and Me A celebrated African American writer recounts how a toothache led to a confrontation with racism.

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12 Figurative Language N. Scott Momaday, The Flight of the Eagles

A Pulitzer Prize–winning writer uses detailed description to paint a precise picture of two birds in flight.

Robert Ramirez, The Barrio A Hispanic writer paints a vivid and sensuous picture of the district called the barrio.

Anne Lamott, Polaroids A popular author equates writing to watching the development of a Polaroid picture.

part four Types of Essays

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13 Illustration Russell Baker, Becoming a Writer

An author remembers his joy at the discovery that his “words had the power to make people laugh.”

Natalie Goldberg, Be Specific The challenge and job of writing, says this writing guru, are in the details.

Jonah Berger, The Power of Conformity A popular marketing professor observes how closely language and behavior are shaped by social environments: “Monkey see, monkey do.”

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14 Narration Henry Louis Gates Jr., What’s in a Name?

A prominent African American scholar remembers a childhood encounter with racism.

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour A short-story writer captures the truth of a marriage in the events of an hour.

Misty Copeland, Life in Motion A prominent ballerina recalls the struggles of her unglamourous childhood during the period when her family was living in a motel.

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15 Description Eudora Welty, The Corner Store

A novelist describes a cherished place from her childhood. Carl T. Rowan, Unforgettable Miss Bessie

A popular newspaper columnist remembers an influential teacher in the segregated South.

Mara Wilson, My Lost Mother’s Last Receipt A former child actress paints a clear picture of her mother by detailing the contents of her mother’s purse.

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16 Process Analysis Paul W. Merrill, The Principles of Poor Writing

In this classic essay, a scientist provides satirical instructions on how to produce shoddy writing.

Marie Kondo, Designate a Place for Each Thing A professional organizer describes her process and theory of putting things away when she returns home.

Diane Ackerman, Why Leaves Turn Color in the Fall A noted nature writer explains the process by which autumn leaves change color.

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17 Definition Gloria Naylor, The Meanings of a Word

In “meeting the word [nigger] head-on,” blacks have “rendered it impotent,” according to a prominent African American novelist.

Akemi Johnson, Who Gets to Be “Hapa”? A writer on race relations examines the complexity of language and history, both social and personal, with the Hawaiian word hapa.

Eduardo Porter, What Happiness Is A journalist explores many different perspectives on the meaning of happiness.

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18 Division and Classification Martin Luther King Jr., The Ways of Meeting Oppression

In this classic essay, the civil rights leader makes a case for nonviolent resistance. Mia Consalvo, Cheating Is Good for You

A game studies researcher divides “cheaters” into groups in order to argue that there are benefits to cheating.

Amy Tan, Mother Tongue A critically acclaimed writer describes the many “Englishes” she speaks as a result of her upbringing.

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19 Comparison and Contrast Mark Twain, Two Ways of Seeing a River

This popular American author makes his classic observation that sometimes knowledge can be blinding.

Christina Baker Kline, Taking My Son to College, Where Technology Has Replaced Serendipity A writer reflects on memories of her own freshman year as she drops off her son to college for the first time.

Toby Morris, On a Plate A comics artist viscerally depicts social inequality and privilege.

Bharati Mukherjee, Two Ways to Belong in America An Indian American writer and professor recounts a disagreement with her sister over the merits of citizenship.

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20 Cause and Effect Verlyn Klinkenborg, Our Vanishing Night

A writer and farmer discusses the often unnoticed negative effects of light pollution. Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies

The king of the macabre explains the appeal of horror movies and why he thinks “we’re all mentally ill.”

Brent Staples, Black Men and Public Space An African American writer explores damaging stereotypes about African American men as he describes his nighttime experiences on city streets.

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21 Argument Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Becoming Disabled

A bioethics and English professor advocates for disability rights awareness and an embrace of disabled identities.

Mary Sherry, In Praise of the F Word An educator argues that schools should consider using the “trump card of failure” to motivate students.

Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence A country seeks to justify its action to its people and the world in this classic argument.

Richard Lederer, The Case for Short Words An English teacher and language expert argues that “short words are as good as long ones.”

Conflict: Using Language to Seek Resolution

Donna Hicks, Independence A global expert on conflict resolution illustrates her belief that independence is one of the essential elements of human dignity.

Emily Badger, Tarring Opponents as Extremists Really Can Work A journalist examines the surprising efficacy of using labels such as “racist,” “radical,” “fundamentalist,” and “feminist” to tarnish an opponent’s position.

Michael Gardner, Adventures of the Dork Police A Cincinnati police officer recounts creative strategies he and his partner used to diffuse domestic disputes.

Crime: Finding an Effective Punishment

June Tangney, Condemn the Crime, Not the Person “Shame often makes a bad situation worse,” suggests a psychology professor.

Dan M. Kahan, Shame Is Worth a Try A law professor asserts that “shaming punishments . . . are extraordinarily effective.”

Libby Marlowe, The Ultimate Clickbait (student essay) A student writer argues that public shaming set in online social networking spaces may be just as harmful to the pereptrators as to the victims.

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22 Combining Models Robert G. Lake-Thom (Medicine Grizzly Bear), An Indian Father’s Plea

A traditional Native American healer and spiritual teacher responds to an educator who labeled his child a “slow learner,” explaining the education his Native American child has already received.

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, The Myth of the Catty Woman A prominent management thinker and a Facebook executive confront the stereotype that women are “catty” and the effect of that stereotype on women in the workplace.

Audrey Schulman, Fahrenheit 59: What a Child’s Fever Might Tell Us about Climate Change A writer uses her young son’s fever to explain the problem of global warming.

part five Guides to Research and Editing

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23 A Brief Guide to Writing a Research Paper Establishing a Realistic Schedule Finding and Using Sources Conducting Keyword Searches Evaluating Print and Online Sources Analyzing Sources for Position and Bias Developing a Working Bibliography Taking Notes Documenting Sources MLA-Style Documentation An Annotated Student MLA-Style Research Paper: Lesley Timmerman,

“An Argument for Corporate Responsibility” APA-Style Documentation An Annotated Student APA-Style Research Paper: Laura DeVeau, “The

Role of Spirituality and Religion in Mental Health”

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24 Editing for Grammar, Punctuation, and Sentence Style Run-ons: Fused Sentences and Comma Splices Sentence Fragments Subject-Verb Agreement Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement Verb Tense Shifts Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers Faulty Parallelism Weak Nouns and Verbs Academic Diction and Tone ESL Concerns (Articles and Nouns)

Glossary of Useful Terms Acknowledgments Index

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Thematic Clusters

The thematic clusters that follow focus on themes that students can pursue in their own compositions. The essays themselves provide ideas and information that will stimulate their thinking as well as provide source material for their writing. The clusters — the themes and the essays associated with them — are meant to be suggestive rather than comprehensive and fairly narrow in scope rather than far-ranging. Instructors and students are, of course, not limited by our groupings and are free to develop their own thematic groupings on which to base written work.

The American Dream

Jimmy Carter, The Home Place

Misty Copeland, Life in Motion

Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

Toby Morris, On a Plate

Bharati Mukherjee, Two Ways to Belong in America

Arts and Entertainment

Omar Akram, Can Music Bridge Cultures and Promote Peace?

Judith Ortiz Cofer, My Rosetta

Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies

Misty Copeland, Life in Motion

Discoveries/Epiphanies

Omar Akram, Can Music Bridge Cultures and Promote Peace?

James Lincoln Collier, Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name

Langston Hughes, Salvation

Helen Keller, The Most Important Day

Cherokee Paul McDonald, A View from the Bridge

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Dan Shaughnessy, Teammates Forever Have a Special Connection

Education

Russell Baker, Becoming a Writer

Christina Baker Kline, Taking My Son to College, Where Technology Has Replaced Serendipity

Robert G. Lake-Thom (Medicine Grizzly Bear), An Indian Father’s Plea

Mary Sherry, In Praise of the F Word

Family and Friends

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour

Misty Copeland, Life in Motion

Jonathan Safran Foer, Against Meat

Tara Haelle, How to Teach Children That Failure Is the Secret to Success

Dan Shaughnessy, Teammates Forever Have a Special Connection

Terry Tempest Williams, The Clan of One-Breasted Women

Mara Wilson, My Lost Mother’s Last Receipt

Feminism and Gender Roles

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, The Myth of the Catty Woman

Heroes/Role Models

Bruce Catton, Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts

Judith Ortiz Cofer, My Rosetta

Thomas L. Friedman, My Favorite Teacher

Carl T. Rowan, Unforgettable Miss Bessie

Maya Wei-Haas, How Chuck Taylor Taught America How to Play Basketball

The Immigrant Experience

Bharati Mukherjee, Two Ways to Belong in America

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Robert Ramirez, The Barrio

David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

Amy Tan, Mother Tongue

Language and Power

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

Emily Badger, Tarring Opponents as Extremists Really Can Work

Michael Gardner, Adventures of the Dork Police

Henry Louis Gates Jr., What’s in a Name?

Donna Hicks, Independence

Jake Jamieson, The English-Only Movement: Can America Proscribe Language with a Clear Conscience?

Akemi Johnson, Who Gets to Be “Hapa”?

Sean McElwee, The Case for Censoring Hate Speech

Gloria Naylor, The Meanings of a Word

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, The Myth of the Catty Woman

David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

Amy Tan, Mother Tongue

Medical Dilemmas

Maya Angelou, Momma, the Dentist, and Me

Erin Murphy, White Lies

Terry Tempest Williams, The Clan of One-Breasted Women

Moral Values

Mia Consalvo, Cheating Is Good for You

Jonathan Safran Foer, Against Meat

Dan M. Kahan, Shame Is Worth a Try

Martin Luther King Jr., The Ways of Meeting Oppression

Libby Marlowe, The Ultimate Clickbait

Sean McElwee, The Case for Censoring Hate Speech

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Eduardo Porter, What Happiness Is

June Tangney, Condemn the Crime, Not the Person

The Natural World

Diane Ackerman, Why Leaves Turn Color in the Fall

Rachel Carson, Fable for Tomorrow

Verlyn Klinkenborg, Our Vanishing Night

Robert Krulwich, How Do Plants Know Which Way Is Up and Which Way Is Down?

Laura Lee, Lucy and Her Friends

N. Scott Momaday, The Flight of the Eagles

Audrey Schulman, Fahrenheit 59: What a Child’s Fever Might Tell Us about Climate Change

Terry Tempest Williams, The Clan of One-Breasted Women

Parenting

Maya Angelou, Momma, the Dentist, and Me

Jonathan Safran Foer, Against Meat

Tara Haelle, How to Teach Children That Failure Is the Secret to Success

Christina Baker Kline, Taking My Son to College, Where Technology Has Replaced Serendipity

Robert G. Lake-Thom (Medicine Grizzly Bear), An Indian Father’s Plea

Erin Murphy, White Lies

Peer Pressure

Jonah Berger, The Power of Conformity

Dick Gregory, Shame

Langston Hughes, Salvation

Erin Murphy, White Lies

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, The Myth of the Catty Woman

Julie Zhuo, Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt

People and Personalities

Judith Ortiz Cofer, My Rosetta

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Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Becoming Disabled

Donna Hicks, Independence

Eduardo Porter, What Happiness Is

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, The Myth of the Catty Woman

Dan Shaughnessy, Teammates Forever Have a Special Connection

Punishment and Crime

Emily Badger, Tarring Opponents as Extremists Really Can Work

Michael Gardner, Adventures of the Dork Police

Tara Haelle, How to Teach Children That Failure Is the Secret to Success

Dan M. Kahan, Shame Is Worth a Try

Libby Marlowe, The Ultimate Clickbait

Mary Sherry, In Praise of the F Word

June Tangney, Condemn the Crime, Not the Person

Race in America

Maya Angelou, Momma, the Dentist, and Me

Henry Louis Gates Jr., What’s in a Name?

Dick Gregory, Shame

Akemi Johnson, Who Gets to Be “Hapa”?

Martin Luther King Jr., The Ways of Meeting Oppression

Robert G. Lake-Thom (Medicine Grizzly Bear), An Indian Father’s Plea

Bharati Mukherjee, Two Ways to Belong in America

Gloria Naylor, The Meanings of a Word

Brent Staples, Black Men and Public Space

Sense of Place

Jimmy Carter, The Home Place

Marie Kondo, Designate a Place for Each Thing

Jamie Mackay, The Art of Communal Bathing

Robert Ramirez, The Barrio

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Mark Twain, Two Ways of Seeing a River

Eudora Welty, The Corner Store

Sense of Self

Misty Copeland, Life in Motion

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Becoming Disabled

Dick Gregory, Shame

Donna Hicks, Independence

Langston Hughes, Salvation

Akemi Johnson, Who Gets to Be “Hapa”?

Toby Morris, On a Plate

Erin Murphy, White Lies

Eduardo Porter, What Happiness Is

Sensual World

Helen Keller, The Most Important Day

Jamie Mackay, The Art of Communal Bathing

Cherokee Paul McDonald, A View from the Bridge

Mark Twain, Two Ways of Seeing a River

Social Issues and Activism

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Becoming Disabled

Robert G. Lake-Thom (Medicine Grizzly Bear), An Indian Father’s Plea

Libby Marlowe, The Ultimate Clickbait

Sean McElwee, The Case for Censoring Hate Speech

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, The Myth of the Catty Woman

Toby Morris, On a Plate

Julie Zhuo, Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt

Technology

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Christina Baker Kline, Taking My Son to College, Where Technology Has Replaced Serendipity

David Pogue, The End of Passwords

Julie Zhuo, Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt

Work

Thomas L. Friedman, My Favorite Teacher

Roland Merullo, The Phantom Toll Collector

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, The Myth of the Catty Woman

Mark Twain, Two Ways of Seeing a Riever

Writers on Writing

Russell Baker, Becoming a Writer

Natalie Goldberg, Be Specific

Anne Lamott, Polaroids

Richard Lederer, The Case for Short Words

Paul W. Merrill, The Principles of Poor Writing

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Introduction for Students

Both students and teachers often agree that it is important to write well, and it is not hard to figure out why. Knowing how to write well is stressed at every rung of the educational ladder — from the early grades, through middle school, high school, and college. “You need to know how to write.” This thought, often a command, has become an educational cliché, a truth so often uttered and so seemingly apparent that few people feel the need to offer any explanation for it. As the authors of Models for Writers, however, we feel a special obligation to offer reasons for learning to write and for doing it well. It’s simple. We always learn better if we understand what and why we are learning.

No activity better develops your ability to think than writing does. Writing allows you to express what’s on your mind, to examine your thoughts, and to “see” objectively what you think. When you write thoughtfully and clearly, others can better understand you. Better yet, you can know yourself better. One way of thinking about writing, then, is to see it as holding a mirror up to yourself.

Writing, unlike speaking, is usually more deliberate and allows you to examine your ideas carefully and critically by reading what you have written as you compose sentences. It’s not a one-way street but an interactive process. The process of reading what you have written and then revising and refocusing what you think gives you many opportunities to improve, clarify, and best express what you want to say. At some point in the process, when you are satisfied with your thinking, you can freeze the best expression of your thoughts, for that moment at least. And that moment can be an immensely satisfying one. When you can say about what you’ve written, “That’s exactly what I mean,” you will have brought order out of chaos and certainty where none seemed possible before. No other activity can do as much for developing your critical and intellectual abilities as writing.

It should not come as a surprise, then, that employers in every field are looking for people who can read and write well, for all these reasons. Simply put, employers want to hire and retain the best minds they can to reach their business objectives, and the ability to read and write well is a clear indication of a rigorous mind. In today’s workplace, there is virtually no field that doesn’t require clear, accurate, and direct expression in writing, whether it be writing cover letters and résumés, internal e-mails, self-appraisals, laboratory reports, contract bids, proposals, loan or grant applications, sales reports, market analyses, journal articles, books, or any other documents. Perhaps more than anything else, your ability to organize

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your thoughts and present them clearly will affect your overall success not only on the job but also in life itself.

Models for Writers is designed to help you learn to write by providing you with a collection of model essays — that is, essays that are examples of good writing. Good writing is direct and purposeful and communicates its message without confusing the reader. It doesn’t wander from the topic, and it answers the reader’s questions. Although good writing is well developed and detailed, it also accomplishes its task with the fewest possible words and with the simplest language appropriate to the writer’s topic and thesis.

We know that one of the best ways to learn to write and to improve our writing is to read. By reading, we can see how other writers have communicated their experiences, ideas, thoughts, and feelings. We can study how they have used the various elements of the essay (words, sentences, paragraphs, organizational patterns, transitions, examples, evidence, and so forth) and thus learn how we might effectively do the same. When we see how a writer like James Lincoln Collier develops his essay “Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name” (p. 85) from a strong thesis statement, for example, we can better appreciate the importance of having a clear thesis statement in our own writing. When we see the way Maya Wei-Haas uses transitions in “How Chuck Taylor Taught America How to Play Basketball” (p. 186) to link events and important ideas so that readers can recognize how the parts of her essay fit together, we have a better idea of how to write coherently.

But we do not learn only by reading. We also learn by doing — that is, by writing — and in the best of all situations, we engage in reading and writing in conjunction with each other. Models for Writers therefore encourages you to practice what you are learning and to move from reading to writing.

Part One, On Reading and Writing Well (Chapters 1–2), introduces you to the important steps of the writing process, shows you how to use apparatus that accompanies each selection in this text, provides you with guidelines for critical reading, and demonstrates with three annotated student essays how you can generate your own writing from reading. You will soon see that an effective essay has a clear purpose, often provides useful information, has an effect on the reader’s thoughts and feelings, and is usually a pleasure to read. The essays that you will read in Models for Writers were chosen because they are effective.

All well-written essays share a number of structural and stylistic features, and these are illustrated by the various essays in Models for Writers. One good way to learn what these

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features are and how you can incorporate them into your own writing is to look at each of them in isolation. For this reason, twenty chapters of essays, each chapter with its own particular focus and emphasis, are spread over Parts Two, Three, and Four.

Part Two, The Elements of the Essay (Chapters 3–10), includes eight chapters on the elements that are essential to a well-written essay. Because the concepts of thesis, unity, and organization underlie all the others, they come first in our sequence, followed closely by advice and models for strong beginnings and endings, well-developed paragraphs, clear transitions, and effective sentences. Finally, a chapter on writing with sources provides proven strategies for taking effective notes from sources; for using signal phrases to integrate quotations, summaries, and paraphrases smoothly into the text of an essay; and for avoiding plagiarism.

Part Three, The Language of the Essay (Chapters 11–12), shows how writers carefully choose words to convey meaning, to create a particular tone or relationship between writer and reader, and to add richness and depth to writing through figurative language.

Part Four, Types of Essays (Chapters 13–22), focuses on the types of writing that are most often required of college writing students. These types of writing are often referred to as organizational patterns or rhetorical modes.

Part Five, Guides to Research and Editing (Chapters 23–24), includes a useful Chapter 23, A Brief Guide to Writing a Research Paper, with an annotated MLA-style student research paper. This chapter provides clear guidance on establishing a realistic schedule for a research project, conducting research on the Internet using directory and keyword searches, evaluating sources, analyzing sources, developing a working bibliography, taking useful notes, and using MLA and APA citation styles to document your paper. Chapter 24, Editing for Grammar, Punctuation, and Sentence Style, provides sound advice and solutions for the editing problems that trouble students most. This final section in Models for Writers helps you build confidence in your academic writing skills.

Studying and practicing the organizational patterns are important in any effort to broaden your writing skills. In Models for Writers, we look at each pattern separately because we believe that this is the simplest and most effective way to introduce them. However, it does not mean that the writer of a well-written essay necessarily chooses a single pattern and sticks to it exclusively and rigidly. Confining yourself to cause-and-effect analysis or definition throughout an entire essay, for example, might prove impractical and may yield an awkward

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or unnatural piece of writing. In fact, it is often best to use a single pattern to organize your essay and then to use other patterns as your material dictates. As you read the model essays in this text, you will find that a good many of them use one dominant pattern in combination with other patterns, but we have especially developed a new Chapter 22, Combining Models, to showcase essays that use multiple patterns.