Figurative language in sleeping freshmen never lie

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Models for Writers Short Essays for Composition THIRTEENTH EDITION

Alfred Rosa Paul Eschholz University of Vermont

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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.

Chapters 3 to 22 are organized in the same way. Each opens with an explanation of the element or principle under discussion. These introductions are brief, clear, and practical and usually provide one or more short examples of the feature or principle being studied, including examples from students such as yourself. Following the chapter introduction, we present three model essays (Chapter 21, with ten essays, is an exception). Each essay has a brief introduction of its own, providing information about the author and directing your attention to the way the essay demonstrates the featured technique. A Reflecting on What You Know prompt precedes each reading and invites you to explore your own ideas and experiences regarding some issue presented in the reading. Each essay is followed by four kinds of study materials — Thinking Critically about This Reading, Questions for Study and Discussion, Classroom Activity, and Suggested Writing Assignments. Read Chapter 2, From Reading to Writing, for help on improving your writing by using the materials that accompany the readings.

Models for Writers provides information, instruction, and practice in writing effective essays. By reading thoughtfully and critically and by applying the writing strategies and techniques you observe other writers using, you will learn to write more expressively and effectively.

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p a r t o n e

On Reading and Writing Well

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Chapter 1

The Writing Process

The essays in this book will help you understand the elements of good writing and provide ample opportunity for you to practice writing in response to the model essays. As you write your essays, pay attention to your writing process. This chapter focuses on the stages of the writing process — prewriting, writing the first draft, revising, editing, and proofreading. It concludes with a sample of one student’s writing process that you can model your own writing after. The strategies suggested in this chapter for each stage of the writing process will help you overcome many of the challenges you may face while writing essays.

Writers rarely rely on inspiration alone to produce an effective piece of writing. Good writers prewrite or plan, write the first draft, revise, edit, and proofread. It is worth remembering, however, that often the process is recursive, moving back and forth among the five stages. Moreover, writing is personal; no two people go about it exactly the same way. Still, it is possible to learn the steps in the process and thereby have a reliable method for undertaking a writing task.

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Prewriting Reading can give you ideas and information, and reading helps expand your knowledge of the organizational patterns available to you; consequently, it can help direct all your prewriting activities. During prewriting, you select your subject and topic, gather ideas and information, and determine the thesis and organizational pattern or patterns you will use. Once you have worked through the prewriting process, you will be ready to start on your first draft. Let’s explore how this works.

Understand Your Assignment

When you first receive an assignment, read it over several times to make sure you understand what you are being asked to do. Try restating the assignment in your own words to make sure you understand it. For example, consider the following assignments:

1. Narrate an experience that taught you that every situation has at least two sides.

2. Explain what is meant by theoretical modeling in the social sciences.

3. Write a persuasive essay in which you support or refute the following proposition: “Violence in the media is in large part responsible for an increase in violence in American society today.”

Each of these assignments asks you to write in different ways:

1. The first assignment asks you to tell the story of an event that showed you that every situation has more than one perspective. To complete the assignment, you might choose simply to narrate the event, or you might choose to analyze it in depth. In either case, you will need to explain to your reader how you came to this new understanding of multiple perspectives and why it was important to you.

2. The second assignment asks you to explain what theoretical modeling is and why it is used. To accomplish this assignment, you will first need to read about the concept to gain a thorough understanding of it, and then you’ll need to define it in your own words and explain its purpose and usefulness to your readers. You will also want to demonstrate the abstract concept with concrete examples to help your readers understand it.

3. The third assignment asks you to take a position on a controversial issue for which there are many studies on both sides of the question. You will need to research the studies,

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consider the evidence they present, and then take a stand of your own. Your argument will necessarily have to draw on the sources and evidence you have researched, and you will need to refute the arguments and evidence presented by those experts who take an opposing position.

If, after reading the assignment several times, you are still unsure about what is being asked of you or about any additional requirements of the assignment, such as length or format, be sure to consult with your instructor.

Choose a Subject Area and Focus on a Topic

Although you will usually be given specific assignments in your writing course, you may sometimes have the freedom to write on any subject that interests you. In such a case, you may already have a specific idea in mind. For example, if you are interested in sports, you might argue against the use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes. What happens, however, when you are free to choose your own subject and cannot think of anything to write about? If you find yourself in this situation, begin by determining a broad subject that you might enjoy writing about — a general subject such as medical ethics, amateur sports, or foreign travel. Also consider what you’ve recently read — essays in Models for Writers, for example — or your career ambitions when choosing a subject. Select several likely subjects and let your mind explore their potential for interesting topics. Your goal is to arrive at an appropriately narrowed topic.

A topic is the specific part of a subject on which a writer focuses. Subjects such as the environment, literature, and sports are too broad to be dealt with adequately in a single essay. Entire books are written about these and other subjects. Start with your broad subject and make it more specific.

Suppose, for example, you select farming and advertising as possible subject areas. The examples in the Narrowing Subjects to Topics box that follows illustrate how to narrow these broad subjects into manageable topics. Notice how each successive topic is more narrowed than the one before it. Moving from the general to the specific, the topics become appropriate for essay-length writing.

In moving from a broad subject to a particular topic, you should take into account any assigned constraints on length or format. You will also want to consider the amount of time you have to write. These practical considerations will affect the scope of your topic.

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For more practice, visit the LaunchPad for Models for Writers: LearningCurve > Main Ideas

Get Ideas and Collect Information

After you have found your topic, you will need to determine what you want to say about it. The best way to do this is to gather information. Your ideas about a topic must be supported by information, such as facts and examples. The information you gather about a topic will influence your ideas about the topic and what you want to say. Here are some of the ways you can gather information:

1. Brainstorm. Jot down the things you know about a topic, freely associating ideas and information as a way to explore the topic and its possibilities. (See p. 30 for an example.) Try not to censor or edit your notes, and don’t worry about spelling or punctuation. Don’t write your notes in list form because such an organization will imply a hierarchy of ideas, which may hamper your creativity and the free flow of your thoughts. The objective of brainstorming is to free up your thinking before you start to write. You may

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want to set aside your notes and return to them over several days. Once you generate a substantial amount of brainstormed material, you will want to study the items, attempt to see relationships among them, or sort and group the entries by using different colored highlighters.

2. Cluster. Another strategy for stimulating your thinking about a topic is clustering. Place your topic in a circle and draw lines from that circle to other circles in which you write related key words or phrases. Around each of these key words, generate more circles representing the various aspects of the key word that come to mind. (See p. 31 for an example.) The value of clustering over brainstorming is that you are generating ideas and organizing them at the same time. Both techniques work very well, but you may prefer one over the other or find that one works better with one topic than another.

3. Research. You may want to add to what you already know about your topic with research. Research can take many forms beyond formal research carried out in your library. For example, firsthand observations and interviews with people knowledgeable about your topic can provide up-to-date information. Whatever your form of research, take careful notes so you can accurately paraphrase an author or quote an interviewee. Chapters 10 and 23 (see pp. 225–42 and 595–605) will help with all aspects of researching a topic.

Understand What a Thesis Is

Once you have generated ideas and information about your topic, you are ready to begin the important task of establishing a controlling idea, or thesis, for your essay. The thesis of an essay is its main idea, the point you are trying to make. It is important because everything in your essay, all the ideas and information you have gathered, should be connected to the thesis. It is the glue that holds your writing together.

In his essay “The Ways of Meeting Oppression” (pp. 425–29), Martin Luther King Jr. offers the following thesis statement: “Oppressed people deal with their oppression in three characteristic ways.” King supports his thesis by describing the three ways that oppressed people have traditionally dealt with oppression and explaining why two of those responses — acquiescing to their oppressors or violently resisting them — have not traditionally worked and are not responses he would recommend. He then works his way to the conclusion of his essay, recommending the path of nonviolent resistance as the best way to achieve social justice. His thesis statement carries with it the answer to several implied or built-in questions: What are the characteristic ways of meeting oppression, and which one is to be

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recommended? The structure of his essay, then, is also built into his thesis statement. Remember that a weak thesis cannot produce a successful essay no matter how much

effort you put into your writing. A strong thesis, on the other hand, will succeed, but only if it is properly supported.

Develop Your Thesis

You might think that creating a thesis requires some kind of clever thinking or special skills on your part when, in fact, it’s a fairly straightforward task. Rather than staring at a blank screen or sheet of paper hoping for a thesis to magically appear, you need to look at the ideas and information you have generated about your topic and ask questions about them in order to understand the topic completely.

Step 1: Ask Questions

Let’s say that you chose or were assigned the topic of internships, the practice of employing relatively inexperienced people, often students, so that they become familiar with particular work environments and business practices. Through your reading you have learned that internships are often mutually beneficial. Interns can gain useful work-related experience, and businesses get inexpensive temporary help (which sometimes leads to permanent positions).

Now you need to more deeply inform yourself about internships by asking questions about the information and ideas you have gathered. For example,

Why did internships develop as an educational and business practice? Where and when are they now used?

Are there internship programs at your school? If so, what informational materials are available to you?

Who can help you find an internship? Can you get an internship on your own?

Do any businesses in your area offer internships?

What are the negative aspects of an internship for both parties?

Do you have family or friends who have employed interns? Do you have family or friends who have had internships? What information have you been able to gain from those on both sides of the relationship?

Are interns usually paid? How are internships funded?

When the questioning starts, one question will lead to another, and the answers to these questions — often found through more reading, interviews, and discussions — will inform

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you about the depth and breadth of your topic. If all this is done well, you will soon begin to think like an expert on your topic.

At this point, the likelihood of developing a thesis, or a number of them, will greatly increase. It is out of the facts and ideas that you have collected and the questions you ask of that material that a thesis will come to mind.

Step 2: List Several Possible Thesis Statements

After you have asked all the questions you think necessary and have supplied answers to those questions, you are ready to list possible thesis statements. Trying to develop not just one thesis but several of them can be a very helpful strategy in refining your ideas and coming up with the best possible thesis. Also, keep in mind that a thesis can be considered a working thesis until you are sure it conveys exactly what you want to say, or until you revise it into its final form.

Here are some theses that might be developed as a result of a deeper investigation into the topic of internships:

All effective internship programs have five key elements.

Research is necessary before applying to an internship program.

Employers must have a clearly defined set of expectations for internship programs.

Record keeping and reporting are the keys to an effective internship program.

There are no standard practices for funding internships.

We need a federally funded internship program.

Step 3: Choose Your Direction

The potential theses listed in Step 2 reflect different approaches to and aspects of the topic of internships. Let’s take a closer look at how each one may have been arrived at and where each might lead the writer:

All effective internship programs have five key elements.

This thesis is most likely the product of an examination of successful internship programs to learn their key elements. The supporting information might also serve to explain the establishment of an internship program or how to improve an existing one.

Research is necessary before applying to an internship program.

This thesis might be the product of learning what can go right and wrong with an internship and might even suggest what individuals need to know about a program before entering it.

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Employers must have a clearly defined set of expectations for internship programs.

This thesis suggests that successful internships are the result of clear expectations for the intern and well-defined pathways for achieving success.

Record keeping and reporting are the keys to an effective internship program.

This thesis suggests that communication is important in any internship relationship. It implies that all parties should document projects, goals, and steps toward achieving those goals, as well as any or all efforts in accomplishing them.

There are no standard practices for funding internships.

This thesis suggests that the way internships are financed is not standardized and that because each internship must be arranged for individually, arrangements vary greatly.

We need a federally funded internship program.

This thesis suggests that internships are so worthwhile that they need to be made available nationally and be federally funded.

Step 4: Write Your Thesis Statement

A thesis statement should be

the most important point you make about your topic,

more general than the ideas and facts you use to support it, and

focused enough to be covered in the space allotted for the essay.

A thesis statement is not a question, although it might be prompted by one or many, as we have seen with the topic of internships.

An effective method for developing a thesis statement is to begin by writing, “What I want to say is that . . .”

What I want to say is that unless employers offer paid internships, businesses will never recruit

the most qualified interns, and interns will not be able to receive the full benefits of their

internships.

Later, when you delete the formulaic opening and streamline the text, you will be left with a thesis statement:

Unless employers offer paid internships, businesses will never recruit the most qualified interns,

and interns will not be able to receive the full benefits of their internships.

A good way to determine whether your thesis is too general or too specific is to consider how easy it will be to present information and examples to support it. If you stray too far in

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either direction, your task will become much more difficult. A thesis statement that is too general will leave you overwhelmed by the number of issues you must address. For example, the statement “Malls have ruined the fabric of American life” would lead to the question, “How?” To answer it, you would probably have to include information about traffic patterns, urban decay, environmental damage, economic studies, and so on. You would obviously have to take shortcuts, and your essay would be ineffective. On the other hand, too specific a thesis statement will leave you with too little information to present. “The Big City Mall should not have been built because it reduced retail sales at the existing Big City stores by 21.4 percent” does not leave you with many options to develop an argument.

The thesis statement is usually set forth near the beginning of the essay, although writers sometimes begin with a few sentences that establish a context for the piece. One common strategy is to position the thesis as the final sentence of the first paragraph. In the opening paragraph of an essay on the harmful effects of quick-weight-loss diets, student Marcie Turple builds a context for her thesis statement, which she presents in her last sentence:

Step 5: Revise Your Thesis Statement If Necessary

Remember that you are not unalterably committed to the wording of your original thesis, what writers call a working thesis. Just as you provide evidence to support the thesis statement, you are free to revise the statement to fit the evidence. For example, let’s suppose you decide to use the following thesis statement for an essay on internships:

We need a federally funded internship program.

You discover as you draft your essay that your evidence is largely financial. You learn that schools and businesses, especially in poorer parts of the country, refrain from establishing internships because there is little money for such efforts. You reason that if there were a federally funded program, students and businesses from any part of the country, regardless of local resources, would have an equal opportunity to participate. You then revise your working thesis to reflect this additional, more pertinent evidence:

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We need a nationwide federally funded internship program that will provide equal opportunity for

all students and businesses, regardless of their regional economic differences.

Models for Writers abounds in essays with excellent thesis statements, and we often ask you to identify them. Reading essays with strong thesis statements and locating the controlling idea in each is a great way to learn how to write your own strong thesis statements. Here are some more examples of thesis statements drawn from the essays in Models for Writers:

James Lincoln Collier states his thesis in paragraph 20 of “Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name” (p. 85):

The point is that the new, the different, is almost by definition scary. But each time you try something, you learn,

and as the learning piles up, the world opens to you.

Collier’s thesis appears near the end of his essay and consists of two sentences instead of a single statement.

Natalie Goldberg presents her thesis at the beginning of her essay in “Be Specific” (p. 330):

Be specific. Don’t say “fruit.” Tell what kind of fruit — “It is a pomegranate.” Give things the dignity of their

names. Just as with human beings, it is rude to say, “Hey, girl, get in line.” That “girl” has a name.

Notice how she offers a strong opening sentence, really a command, and then moves on to elaborate on what she means by being specific in the rest of her paragraph. It is a message she will carry through the rest of her essay as well.

Finally, in an essay about finding appropriate punishment for minor crimes, Dan M. Kahan in “Shame Is Worth a Try” (p. 557) offers the following thesis statement in paragraph 3:

[W]hat the shame proponents seem to be getting, and the critics ignoring, is the potential of shame as an effective,

cheap, and humane alternative to imprisonment.

With this thesis, Kahan expresses his argument and provides the reader with an outline of the three main points he’ll expand on in his essay to support that argument.

As you read through the essays in this book, be on the lookout for thesis statements that you find especially effective: Note their placement within the essay and think about why they’ve caught your eye. These can serve, then, as models for you when you write your thesis statement. For more on the various ways of developing an effective thesis, see Chapter 3, Thesis (pp. 71–74).

Know Your Audience

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Although it is not always possible to know who your readers are, you nevertheless need to consider your intended audience. Your attitude toward your topic, your tone, your sentence structure, and your choice of words are just some of the important considerations that rely on your awareness of audience. For a list of questions to help you determine your audience, see the box below.

Audience Questions

1. Who are my readers?

2. Is my audience specialized (for example, those in my geology lab) or more general (college students)?

3. What do I know about my audience’s age, gender, education, religious affiliation, socioeconomic status, and political attitudes?

4. What do my readers need to know that I can tell them?

5. Will my audience be interested, open-minded, resistant, objective, or hostile to what I am saying?

6. Is there any specialized language that my audience must have to understand my subject or that I should avoid?

7. What do I want my audience to do as a result of reading my essay?

Determine Your Method of Development

Part Four of Models for Writers includes chapters on the various types of essays most often required of college students. Often these types of writing are referred to as methods of development, modes, rhetorical patterns, or organizational patterns.

Studying these organizational patterns and practicing the use of them are important in any effort to broaden your writing skills. Models for Writers presents each pattern separately as a way to introduce the pattern effectively and provide focus, but that does not necessarily mean that a well-written essay adheres exclusively and rigidly to a single pattern of development. Confining yourself exclusively to comparison and contrast throughout an entire essay, for instance, might prove impractical and result in a formulaic or stilted essay. As you read the model essays in this text, you will find that many of them use a combination of patterns to support the dominant pattern, and Chapter 22 (pp. 568–71) specifically focuses on how these mixed methods of development can appear in an essay and strengthen its

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message. For a description of what each organizational pattern involves, see the Organizational Patterns box.

Organizational Patterns

Illustration Using examples to illustrate a point or an idea Narration Telling a story or giving an account of an event Description Presenting a picture with words Process Analysis Explaining how something is done or happens Definition Explaining what something is Division and

Classification Dividing a subject into its parts and placing them in

appropriate categories Comparison and

Contrast Demonstrating likenesses and differences

Cause and Effect Explaining the causes of an event or the effects of an action

Argument Using reason and logic to persuade someone to your way of thinking

Combining organizational patterns is probably not something you want to plan or even think about when you first tackle a writing assignment. Instead, let these patterns develop naturally as you organize, draft, and revise your materials.

If you’re still undecided or concerned about combining patterns, try the following steps:

1. Summarize the point you want to make in a single phrase or sentence.

2. Restate the point as a question (in effect, the question your essay will answer).

3. Look closely at both the summary and the question for key words or concepts that suggest a particular pattern.

4. Consider other strategies that could support your primary pattern.

Examples of Combined Organizational Patterns

Summary Question Pattern Supporting Patterns

Venus and Serena

Williams are

How do

Venus and

Comparison and contrast. The

writer must compare the Williams

Illustration and description. Good evidence

includes examples of the Williams sisters’

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among the best

tennis players in

the history of the

game.

Serena ‐

Williams

compare with

other tennis

players?

sisters with other players and

provide evidence to support the

claim that they are “among the

best.”

superior ability and accomplishments as well

as descriptions of their athletic feats.

How to build a

personal website.

How do you

build a

personal

website?

Process analysis. The word how,

especially in the phrase how to,

implies a procedure that can be

explained in steps or stages.

Description. The writer should describe the

website, especially the look and design of the

site, at various points in the process.

Petroleum and

natural gas prices

should be

federally

controlled.

What should

be done about

petroleum

and natural

gas prices?

Argument. The word should signals

a debatable claim and proposal,

which calls for evidence and

reasoning in support of the

conclusion.

Comparison and contrast and cause and effect.

The writer should present evidence from a

comparison of federally controlled pricing with

deregulated pricing, as well as from a

discussion of the effects of deregulation.

For more practice, visit the LaunchPad for Models for Writers: LearningCurve > Patterns of Organization

Map Your Organization

After you decide what you want to write about and come up with some ideas about what you might like to say, your next task is to organize the main ideas for your essay in a way that seems both natural and logical to you. One way to map your ideas is to make an outline. In constructing this outline, if you discover that a particular organizational pattern will help you in generating ideas, you might consider using that as your overall organizing principle.

Some writers make a detailed outline and fill it out point by point, whereas others follow a general plan and let the writing take them where it will, making any necessary adjustments to the plan when they revise.

Here are some major patterns of organization you may want to use for your outline:

Chronological (oldest to newest, or the reverse)

Spatial (top to bottom, left to right, inside to outside, and so forth)

Least familiar to most familiar

Easiest to most difficult to comprehend

Easiest to most difficult to accept

According to similarities or differences

Notice that some of these organizational patterns correspond to the rhetorical patterns in Part

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Four of this book. For example, a narrative essay generally follows a chronological organization. If you are having trouble developing or mapping an effective organization, refer to the introduction and readings in Chapter 5, Organization. Once you have settled on an organizational pattern, you are ready to write a first draft.

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Writing the First Draft Your goal in writing a first draft is to get your ideas down on paper. Write quickly and let the writing follow your thinking. Do not be overly concerned about spelling, word choice, or grammar because such concerns will break the flow of your ideas. After you have completed your first draft, you will go over your essay to revise and edit it.

As you write your draft, pay attention to your outline but do not be a slave to it. It is there to help you, not restrict you. Often, when writing, you discover something new about your subject; if so, follow that idea freely. Wherever you deviate from your plan, place an X in the margin, use a comment balloon, or highlight the shift to remind yourself of the change. When you revise, you can return to that part of your writing and reconsider the change you made, either developing it further or abandoning it.

It may happen that while writing your first draft, you run into a difficulty that prevents you from moving forward. Use your resources to work through the difficulty: talk about your writing with a friend or writing tutor, review your notes, or use the information in Models for Writers. For example, suppose you want to tell the story of something that happened to you, but you aren’t certain whether you should be using the pronoun I so often. Turn to the essays in Chapters 11 and 14 to see how the authors use diction and tone and how other narrative essays handle this problem. You will find that the frequent use of I isn’t necessarily a problem at all. For an account of a personal experience, it’s perfectly acceptable to use I as often as you need to. Or suppose that after writing several pages describing someone who you think is quite a character, you find that your draft seems flat and doesn’t express how lively and funny the person really is. If you read the introduction to Chapter 15, you will learn that descriptions need lots of factual, concrete detail; the selections in that chapter give further proof of this. You can use those guidelines to add details that are missing from your draft.

If you run into difficulties writing your first draft, don’t be discouraged. Even experienced writers run into problems at the beginning. Just try to keep going and take the pressure off yourself. Think about your topic and consider your details and what you want to say. You may even want to go back and look over the ideas and information you’ve gathered.

Create a Title

What makes a good title? There are no hard-and-fast rules, but most writers would agree that an effective title hooks the reader into reading the essay, either because the title is unusual

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and intrigues the reader or because it asks a question and the reader is curious to know the answer. A good title announces your subject and prepares your reader for the approach you take. You can create a title while writing your first draft or after you have seen how your ideas develop. Either way, the important thing is to brainstorm for titles and not simply use the first one that comes to mind. With at least a half dozen to choose from, preferably more, you will have a much better sense of how to pick an effective title — one that does the important work of explaining your subject to the reader and that is lively and inviting. Spend several minutes reviewing the titles of the essays in Models for Writers in the Table of Contents, pp. xix–xxxii. You’ll like some better than others, but reflecting on the effectiveness of each one will help you strengthen your own titles.

Focus on Beginnings and Endings

Beginnings and endings are important to the effectiveness of essays, but they can be difficult to write. Inexperienced writers often think that they must write their essays sequentially when, in fact, it is better to write both the beginning and the ending after most of the rest of an essay is completed. Pay particular attention to both parts during revision.

The beginning of your essay is vitally important to its success. Indeed, if your opening doesn’t attract and hold your readers’ attention, readers may be less than enthusiastic about proceeding.

Your ending is almost always as important as your beginning. An effective conclusion does more than end your essay; it wraps up your thoughts and leaves readers satisfied with the presentation of your ideas and information. Your ending should be a natural outgrowth of the development of your ideas. Avoid trick endings, mechanical summaries, and cutesy comments, and never introduce new concepts or information in the ending. Just as with the writing of titles, the writing of beginnings and endings is perhaps best done by generating several alternatives and then selecting from among them. Review the Questions for Beginnings and Endings box and see Chapter 6 for more help developing your beginnings and endings.

Questions for Beginnings and Endings

1. Does my introduction grab the reader’s attention?

2. Is my introduction confusing in any way? How well does it relate to the rest of the essay?

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3. If I state my thesis in the introduction, how effectively is it presented?

4. Does my essay come to a logical conclusion, or does it just stop short?

5. How well does the conclusion relate to the rest of the essay? Am I careful not to introduce new topics or issues that I did not address in the body of the essay?

6. Does the conclusion help underscore or illuminate important aspects of the body of the essay, or is it just another version of what I wrote earlier?

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Revising After you have completed a first draft, set it aside for a few hours or even until the next day. Removed from the process of drafting, you can approach the revision of your draft with a clear mind. When you revise, consider the most important elements of your draft first. You should focus on your thesis, purpose, content, organization, and paragraph structure. You will have a chance to look at grammar, punctuation, and mechanics after you revise. This way you will make sure that your essay is fundamentally solid and says what you want it to say before dealing with the task of editing.

It is helpful to have someone — a friend or a member of your writing class — listen to your essay as you read it aloud. The process of reading aloud allows you to determine if your writing sounds clear and natural. If you have to alter your voice to provide emphasis, try rephrasing the idea to make it clearer. Whether you revise your work on your own or have someone assist you, the questions in the Questions for Revising box above will help you focus on the largest, most important elements of your essay early in the revision process.

Questions for Revising

1. Have I focused on my topic?

2. Does my thesis make a clear statement about my topic?

3. Is the organizational pattern I have used the best one, given my purpose?

4. Does the topic sentence of each paragraph relate to my thesis? Does each paragraph support its topic sentence?

5. Do I have enough supporting details, and are my examples the best ones that I can develop?

6. How effective are my beginning and my ending? Can I improve them?

7. Do I have a good title? Does it indicate what my subject is and hint at my thesis?

For more practice, visit the LaunchPad for Models for Writers: LearningCurve > Supporting Details

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Editing When you are sure you have communicated clearly what you want to say and you have done considerable work drafting and revising, you will want your work to be as accurate as possible. Editing is different from revising in that your focus is on correctness. It is also different from proofreading for careless errors in the final preparation of your essay, which we will discuss later in this chapter (pp. 28–29). During the editing stage, you check your writing for errors in grammar, punctuation, mechanics, spelling, usage, and sentence style. If your writing has editing errors, your readers may question the authority you are trying to establish as a writer — and perhaps then question your content.