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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