Longman Writer, The: Rhetoric, Reader, and Research Guide, 10th edition

Published by Pearson (January 10, 2017) © 2018
  • Judith Nadell
  • John Langan
  • Deborah A Coxwell-Teague

Title overview

For one- or two-semester, first-year composition courses.

Step-by-step reading and writing instruction with clear strategies

The Longman Writer integrates reading and writing and helps students find strategies that work for them. This flexible, easy-to-use guide covers each stage of the writing process, essay exams, literary papers, and research paper documentation (based on the 8th edition of the MLA Handbook), offering professional and student examples. Numerous activities and writing assignments are employed, highlighting rhetorical choices and encouraging students to explore a range of composing strategies.

The 10th Edition includes updated advice for every stage of the academic writing process, critical reading and thinking, and the research process, with 12 new student essay samples.

Hallmark features of this title

  • Organized in 6 helpful sections: reading process; writing process; patterns of development; research essays; literary essays and exams; grammar and spelling.
  • Visual aids include writing checklists, writing reference diagrams, and icons that make popular content easy to find.
  • Includes skill-building practice with prewriting, revising, researching, applying patterns, multimedia challenges and more.
  • Reading-related writing includes pre-reading journaling and post-reading analysis of writer's craft, use of patterns and more.
  • Examples guide writing: Annotated student essays demonstrate patters and blends, concrete source examples teach MLA documentation, and professional selections (with author bios) showcase multiple subjects and masterful use of patterns.
  • Free download: The Pearson Guide to the 2021 MLA Handbook.

New and updated features of this title

  • REVISED: Academic writing is integrated with increased emphasis in Writing Process chapters (Part II), Patterns of Development and Research Essay chapters (III–IV), with more professional works, MLA and APA in-text references, works cited and reference lists.
  • REVISED: Reading and thinking critically is emphasized in Ch. 1, “Becoming a Critical Reader and Thinker,” and all related chapters, guiding students to think critically during the composing process and when assessing sources to integrate in their essays.
  • REVISED: Writing process section revisions illustrate the stages students must move through as they craft an essay. 8 chapters (2-9) follow a student's process (from receiving the assignment to submitting a final draft) demonstrating critical steps.
  • NEW: 12 new student essays, as well as new professional selections, offer a wider range of subject matter, new POVs, new examples of source documentation, use of illustrations, and well-known authors (e.g., Hillary Rodham Clinton, and more).
  • REVISED: Writing a research essay coverage includes MLA Handbook, 8th Edition guidelines and new sample student research papers featuring an annotated biography, MLA, and APA style.
  • REVISED: Plagiarism coverage helps students avoid intentional and unintentional plagiarism and patchwork writing.

Table of contents

PART 1: The Reading Process

  1. Becoming a Critical Reader and Thinker

PART 2: The Writing Process

  1. Getting Started Through Prewriting
  2. Identifying a Thesis
  3. Supporting the Thesis with Evidence
  4. Organizing the Evidence
  5. Writing the Paragraphs in the First Draft
  6. Revising Overall Meaning, Structure, and Paragraph Development
  7. Revising Sentences and Words
  8. Editing and Proofreading

PART 3: Patterns of Development

  1. Description
  2. Narration
  3. Illustration
  4. Division-Classification
  5. Process Analysis
  6. Comparison-Contrast
  7. Cause-Effect
  8. Definition
  9. Argumentation-Persuasion

PART 4: The Research Essay

  1. Locating, Critically Evaluating, Analyzing, and Synthesizing Research Sources
  2. Writing the Research Essay

PART 5: The Literary Essay and Essay Exam

  1. Writing About Literature
  2. Writing Essay Exams

PART 6: A Concise Handbook

Author bios

About our authors

Judith Nadell was Associate Professor of Communication at Rowan University (New Jersey). During her eighteen years at Rowan, she coordinated the introductory course in the Freshman Writing Sequence and served as Director of the Writing Lab.  A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Tufts University, she received a doctorate from Columbia University. With a special commitment to grassroots literacy, she founded and designed an adult literacy program, a children's reading enrichment initiative, and a family literacy project. She is the author of Becoming a Read-Aloud Coach and Vocabulary Basics (both Townsend Press); the creator of The King School Series (also Townsend Press); the co-author of Doing Well in College (McGraw-Hill), The Longman Reader and The Longman Writer. The recipient of a New Jersey award for excellence in teaching writing, Judith Nadell lives with her co-author husband, John Langan, near Philadelphia.

John Langan taught reading and writing at Atlantic Cape Community College near Atlantic City, New Jersey, for more than twenty-five years.  Before teaching, he graduated magna cum laude from LaSalle University and earned advanced degrees in writing at Rutgers University and in reading at Rowan University. Coauthor of The Longman Reader and author of a series of college textbooks on both reading and writing, he has published widely with McGraw-Hill Book Company, Townsend Press, and Longman. Through Townsend Press, his educational publishing company, he has developed the nonprofit “Townsend Library”–a collection of more than a hundred new and classic stories that appeal to readers of any age.

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