Successful Writer's Handbook, The, 3rd edition

Bestselling authors Kathleen McWhorter and Jane Aaron have joined forces to create a tabbed, spiral-bound handbook with exercises for first-year composition students that will give them the writing, reading, and study skills they need to succeed in college and in their writing courses.

The handbook opens with a practical, down-to-earth discussion of study skills, time management, reading strategies, and critical thinking — the essentials for good academic work and excellent papers.  McWhorter and Aaron reach out to all students who may not already possess a strong foundation for doing college-level work to help them become successful members of the college community.

    

·         Provides students with powerful study skills, giving them a solid foundation upon which they can develop successfully as college thinkers and writers. The first tabbed section of the book gives students practical strategies for success in college and in their writing courses. Straightforward guidance will help busy students learn to study effectively, manage their time, and develop their academic writing skills.

·         Helps students understand the academic reading-writing connection more than other handbooks.  Part 1 contains a full chapter on reading, and later coverage provides further instruction on critical reading applied to different writing situations.  For example, strategies for reading and understanding arguments are presenting alongside strategies for writing arguments. 

·         Accelerates learning with easy-to-understand, accessible, and time-tested content.  The grammar coverage, which is based upon Jane Aaron’s bestselling Little, Brown handbooks, is clear and direct. Uncomplicated language and numerous charts, tables, and examples help students to understand and learn about the writing process, grammar, usage, research writing, and more.

·         Progressing from the simple to the more complex, multi-level exercises move from single sentences to connected discourse. This progression allows students to experience success with easy material before proceeding to more challenging content. Instructors may use the exercises selectively depending on their students’ experience and abilities.

·         Provides up to date, extensive coverage of research in Part 8, including concrete information on locating, managing, evaluating, integrating, and documenting sources. Online sources receive special emphasis on both the explanations and the documentation models. Also covered is managing information, using the library as a Web gateway, evaluating and synthesizing sources, avoiding plagiarism, and documenting sources accurately.

·         Helps students adjust to college demands with two types of featured boxes throughout the text.  Success boxes offer checklists and step-by-step guidance for handling challenges like working in groups or solving note-taking problems.  “Critical Thinking” boxes offer strategies for analyzing and evaluating ideas, concepts, and processes. 

·         Culture and Languagesections guide multilingual students on language matters they might encounter with unique emphasis on both rhetorical and grammatical issues. Culture and Language sections are thoroughly integrated into the text so that students aren’t stigmatized and can find what they need without knowing which problems they do and don’t share with native speakers and writers.

• Learning objectives begin each chapter, providing an overview of key concepts.
• Added material for student success includes “Success” boxes providing tips for behaviors and habits that contribute to college success and “Critical Thinking” boxes offering strategies for analyzing and evaluating ideas, concepts, and processes. 
• Chapter 4, “Critical Thinking Skills for Readers and Writers,” shows students how to interpret, evaluate, and respond to both text and images.
• Chapter 6, “Writing in College,” covers how to become a successful academic writer
• Chapter 15, “Presenting Writing,” covers how to design successful academic writing using the elements of design.
• Chapter 16, “Online and Business Writing,” covers job-search strategies and formatting a successful résumé and cover letter. 
• Chapter 17, “Oral and Multimedia Presentations,” provides more tips for formatting successful presentations.
• Research coverage provides even more advice on how to avoid plagiarism, use databases, and evaluate Web sources such as blogs, social-networking sites, and multimedia.
• Documentation sections feature the most up-to-date MLA and APA guidelines. 
• Student writing provides a complete view of one student’s writing process, from idea to final paper, as well as a new argument paper on cyberbullying. 
• Updated examples show students how to use academic language and effectively organize their writing.
• New exercises throughout provide even more practice on topics such as reading an essay, critically analyzing sources, and reading visuals.