The College Writer: A Guide to Thinking, Writing, and Researching

Combining streamlined, nuts-and-bolts writing instruction with accessibility and visual appeal, The College Writer helps visual learners and less-prepared students master the writing process. The text features step-indexing and color-coding that allow students to thumb directly to a topic, and checklists and summary boxes that make it easy to refer back to previously covered material. In addition, thorough coverage of drafting, writing, revising, and proofreading includes sample paragraphs and visuals that walk students through the process of identifying a topic and writing a paper.

The Second Edition offers 20 additional professional readings, new information on stylistic choices, and enhanced coverage of incorporating visual elements into the writing process. Market leading technology support?including The College Writer CD for students, online professional readings, and the WriteSpace online writing program?help make teaching and learning writing more dynamic.

• New! Coverage of visual literacy and enhanced coverage of design and illustration teach students how to evaluate and utilize visuals that they encounter in media such as the Internet, television, movies, and advertisements.
• New! Twenty additional professional readings?including "The Media's Image of Arabs" by Jack Shaheen (persuasive writing), "Communication Styles" by Deborah Tannen (report writing), and "On Excellence" by Cynthia Ozick (definition)?provide high-interest examples of a variety of writing strategies and models.
• New! Additional information on stylistic choices such as passive voice, weak verbs, and other common problems with student writing help students to identify problem areas and strengthen their writing.
• New! Readings now reflect both national and international diversity, and feature current topics of high interest to students. Examples include "Campus Racism 101" by Nikki Giovanni and "The Handicap of Definition" by William Raspberry.
• A research section offers comprehensive coverage on finding, using, and documenting research sources, as well as advice on avoiding plagiarism.
• The WriteSpace online writing program delivers interactive exercises, diagnostic tests, assignments, and learning modules for more effective writing. It can be used in distance-learning courses, wired classrooms, or as an enhancement to traditional courses.
• The web site at www.thecollegewriter.com builds upon the lessons in the book with a range of resources including assignments, practice tests, and critical-reading models.
• The College Writer CD contains the entire text of the printed book, as well as grammar exercises, audio clips, videos, activities, web links, and other resources.

Randall VanderMey (Ph.D. University of Iowa, M.F.A. Iowa Writers¿ Workshop, M.A. University of Pennsylvania) is an associate professor in the Department of English at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. He also has taught composition, literature, and technical writing at Iowa State University, Dordt College, and the University of Iowa. He is a contributing editor and creative consultant for Write Source. VanderMey has received numerous fellowships, grants, and awards for his teaching and poetry. He has published two books of poems, GROWING SOUL: A SONG CYCLE, GOD TALK, and CHARM SCHOOL: FIVE WOMEN OF THE ODYSSEY, as well as a commissioned biography, MERIZON: THE GREAT JOURNEY.

Verne Meyer (Ph.D. University of Minnesota) has spent twenty-five years in the English classroom, first at the high school level and more recently at the college level. He has taught composition and theater at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa. Meyer has received several awards recognizing his excellence as both a classroom teacher and a director of dramatic arts. He is considered an authority on writing across the curriculum and workplace writing, and often gives presentations as a featured speaker at educational conferences.

John Van Rys (Ph.D. Dalhousie University, M.A./B.A. University of Western Ontario) has taught composition, business writing, and literature courses to college students for more than fifteen years, primarily at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa. In the fall of 2005, Van Rys began teaching in the English Department at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, where he also is pursuing scholarly work in Canadian literature. For over a decade, he has worked on writing-across-the-curriculum theory and practice, on connections between workplace and academic writing, and on strategies for strengthening varied literacies in students (from reading to information to visual literacy). With Write Source Educational Publishing and Cengage Learning, he has coauthored writing handbooks for students from middle school to college. Van Rys also has coauthored an award-winning business-writing handbook for workplace professionals, WRITE FOR BUSINESS, with UpWrite Press.

Patrick Sebranek (M.A. University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse) taught English, speech, and multimedia classes for sixteen years at Union Grove High School in Wisconsin. During that time, he served as the English department chair and worked on several district-wide projects, including a writing-across-the-curriculum program and a K-12 writing sequence. He has studied the works of James Moffett, Ken Macrorie, Linda Reif, Nancie Atwell, and many other contemporary educators dealing with writing and learning. Sebranek is an author and editorial director for the Write Source Educational Publishing House and works closely with teachers and educators on all new and revised handbooks and sourcebooks.