From Idea to Essay: A Rhetoric, Reader, and Handbook

From Idea to Essay is a rhetorically arranged rhetoric/reader/research paper guide/handbook that systematically leads students through the complex process of writing an essay. Part I covers the fundamentals of essay writing. The heart of the book, Part II, teaches the nine rhetorical modes in nine identically structured chapters. Part III addresses writing research papers and using documentation. Part IV presents a handbook of grammar, punctuation, and mechanics. From Idea to Essay features appealing readings with literary, professional, and student examples presented together with vocabulary words for study. The text includes a wealth of writing activities, including visual-based and internet-research assignments. The Twelfth Edition is briefer and more concise than previous editions, making it more functional and accessible for students.

Born in Belgium, the daughter of an American minister, Jo Ray McCuen-Metherell had moved from Brussels to Paris to Bern, Switzerland, by the time she was seven years old. In Bern, she attended the Freies Gymnasium and spoke not only fluent French and German but also English, which was the language spoken to her by her American parents. After enduring World War II, Jo Ray's parents sent her and her brother to Pacific Union College (in the Napa Valley), where Jo Ray received a B. A. in English. After teaching English and French in high school for several years, Jo Ray started to take night classes at the University of Southern California in order to earn an M.A. and Ph.D., which would allow her to teach in college. While working on her doctorate, she was first hired to teach English at Glendale Community College and later to serve as Dean of the Evening College. A chance meeting in 1973 with Anthony C. Winkler, a successful novelist, led to a literary partnership that has produced 15 coauthored textbooks used at colleges and universities across the United States.

Born February 25, 1942, in Kingston, Jamaica West Indies. Educated in Jamaica at Excelsior College, Mount Alvernia Academy and Cornwall College, the last two being in Montego Bay. Educated in the United States at Citrus Community College, Glendora California (AA degree 1965). Taught briefly at Pasadena City College and for a year Moneague Teachers College in Saint Anne, Jamaica, an experience chronicled in Going Home to Teach (1995.) From 1968 to 1975 Winkler had a sales territory as a bookman, covering Southern California, Las Vegas and Utah for Appleton Century Crofts textbook publishers, and later Southern California and Arizona for Scots Foresman. In 1969 he decided he could write textbooks as well as anyone and through a chance meeting with the sales representative of another company, he submitted the manuscript POETRY AS SYSTEM and was offered a contract for its publication. Eventually, he met Jo Ray McCuen and the two became textbook writers and collaborators. Over the years they have produced more than a dozen textbooks, most on rhetoric and writing, which have survived through multiple editions. In 1975, Winkler quit his job as a bookman and became a full-time freelance writer. In addition to his textbooks, his body of work include the following: "The Painted Canoe" (novel 1983), "The Lunatic" (novel 1987), "The Great Yacht Race" (novel 1992), "Going Home to Teach" (autobiography 1995), "The Duppy" (novel 1997), "The Annihilation of Fish and other stories" (short story collection 2004), "Dog War" (novel 2006), "Trust the Darkness: My Life As a Writer" (autobiography 2008); Plays: "The Hippopotamus Card" (produced by WDR German radio network), "The Burglary" (premiered in Toronto July 7, 2005); Movies: "The Lunatic" (1991), "The Annihilation of Fish" (1999), "Biography Bob Marley, an Intimate Portrait by His Mother" (1996, with Cedella Booker, Marley's mother)