The Practical Guide to Writing with Readings and Handbook (8th Edition)

The Eighth Edition of this classic rhetoric, reader, and handbook helps students to write effective college essays. Because college writing is a process that includes both reading and critical thinking. The Practical Guide to Writing offers more than 50 essays-by students and by professional writers-that provide not only subjects for analysis but also examples of effective writing.

New Features in the English Edition:

• An extensively revised Chapter 2, "Drafting and Revising," provides a series of drafts and revisions by the journalist and historian Frances FitzGerald
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• A new chapter, Chapter 7, "The Writer's Voice," not only offers advice on developing style but also discusses stylistic differences among the academic disciplines
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• A thoroughly revised and updated Chapter 16, "The Research Essay," offers up-to-date coverage of online research strategies, including guidance on evaluating Internet material; it also includes the latest MLA guidelines for documenting electronic sources
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• Chapter 17, "Writing About Literature," includes stories by Isabel Allende and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a new series of drafts and revisions by a student writer, and a brief discussion of current critical approaches to literature
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• New essays on topics students are likely to encounter in other courses (the Internet, plagiarism, Vietnam), as well as new work by such writers as Steve Martin, Robert B. Reich, Debra Dickerson, and Patricia J. Williams
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• A list of Frequently Asked Questions, on the inside front cover, to help students and instructors quickly locate answers to their most important writing questions
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• An opening chapter, "Discovering Ideas," that addresses students' anxiety about writing and shows them how to begin
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• An effective and often-imitated chapter on analysis, Chapter 8, "Analytic Thinking and Writing."
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• Three engaging (and thorough) chapters on sentence-level revision
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• Detailed practical advice on writing essay examinations, writing book reviews, and writing essays based on interviews
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• A concise, readable handbook
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• Visual material, including drawings, photographs, and cartoons
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