The Riverside Reader

One of Houghton Mifflin's flagship readers, The Riverside Reader is a collection of expository essays arranged by rhetorical modes--narration and description, process analysis, comparison and contrast, division and classification, definition, cause and effect, and persuasion and argument--with a final thematic unit illustrating all of the modes. The readings represent diverse voices and views from some of the most respected professional essayists working in the English language, along with short stories and student examples. Essays in the Ninth Edition serve as both structural models for students to emulate in their own writing and as sources of content for classroom discussion and paper topics. The carefully developed apparatus--including headnotes and post-reading material--analyzes each reading in context, helping students better understand the craft of writing and apply what they learn to their own work.

Joseph F. Trimmer is the professor of English and director of The Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry at Ball State University. The author of numerous articles on literature, culture and literacy, Professor Trimmer's books include THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION: THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS (1978), UNDERSTANDING OTHERS: CULTURAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL STUDIES AND THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE (1992), and NARRATION AS KNOWLEDGE: TALES OF THE TEACHING LIFE (1997). Professor Trimmer has also worked on 20 documentary films for PBS including the six-part series, "Middletown" (1982). His textbooks include WRITING WITH A PURPOSE, 14th Edition (2004), THE RIVERSIDE READER 9th Edition (2008), and eFICTIONS (2002). Trimmer's A GUIDE TO MLA DOCUMENTATION, 9th Edition is a perennial bestseller and he has recently published A GUIDE TO APA DOCUMENTATION.

Maxine Hairston (1922-2005) (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) specialized in the teaching of expository writing. She was active in two major professional associations for the teaching of writing, the National Council of Teachers of English and the Conference on College Composition and Communication. In 1985 she served as Chair of the CCCC conference. Dr. Hairston also published several articles in professional journals and authored five textbooks on the teaching of college composition.