Ticket to Write: Writing College Essays, MLA Update

Guides beginning composition students in both academic and nonacademic writing

Ticket to Write: Writing College Essays is the premier introduction to college-level writing for students who need further practice before entering composition courses. The text is all-inclusive and features a thorough treatment of the reading―writing connection; the writing process; multimodal types of academic writing; various forms of nonacademic writing; grammar, punctuation, and mechanics; and college competency skills.

Unlike other college essay-level texts ― which present the various rhetorical modes separately ― Ticket to Write usually includes aspects of several modes, asking students to first examine and then combine them. In this multimodal approach, description, illustration, and narration are treated together in reflective writing; process, comparison and contrast, classification, and cause and effect are combined in analytical writing; and definition and persuasion encompass position writing. Contemporary and suited to an active learning environment, the text promotes the writing process, group work, and an increased use of technology. Links throughout direct students to numerous video tutorials, lessons, practice material, and other assessments through online videos, as well as additional online sites devoted to writing, grammar, or collegiate academic skills.

* The 8th Edition introduces sweeping changes to the philosophy and details of MLA works cited entries. Responding to the “increasing mobility of texts,” MLA now encourages writers to focus on the process of crafting the citation, beginning with the same questions for any source. These changes, then, align with current best practices in the teaching of writing which privilege inquiry and critical thinking over rote recall and rule-following.