Through its first two editions, readers of How to Write Anything: A Guide and Reference have been intrigued—
What, after all, do experienced writers do when they face an assignment? As the new Introduction to this edition explains in detail, they size up a project to figure out what genre of writing best meets their needs and those of readers. They locate and examine specific examples of that genre, imitating some features and modifying or rejecting others. Then they shape a work within that genre themselves, bringing appropriate rhetorical, organizational, research, and language skills to bear on their writing. It is the goal of How to Write Anything to guide college writers through these complex choices for their most common academic and professional assignments. In doing so, it lays out key strategies to follow in any situation that requires purposeful writing.
But rarely do different writers work in the same order, and the same writer is likely to follow different paths for different projects. So How to Write Anything doesn’t define a single process of writing or imagine that all students using it will have the same skills and interests. Instead, a modular chapter organization and an innovative system of cross-
A Guide, Reference, and Reader
Parts 1 and 2 of How to Write Anything make up the Guide, which covers genres of writing that instructors assign in composition classes or that students encounter in other college courses. For each genre, writers are offered a framework presented as a flexible series of rhetorical choices—
The Reference section (Parts 3 through 9) covers key aspects of the writing process—
Part 10, the Reader, is an anthology of forty additional contemporary selections organized by genres covered in the Guide. Drawn from a variety of sources such as print and online journals, books, scholarly and popular magazines, blogs, and graphic novels, the readings offer both solid models for writing as well as compelling topics for students to respond to. Some examples include Jane McGonigal on how an hour a day of video games can enrich our lives, Neil deGrasse Tyson on the “cosmic perspective,” and evaluations of everything from cooking shows to Jay-
Key Features
A Flexible Writing Process and Design that Works
How to Write Anything works hard to make its materials accessible and attractive to writers accustomed to intuitive design. For instance, “How to Start” questions at the opening of each chapter in the Guide anticipate where writers get stuck and direct them to exactly what they need: One writer might seek advice about finding a topic for a report, while another with a topic already in hand wants prompts for developing that idea.
Similarly, frequent cross-
Media-
Writing Worth Reading—
How to Write Anything: A Guide and Reference contains an ample selection of readings, more than thirty in the Guide chapters alone, representing a wide range of genres. Selections illustrate key principles and show how genres change in response to different contexts, audiences, and—
Just
as important, the models in How to Write Anything are approachable. The readings—
New to This Edition
How to Write Anything was designed from the outset to be a practical, highly readable guide to writing for a generation not fond of long books. The third edition doubles down on that commitment. It’s smarter, more efficient, and shorter.
Get the Most Out of Your Course with How to Write Anything
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LaunchPad for How to Write Anything with Readings: Where Students Learn
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for Readers and Writers, Bedford/St. Martin’s adaptive quizzing program, quickly learns what students already know and helps them practice what they don’t yet understand. Game-
i-
Portfolio Keeping, Third Edition, by Nedra Reynolds and Elizabeth Davis provides all the information students need to use the portfolio method successfully in a writing course. Portfolio Teaching, a companion guide for writing instructors, provides the practical information instructors and writing program administrators need to teach using the portfolio method. To order Portfolio Keeping packaged with the print book, contact your sales representative for a package ISBN.
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New open online resources with videos and interactive elements engage students in new ways of writing. You’ll find tutorials about using common digital writing tools, an interactive peer review game, Extreme Paragraph Makeover, and more—
Instructor Resources
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Teaching with How to Write Anything: A Guide and Reference with Readings is available in print and as a PDF that can be downloaded from the Bedford/St. Martin’s online catalog at the URL above. In addition to chapter overviews and teaching tips, the instructor’s manual includes sample syllabi, classroom activities, and teaching goals.
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Acknowledgments
The following reviewers were very helpful through several drafts of this book: Patricia Baines, Middle Tennessee State University; Patricia Bonner, North Carolina A&T State University; Jonathan Bradley, Middle Tennessee State University; Bob Brown, Chippewa Valley Technical College; Diana Kaye Campbell, Forsyth Technical Community College; Tricia Capansky, University of Tennessee at Martin; Susan Chism, Greenville College; Cheri Crenshaw, Dixie State University; Linsey Cuti, Kankakee Community College; Jason DePolo, North Carolina A&T State University; Amy Eggert, Bradley University; Bart Ganzert, Forsyth Technical Community College; Carl Gerriets, Century College; Anissa Graham, University of North Alabama; Gary Hafer, Lycoming College; Elizabeth Hope, Delgado Community College; Pamela Kincheloe, Rochester Institute of
Technology; Michael Leggs, Saint Paul College; Lila MacLellan, Pace University; Nicholas Mauriello, University of North Alabama; Chanomi Maxwell-
All textbooks are collaborations, but we have never before worked on a project that more creatively drew upon the resources of an editorial team and publisher. How to Write Anything began with the confidence of Joan Feinberg, Director of Digital Composition, that we could develop a groundbreaking brief rhetoric. She had the patience to allow the idea to develop at its own pace and then assembled an incredible team to support it. We are grateful for the contributions of Edwin Hill, Vice President; Karen Henry, Editorial Director; and Leasa Burton, Publisher. We are also indebted to Anna Palchik, Senior Art Director and designer of the text, and Deb Baker, Senior Production Editor. Special thanks to Peter Arkle and Anna Veltfort for their drawings, Christian Wise for his photographs, and to Kate Mayhew for her help with art research. They all deserve credit for the distinctive and accessible visual style of How to Write Anything.
For her marketing efforts, we are grateful to the guidance offered by Emily Rowin and, of course, to the efforts of the incomparable Bedford/St. Martin’s sales team. And for all manner of tasks, including coordinating permissions and manuscript preparation, we thank Rachel Childs.
Our greatest debt is to Ellen Darion, who was our original editor on this lengthy project and saw this edition through to the completion of its first draft: always confident about what we could accomplish, patient when chapters went off-
Succeeding
Ellen as editor on this latest version, Sarah Macomber joined a project she was well familiar with—
Finally, we are extraordinarily grateful to our former students whose papers or paragraphs appear in How to Write Anything. Their writing speaks for itself, but we have been inspired, too, by their personal dedication and character. These are the sort of students who motivate teachers, and so we are very proud to see their work published in How to Write Anything: Alysha Behn, Jordyn Brown, Stefan Casso, Marissa Dahlstrom, Manasi Deshpande, Micah T. Eades, Wade Lamb, Desiree Lopez, Cheryl Lovelady, Shane McNamee, Matthew Nance, Lily Parish, Miles Pequeno, Heidi Rogers, Kanaka Sathasivan, J. Reagan Tankersley, Katelyn Vincent, and Susan Wilcox.
John J. Ruszkiewicz
Jay T. Dolmage
Correlation to the Council of Writing Program Administrators’ (WPA) Outcomes Statement
How to Write Anything helps students build proficiency in the five categories of learning that writing programs across the country use to assess their work: rhetorical knowledge; critical thinking, reading, and writing; writing processes; knowledge of conventions; and composing in electronic environments. A detailed correlation follows.
Features of How to Write Anything: A Guide and Reference with Readings, Third Edition, Correlated to the WPA Outcomes Statement
Note: This chart aligns with the latest WPA Outcomes Statement, ratified in July 2014.
WPA Outcomes | Relevant Features of How to Write Anything |
Rhetorical Knowledge | |
Learn and use key rhetorical concepts through analyzing and composing a variety of texts. | Each assignment chapter in the Guide includes three texts in a wide variety of genres. Questions, headnotes, and “Reading the Genre” prompts encourage students to examine and understand the key rhetorical concepts behind each genre of writing. Writing activities and prompts guide students through composing a range of texts. In addition, the Reader includes more than 40 more texts for student analysis. |
Gain experience reading and composing in several genres to understand how genre conventions shape and are shaped by readers’ and writers’ practices and purposes. |
The Introduction provides a foundation for thinking about genre, while each assignment chapter in the Guide offers a thorough look at each genre’s conventions and how those conventions have developed and changed, as well as how to apply them to students’ own writing situations. Each chapter in the Reader includes a “Genre Moves” feature, which analyzes a classic model to highlight a specific genre convention and suggest ways students might make use of it. |
Develop facility in responding to a variety of situations and contexts, calling for purposeful shifts in voice, tone, level of formality, design, medium, and/or structure. |
Each assignment chapter in the Guide offers detailed advice on responding to a particular rhetorical situation, from arguing a claim and proposing a solution to writing an e- See “Choosing a Style and Design” sections in Part 1 chapters, and the “Getting the Details Right” sections in Part 2 chapters for advice on situation- Part 5 features chapters on “High, Middle, and Low Style” (32); “Inclusive and Culturally Sensitive Style” (33); and “Vigorous, Clear, Economical Style” (34). |
Understand and use a variety of technologies to address a range of audiences. |
Chapter 48 covers digital media, including blogs, social networks, Web sites, wikis, podcasts, maps, and videos. Chapter 49 covers creating and using visuals to present data and ideas. Each assignment chapter includes at least one visual example of the genre that the chapter focuses on, and several of the reference chapters include Visual Tutorials featuring photographs and illustrations that provide students with step- Chapter 13 covers e- |
Match the capacities of different environments (e.g., print and electronic) to varying rhetorical situations. | The text and LaunchPad include a wide range of print and multimodal genres from essays and scholarly articles to photographs, infographics, Web sites, and audio and video presentations. Rhetorical choices that students make in each genre are covered in the Guide chapters and appear in discussions of the writing context and in abundant models in the book. |
Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing | |
Use composing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating in various rhetorical contexts. |
The assignment chapters in the Guide emphasize the connection between reading and writing a particular genre: Each chapter includes model readings with annotations that address the key features of the genre. Each Part 1 chapter shows students the rhetorical choices they need to consider when writing their own papers in these genres and offers assignments to actively engage them in these choices. Chapter 21, “Critical Thinking,” explains rhetorical appeals and logical fallacies. Reference chapters in Parts 3 through 8 cover invention, reading, writing, research, and design strategies that work across all genres. |
Read a diverse range of texts, attending especially to relationships between assertion and evidence, to patterns of organization, to interplay between verbal and nonverbal elements, and how these features function for different audiences and situations. |
Each assignment chapter in the Guide includes three texts in a wide variety of genres. In addition, the Reader includes more than 40 more texts for student analysis. Each of the Guide chapters also includes sections on understanding audience, creating a structure, finding and developing material (including evidence), and choosing a style and design that best reflect the genre of writing. Chapter 20, “Smart Reading,” helps students read deeply and “against the grain,” while in Chapter 21, “Critical Thinking,” students learn about claims, assumptions, and evidence. Chapter 26, “Organization,” gives advice on devising a structure for a piece of writing. |
Locate and evaluate primary and secondary research materials, including journal articles, essays, books, databases, and informal Internet sources. | Part 7 covers research and sources in depth, with chapters on beginning your research, finding print and online sources, doing field research, evaluating and annotating sources, and documenting sources. |
Use strategies — such as interpretation, synthesis, response, critique, and design/redesign — to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those from appropriate sources. | Chapters 41 (“Annotating Sources”), 42 (“Paraphrasing Sources”), and 44 (“Incorporating Sources into Your Work”) explore a variety of strategies for integrating the writer’s ideas with ideas and information from sources. Chapter 12, “Synthesis Papers,” shows students how to summarize, compare, and assess the views offered by different sources. |
Processes | |
Develop a writing project through multiple drafts. | Chapter 35, “Revising Your Own Work,” discusses the importance of revising and gives detailed advice on how to approach different types of revision. Targeted cross- |
Develop flexible strategies for reading, drafting, reviewing, collaboration, revising, rewriting, rereading, and editing. |
The Reference’s brief, targeted chapters and cross- Genre- |
Use composing processes and tools as a means to discover and reconsider ideas. | Each Part 1 chapter includes two sections that encourage students to use the composing process as a means of discovery. “Deciding to write . . . ” covers the reasons a writer might choose a specific form of writing, while “Exploring purpose and topic” prompts students to challenge their own ideas about a subject and write to discover what they think when they look more deeply at it. |
Experience the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes. | Several chapters in the Reference send students out into their worlds for advice, information, and feedback. Chapter 22, “Experts,” talks about the kinds of experts — such as librarians, instructors, peers, and writing center tutors — that students can call on for help. Chapter 39, “Doing Field Research,” discusses the whys and hows of interviewing and observing people as part of the research process. Chapter 36, “Peer Editing,” offers advice for helping peers improve their work. |
Learn to give and act on productive feedback to works in progress. | Chapter 36, “Peer Editing,” encourages students to give specific, helpful advice to peers and think about peer editing in the same way they revise their own work. |
Adapt composing processes for a variety of technologies and modalities. |
Chapter 48 focuses on digital media, including blogs, Web sites, wikis, podcasts, maps, and videos. Chapter 13 covers e- |
Reflect on the development of composing practices and how those practices influence their work. | The new Introduction invites students to consider their writing practices and how the choices they make during invention, drafting, research, and revision shape their process and their work. |
Knowledge of Conventions | |
Develop knowledge of linguistic structures, including grammar, punctuation, and spelling, through practice in composing and revising. | Part 9 (Common Errors) includes chapters on grammar, punctuation, and mechanics, while Chapters 35 and 36 provide editing and proofreading advice. Targeted cross- |
Understand why genre conventions for structure, paragraphing, tone, and mechanics vary. | Each Part 1 chapter includes a section on choosing style and design to help students understand how their choice of style, structure, tone, and mechanics is shaped by the genre in which they’re writing. |
Gain experience negotiating variations in genre conventions. | Models of work from several subgenres within the book’s main genres show students the variations that exist within the confines of a given genre. In addition, “Reading the Genre” prompts help students identify and understand the genre conventions at work in each selection. |
Learn common formats and/or design features for different kinds of texts. | Each assignment chapter in the Guide covers a format specific to the genre covered there; see “Choosing a Style and Design” in the Part 1 chapters and “Getting the Details Right” in the Part 2 chapters. |
Explore the concepts of intellectual property (such as fair use and copyright) that motivate documentation conventions. | Chapter 45, “Documenting Sources,” helps students understand why documentation is important and what’s at stake in properly identifying and citing material used from sources. |
Practice applying citation conventions systematically in their own work. | Chapters 46, “MLA Documentation and Format,” and 47, “APA Documentation and Format,” include detailed guidance for citing sources according to each style’s conventions. Visual Tutorials in each chapter help students identify and find the information they need in order to create accurate citations. |