College Writing For Dummies

Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1 Getting Started with College Writing
Chapter 1 Transitioning to Greater Expectations: College Writing
Full Steam Ahead — Entering College
Understanding What to Expect in Your College Writing Course
Realizing you’re not in your high school English class anymore
Recognizing that college professors are nonnegotiable
Debunking Writing Myths
Myth No. 1: My professor doesn’t like my writing style
Myth No. 2: Writing is just too darn hard
Myth No. 3: Only problem writers need feedback
Myth No. 4: I suffer from the block
Myth No. 5: I can revise in ten minutes
Myth No. 6: Writers are born
Eyeing the Prize — Your Degree
Becoming a 33.3 percenter
Adjusting to college life
Chapter 2 Sailing into Safe Waters: First-Year Writing Success
Understanding the Essay and College Writing
Time-honored rite of passage
Comparing the five-paragraph and college essay
Expanding the five-paragraph format
Showing is knowing
Grasping the essay role in college writing
Talking the Talk
Translating academic-speak
Decoding your essay syllabus
Discovering New Partnerships
Reading and writing connection
Reading and lifetime learning
Writing and career success
Chapter 3 Previewing a College Writing 101 Course: Getting Schooled
Making First Impressions: First-Year-Writing Classroom
The professor’s way — the only way
Just accept it and do it
Looking closer at a typical college comp course
Reading and more reading
Living a day in the life of a comp class
Identifying the Variety of Writing You’ll Do
Writing drafts, drafts, and more drafts
Research papers, reports, and more, oh my
Writing to discover
Checking Out the Skills You’ll Learn and Use Forevermore
Writing with a purpose
Addressing new audiences
Saying more with less
Giving credit to earn credit
Engaging with sources
Valuing evidence and logic
Writing with style
Thinking and reading critically
Budgeting your writing time
Collaborating with other students
Writing resiliency
Respecting College Genre: What College Writing Isn’t
Providing personal commentary
Outlining
Summarizing sources
Reacting to sources
Writing only one draft — not
Challenging Yourself: College Writing’s Higher Expectations
Performance earns points
Say goodbye personality points
Courses are islands
Uncover some life and school balance
Sail unchartered waters
Chapter 4 Tasting Higher Steaks: Essay Portfolio Requirements
Understanding What’s It All about: Essay Portfolio Requirements
Identifying the ins and outs of portfolios
Eyeing the advantages and challenges of portfolios
The Power of One — Planning Your Portfolio
Checking the list
Scheduling dates
Meeting Goals: Department, College, and University
Fill ‘Er Up: Portfolio Requirements
Being clear about essay specifications
Including cover letters
Showing off your revisions — Multi drafts
Reflecting on improvements — Journals
Focusing on organization — Presentation
Preparing your e-portfolio
Part 2 Establishing Essentials: Elements of Composing
Chapter 5 Planning Your Essay Success: Organization and Structure
Getting Organized: Your Mindset
Structuring Your Essay’s Framework
Narrative writing — Telling a story
Descriptive writing — Detailing experiences
Expository writing — Explaining a process
Persuasive — Convincing beliefs
Comparison and contrast — Identifying likes and differences
Cause and effect — Justifying reasons and results
Analytical — Evaluating and concluding
Body Building: Heavyweight Middle Paragraphs
Getting a hold of their purpose
Utilizing tools to perform their duties
Creating First Impressions — Openings
Standing out
Including an anecdote
Using additional openings strategies
Steering clear of these types of openings
Focusing on the first sentences
Writing a title to highlight your essay
Leaving a Lasting Impression — Closings
Creating a closing in five steps
Avoiding crash endings — Closing don’ts
Chapter 6 Determining Your Reasons for Writing: Audience and Purpose
Identifying Who: Audience
Figuring out who your audience is
Recognizing what the college audience expects and doesn’t expect of you
Differentiating among audiences
Matching tense and tone to your audience
Justifying Why: Purpose
Figuring out your writing purpose
Considering person
Making Your Point: Thesis Statement
Understanding what a thesis is
Recognizing what a thesis isn’t
Writing a successful thesis: The how-to
Determining how: Writing forms
Chapter 7 Showing Evidence: Thesis Support
Search and Rescue: Sourcing Your Argument
Discovering a couple of search strategies
Tapping into required sources
Using extended sources
Laying Groundwork: Noting Sources
Figuring out whether sources are acceptable to use
Finding sources for your essay
Using the sources wisely
Recognizing the Different Ways You Can Use Sources
Quoting
Paraphrasing
Summarizing
Synthesizing
Extracting What You Need from Sources
Selecting sources
Organizing sources
Synthesizing sources
Vetting Your Sources in Greater Detail
Putting together the evidence
Refuting evidence as easy as 1, 2, 3
Building Your Compelling Argument in Five Easy-to-Follow Steps
Step 1: Write your thesis statement
Step 2: Identify major supporting points
Step 3: Synthesize data from multiple sources
Step 4: Refute counterarguments
Step 5: Form conclusions
Giving Due Credit: Citing Sources
Formal source references
Informal source references
Finalizing Recognition: References
Getting Real: Avoiding Logical Fallacies
Part 3 Writing with Style, Language, and Grammar
Chapter 8 Establishing Structure: Sentences and Paragraphs
Variety Packs: Sentence Organization
Identifying parts of speech
Recognizing important grammar terms
Focusing on sentence structures
Addressing sentence purpose
Inspecting sentence formations
Avoiding (Unintended) Incompletes: Fragments and Run-ons
Cutting a thought short: Fragments
Erroring with punctuation: Run-ons
Indenturing Sentences: Paragraph Structure
Focusing on topic sentences
Developing paragraphs
Flowing Smoothly: Coherence
Being consistent: Transitional strategies
Eyeing relationships: Transitional words
Chapter 9 Scoring Personality Points: Stars of Style
Knowing Who’s Doing What: Active Verbs and Specific Nouns
Heart of speech: Verbs
Never nameless: Nouns
Using specific nouns and action verbs
Pacing Makers: Varying Patterns
Recognizing sentence rhythms
Identifying punctuation rhythms
Noting word rhythms
Making the Right Word Choices
Implementing sensory words
Employing compact words
Using familiar words
Feeling Risky: Styling with Figures of Speech
Comparing and contrasting
Repeating
Adding surprise
Eyeing additional style builders
Avoiding Tragedy: Sabotaging Your Style
Overrepeating words
Self-referencing
Writing (exactly) like you talk
Overexplaining
Stacking adjectives
Extending quotations
Chapter 10 Showing Sensitivity: Language That Builds Better Societies
Raising Standards: General Guidelines for Respectful Language
Referencing Race and Ethnicity
Using preferred racial and ethnic terminology
Spelling and capitalizing racial and ethnic names
Making Age References
Making Disabilities References
Writing about disabilities
Showing respect through words
Showing inclusion
Being Inclusive with Gender and Sexual Orientation
Using gender inclusiveness
Making sexual orientation references
Considering Socioeconomic References
Chapter 11 Scrutinizing Your Paper for Sneaky Grammar Errors
Making Pronouns Agree
Recognizing the types of pronouns
Tackling problem pronouns
Positioning Prepositional Phrases
Connecting Conjunctions
Understanding what conjuctions are
Noticing conjunction problems
Following Parallel Structure
Placing Description
Remembering Verb Forms
Correctly using regular verbs
Being familiar with irregular verb forms
Making friends with the past participle
Comparing Incompletely
Confusing Adjectives and Adverbs
Profiting with Punctuation: Common Punctuation Errors
Commas: Taking a short break
Colons and semicolons: Taking a deep breath
Dashes and slashes: Politely interrupting
Ellipses, parentheses, and brackets: Adding afterthought
End punctuation and spacing: Finalizing thoughts
Quotation marks: Calling out the word
Proper nouns, titles, and headings: Avoiding capital offenses
Italics, abbreviations, and numbers: Punctuating words
Apostrophes and possessives: Owning up
Hyphenation: Making connections
Locating, Locating, Locating: Common Usage Errors
Sounding Smart: Similar-Sounding Words
Improving Page Accuracy
Plurals: Making it more than one
Misspelling: My personal gremlins
Part 4 Rehearsing for Success: Planning, Writing, and Revising
Chapter 12 Preparing Your Persuasion: Planning, Gathering, and Organizing Information
Organizing Yourself — and Your Essay
Preparing yourself
Preparing your essay
Meeting Expectations: Analyzing Assignments
Comprehending the assignment prompt
Analyzing the approach: The how-to
Zooming In: Assignment Requirements
Noting the deliverables
Answering the ask
Surveying the rubric
Starting Strong: Beginning with Background Reading
Brainstorming Strategies: Surfacing the Unknown
A-Z sentence generators
Freewriting
Asking What if . . .
Give it five
Contemplating other strategies
Taking Time for R & R: Reading and Recording
Recording notes
Annotating readings
Not Showing or Placing: Selecting Winning Topics
Knowing what makes a good topic
Recognizing when a topic isn’t good
Ordering a La Carte: Optional Assignment Sections
Title page
Table of contents
Appendices
Glossary
Abstracts and executive summaries
Taking One for the Team: Team Projects
Chapter 13 Getting One Done: Completing Draft One
Awakening Inspiration: Composing Environments and Writing Rituals
Location, location, location — college composing environments
Ritualizing writing
Destroying Delays: Procrastination and Writer’s Anxiety
Focusing on procrastination and delays
Reducing writer anxiety
Completing a Draft in Six Easy-to-Follow Steps
Step 1: Plan and focus
Step 2: Read for background
Step 3: Organize information
Step 4: Write the body paragraphs
Step 5: Draft opening, closing, and title
Step 6: Revise
Ensuring a Night’s Sleep: Plagiarism Protection
Accepting academic integrity
Researching plagiarism
Avoiding plagiarism: Helpful strategies
Understanding plagiarism and nonnative English students
Recalling Olden Rules: Ethics and Objectivity
Chapter 14 Rethinking and Repairing: Three-Level Revising Plan
Feeling Loopy: Feedback and Revising Loop
Understanding why you revise
Giving and receiving peer feedback
Getting professor feedback and comments
Offering peer feedback
Providing self-feedback
Focusing on the Global Level: Organization and Structure
Revising organization and structure
Opening: Working title, first sentence, and introduction
Supporting middle paragraphs
Closing
Addressing the Middle: Sentences and Paragraphs
Eyeing sentence-starter patterns
Avoiding spoken-language wordiness
Steering clear of wordy expressions
Concentrating on the Local Level
Recognizing overused words
Identifying unnecessary words
Reducing redundancies
Taking care of fragile qualifiers
Zooming In: Designing a Doable Revising Plan
Step 1: Start essays promptly
Step 2: Revise in layers
Step 3: Revise in short sessions
Chapter 15 Finalizing for Shipment: Format and Presentation
Making Ends Meet: Finalizing Titles, First Sentences, Openings, and Closings
Starting on the right foot — The first page
Standing out — The title
Formatting the words — The first sentence and first paragraph
Ending the right way: The closing
Preparing for Grading: Formatting
Engaging your reader: Page appearance
Including optional parts: Front and back materials
Submitting your essay
Eagle-Eyeing the Editing
Strategizing editing
Identifying and avoiding common errors
Truth Be Told: Verifying Information
Figuring Out What’s Missing
Looking Forward: Literacy Improvement Plan
Improving your reading
Improving your writing
Chapter 16 Reaching Out: Writing across Courses
Talking Discourse: Content Communities
Humanities
Social and behavioral sciences
Exploring Genre: Writing in the Disciplines
Recognizing content conventions
Extending the comp essay
Molding essay parts
Writing essays in your other courses
Identifying the Other Types of Papers You May Write in College
Reacting to something: Reaction papers
Focusing on information: Reports
Evaluating research: Literature reviews
Writing more in-depth: Research papers
Finding Advantages: Content Resources
Identifying course content resources
Relying on mass media resources
Making connections with content
Looking at current events
Seeing Is Believing: Model Excerpts
Psychology
Finance
The arts
Political science
Part 5 The Part of Tens
Chapter 17 Ten (or So) Resources for Improving College Writing
Use Office Hours
Maximize Accessible Campus Resources
Maximize Other Campus Resources
Form Study Teams
Study Writing Reference Books
Practice Exclusive Revising
Use Online College Resources
Create a Writing Improvement Plan
Practice Reading and Writing Skills
Chapter 18 Ten Tips for Nonnative English-Speaking College Writers
Read and Read Some More
Practice Writing
Write Nouns and Verbs
Prevent Plagiarism
Practice Structural Revising
Earn Non-Essay Grade Points
Befriend the Writing Center
Ask Artificial Intelligence
Practice Freewriting Daily
Master Idioms
Chapter 19 Ten (or So) Tips for Repairing Broken Essays: DIY
Fulfilling Requirements First
Looking Large for Major Issues
Pleasing Your Professor
Addressing Professor Comments
Opening and Closing Strong
Clarifying the Repair Problem
Presenting Perfectly
Avoiding Failure to Credit Sources
Index
EULA