It can be daunting to make the transition into university English courses and other classes requiring essay writing.
Introduction to Academic Reading and Writing Skills for University Students helps bridge the gap between high school and college, providing students with preparation for the challenges of essay writing and post-secondary level analysis of complex reading materials.
The text addresses the topic from a number of facets. It includes composition guidance to overcome mental blocks, targeted planning for the writing task, and coverage of the basic essay structure requirements. Through exposure to writing from various authors, students summarize and analyze readings, leading into the task of preparing a properly formatted and developed research paper for submission. Editing strategies round out the process, along with an appendix of marking terms.
Introduction to Academic Reading and Writing Skills for University Students:
- features removable pages for focused and practical in-class exercises, plus a variety of charts and templates to clarify concepts and to develop concrete examples.
- begins with a review of study skills and note-taking strategies, then moves through a comprehensive review of grammar to boost competence and confidence.
- provides the perfect challenge for students of various backgrounds, whether or not English is their first or second language.
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
Writing in the Twenty-First Century, and Why It Still Matters
SECTION 1
STUDY SKILLS FOR UNIVERSITY—A New Playing Field
Discussion and Writing Opportunity: What Type of Learner Are You? (Diagnostic Writing)
Listening and Note-Taking
Charting
Sentence Method
Cornell Notes
Other Useful Techniques
Review Exercise: Choosing and Developing Your Strategy
SECTION 2
GRAMMAR—Working with the Building Blocks of Communication
Discussion and Writing Opportunity: How Can We Achieve “Clear Writing”? (Personal Reflection)
An Overview of the Parts of Speech
Nouns: Abstract and Concrete, Common and Proper, Countable and Uncountable
Pronouns: Gender, Number, and Case
Adjectives: Possessives, Comparatives and Superlatives, Present and Past Participial Forms
Verbs: Regular and Irregular, Transitive and Intransitive, Tense and Form, Active and Passive Voice
Adverbs: Modification of Verbs, Adjectives, and (other) Adverbs
Conjunctions: Subordination and Coordination, Correlatives, Conjunctive Adverbs
Prepositions: Position and Idiom
Interjections: Levels of Formality
An Overview of Sentence Structure
Phrases
Clauses: Main (Independent) and Subordinate (Dependent)
Grammatical Types of Sentence Structures: Simple, Compound, Complex, and Compound-Complex
Stylistic Types of Sentence Structures: Loose, Periodic, and Balanced (Parallelism)
Common Errors: Fragments, Run-Ons, Dangling and Misplaced Modifiers, Mixed Constructions
Essentials of Punctuation
Period and Ellipsis
Comma
Semicolon
Colon
Dash
Exclamation
Quotation
Apostrophe
Question Marks
Review Exercise: A Comprehensive Grammar Inventory
SECTION 3
COMPOSITION STRATEGIES—The Art of Rhetoric
Discussion and Writing Opportunity: From Exposition to Persuasion—An E-mail to a Professor
Paragraphing
Paragraph Format
Topic Sentences
Paragraph Development
Unity and Coherence
Transitions
Drafting the Essay
Overcoming Mental Blocks: Freewriting, Mind Mapping, Brainstorming, and Questioning
Outlining
Expository and Persuasive Writing
How to Convince an Oppositional Audience
Crafting a Viable Thesis Statement
Understanding Logic: Inductive and Deductive Reasoning, Syllogisms, Fallacies
Fallacies: When Logic Goes Wrong
Developmental Strategies: Cause and Effect, Process, Classification and Division, Comparison and
Contrast
Presentations
Review Exercise: Putting Together a Logical Argument
SECTION 4
RHETORICAL ANALYSIS—Reflections on Writing
Discussion and Writing Opportunity: From Personal Response to Objective Analysis
Comprehension
Summarizing
Critical Reading
Protocols for Critique and Analysis
Sample Rhetorical Analysis Essay
Review Exercise: Analyze This! Choose an Essay from the Cited Readings
SECTION 5
WRITING RESEARCH ESSAYS—Charting Your Journey
Discussion and Writing Opportunity: Formulating a Research Topic
Choosing Research Sources: “No Wikipedia” and Beyond
Using Secondary Sources
Avoiding Plagiarism, Starting with an Original Outline
Annotations, Citations, and Bibliographies
When to Use and Not to Use the Personal Approach: Debates and Presentations
Protocols for Citation and Document Format
Review Exercise: Documentation Dilemmas
SECTION 6
EDITING—Fine-Tuning Your Work
Discussion and Writing Opportunity: Creating a Targeted Checklist
Proofreading Strategies
Academic/Professional Writing Style: Avoiding Colloquialisms, Slang, Clichés, Vague, and Informal Language
Spelling Checks and Grammar Checks
Finding and Correcting Glitches
Review Exercise: Peer Editing
SECTION 7
READINGS
Fables by Aesop
“On Education Politics: Book Eight” by Aristotle (translated by Benjamin Jowett)
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (excerpted)
“Language” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (excerpted)
“On Liberty” by John Stuart Mill
“Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell
“The President’s War Message” by Franklin D. Roosevelt
“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan
“Walden” (excerpted) by Henry David Thoreau
“Simplicity” by William Zinsser
APPENDIX OF MARKING TERMS
