This study guide provides informational study material, sample test questions and flash cards to help prepare for the CLEP College Composition exam.

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div Composition research consistently demonstrates that the social context of writing determines the majority of conventions any writer must observe. Still, most universities organize the required first-year composition course as if there were an intuitive set of general writing "skills" usable across academic and work-world settings. In College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing Instruction, Anne Beaufort reports on a longitudinal study comparing one student’s experience in FYC, in history, in engineering,;

This second edition of Fundamental College Composition: A Grammar and Style Guide (FCC: AGSG), contains nine new chapters designed to further assist college students in their journey to become clear and precise writers of English. College classrooms--even college level English courses themselves--often overlook the teaching of fundamental writing. Consequently, students may acquire content knowledge, but often lack the language skills necessary to either demonstrate or apply that knowledge. College-level study exposes students to ideas that are complex. A cursory study of grammar and the rules of basic language arts give students the tools they need to express complex ideas clearly and persuasively. FCC: AGSG provides systematic lessons that progressively build the students' understanding of the clarity and efficacy of language. Acquiring knowledge certainly deserves possession of the language skills to express it. Without those skills, education does not meet its primary objective. FCC: AGSG was written to assure exposure to those skills. REVIEWS and WORDS of PRAISE This book is a great guide for student writers. It concisely and clearly presents useful style and grammar techniques. I assign it in all my writing classes, and my students swear by it. I even used it as a reference when I wrote my first textbook. Anyone who uses this book will become a better writer. ---Thomas A. Miller, J.D., Associate Professor, Justice and Law Administration, Western Connecticut State University, co-author of Business Law: Foundations for the 21st Century Fundamental College Composition provides a concise and accessible explanation of grammar components and importance. DeFeo’s prose is fluid and an excellent style example for writers to model. All writers should memorize this quote from the text, "Electronic, immediate, thoughtless communication has tainted the substructures of academic, formal written communication." ---Deanna Schaab, Adjunct Professor, Western Connecticut State University. This is a textbook aimed at improving the language skills of its readers. Written with humor and a broad vocabulary, it entertains as it educates. It will give today's students a deeper understanding of the basic rules and structure of the English language and improve skills that are often overlooked during their academic careers. Anyone looking to improve their language skills whether in an academic setting, the workplace, or one's personal life will benefit from reading this text. --Roseanne Shea, J.D., Professor, Attorney at Law, Legal Reference Librarian at the Haas Library, Western Connecticut State University, Danbury Fundamental College Composition has accomplished the near impossible--it has made writing instruction for the college student accessible and easy to understand. The book's concise and informative 12 chapters will be a welcome addition to the undergraduate curriculum of any post-secondary institution. The content reflects the author's many years of teaching writing to students and highlights what he considers the main pitfalls in student writing. To that end Professor DeFeo's longest chapter, “Punctuation”, identifies a key villain to poor composition. The book removes the mystery that adorns most pedagogical approaches to college level writing instruction and sets a path for student improvement of this most critical of communication skills. --Terrence P. Dwyer, J.D., Professor, Western Connecticut State University. Author of Legal Issues in Homeland Security – U.S. Supreme Court Cases, Commentary, and Questions (2014, Loose Leaf Law Publications, Inc.) Professor DeFeo's Fundamental College Composition is an invaluable tool for the college student, academic, executive, and anyone else who needs to improve their writing skills. As his Foreword reveals, DeFeo's text is laced with subtle humor and moments of delightful insight. All of us need help with writing, at least occasionally. This highly accessible book will nourish the careful and determined reader who puts forth the effort to learn. --Peter Weston Wood, author of To Swallow a Toad (1987, Donald I. Fine, Inc.). Guest columnist, The New York Times, The Jersey City Journal In the first edition of Fundamental College Composition William DeFeo provided undergraduate students with a concise but thorough exposition on the habits and tools of being a good writer. Professor DeFeo has now expanded on what is going to become a classic of college writing instruction. Seven new chapters and a prior chapter expanded into two updated individual chapters add to this engaging and straight-forward approach to establishing solid writing skills. As he did in the First Edition with his chapter “Punctuation,” Professor DeFeo in this new edition has added an important chapter on “Verb Tenses and Moods.” This is another culprit of poor composition that has perpetually plagued the college writer. After reading Professor DeFeo’s expanded Second Edition to Fundamental College Composition there can be no excuse for failing to present clear and flowing syntax. --Terrence P. Dwyer, J.D., Professor, Western Connecticut State University, columnist and author

This text is a transformation of Writing for Success, a text adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License without attribution as requested by the work's original creator or licensee. Kathryn Crowther, Lauren Curtright, Nancy Gilbert, Barbara Hall, Tracienne Ravita, and Kirk Swenson adapted this text under a grant from Affordable Learning Georgia to Georgia Perimeter College (GPC, now part of Georgia State University) in 2015. Section 1.3 was authored by Rebecca Weaver. This text is a revision of a prior adaptation of Writing for Success led by Rosemary Cox in GPC's Department of English, titled Successful College Writing for GPC Students (2014, 2015).Georgia Northwestern Technical College adapted this textbook for English 1101.Georgia Northwestern Technical College is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and SchoolsCommission on Colleges to award associate degrees.You can see the latest version at https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/english-textbooks/8/

This volume describes the formative years of English composition courses in college through a study of the most prominent documents of the time: magazine articles, scholarly reports, early textbooks, teachers' testimonies-and some of the actual student papers that provoked discussion. Includes writings by leading scholars of the era such as Adams Sherman Hill, Gertrude Buck, William Edward Mead, Lane Cooper, William Lyon Phelps, and Fred Newton Scott.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, English literature, composition, and rhetoric were introduced almost simultaneously into colleges throughout the British cultural provinces. Professorships of rhetoric and belles lettres were established just as print was reaching a growing reading public and efforts were being made to standardize educated taste and usage. The provinces saw English studies as a means to upward social mobility through cultural assimilation. In the educational centers of England, however, the introduction of English represented a literacy crisis brought on by provincial institutions that had failed to maintain classical texts and learned languages.Today, as rhetoric and composition have become reestablished in the humanities in American colleges, English studies are being broadly transformed by cultural studies, community literacies, and political controversies. Once again, English departments that are primarily departments of literature see these basic writing courses as a sign of a literacy crisis that is undermining the classics of literature. The Formation of College English reexamines the civic concerns of rhetoric and the politics that have shaped and continue to shape college English.