This brief rhetoric helps students develop strategies for critical reading, critical thinking, research, and writing that will help them argue clearly and convincingly. It teaches them to identify and develop arguments, to read and form reactions and opinions of their own, to analyze an audience, to seek common ground, and to use a wide, realistic range of techniques to write argument papers that express their individual views and original perspectives on modern issues. It includes clear explanations and examples of argument theory and reading and writing processes, research and documentation skills, and offers engaging, class-tested writing assignments and activities. 49 Essays for Analysis cover several broad issue and sub-issue areas, all of contemporary concern. Unique chapters discuss student argument styles, Rogerian argument, and argument and literature.

How does one help undergraduate students learn quickly how to produce effectively organized, persuasive, well-reasoned essays? This book offers a straightforward, systematic introduction to some of the key elements of the construction of arguments in essay form. The focus here is on practical advice that will prove immediately useful to students—recommended procedures are emphasized, and detailed examples of academic and student writing are provided throughout. The book introduces the basics of argumentation before moving on to the structure and organization of essays. Planning and outlining the essay, writing strong thesis statements, organizing coherent paragraphs, and writing effective introductions and conclusions are among the subjects discussed. A separate section concisely explores issues specific to essays about literary works.

Ursula Hackett's tried-and-tested approach for essay success helps students to create brilliant, original, high-scoring essays that are enjoyable to write – and read. With dozens of hands-on exercises and clear examples, Brilliant Essays begins with students' everyday experience of using language, arguing a case, reading, thinking, and communicating with other people. Chapters help students to examine – and dispel – assumptions, build and control their arguments and use evidence effectively, in written assignments and timed exams. The final chapter provides clear, no-nonsense answers to frequently asked questions raised by Ursula's students at Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Oxford and via her YouTube channel and website. Whichever subject your students study, Brilliant Essays will take them beyond the basics and give them the tools to reach their academic potential.

This brief spiral-bound booklet provides a portable, scannable, and simple guide to the basics of argumentative essay writing. Designed to complement in-depth classroom instruction, it serves as a portable resource that students can use on their own or in class for quick, step-by-step guidance on how to plan, research, write, and edit argumentative essays. Advice on avoiding plagiarism and documenting sources is included, along with up-to-date MLA and APA citation guidelines and a sample essay. Laminated for convenience and durability, the booklet is intended as a lasting reference tool that students can use throughout their academic studies. Additional resources, including an essay outline tool and grammar exercises, are provided on a free companion website.

Secrets of Argumentative Writing Revealed Experienced professor of academic writing reveals the techniques that make your writing sound scholarly. Want to raise your grade in college or graduate school? Even high schoolers can benefit from this advanced course in essay writing. There is no better way to transform your writing. Students report that major improvements in their writing and their GPA occurred as a result of using Crack the Essay.

The human presence that animates the personal essay is surely one of the most beguiling of literary phenomena, for it comes across in so familiar a voice that it’s easy to believe we are listening to the author rather than a textual stand-in. But the “person” in a personal essay is always a written construct, a fabricated character, its confessions and reminiscences as rehearsed as those of any novelist. In this first book-length study of the personal essay, Carl Klaus unpacks this made-up self and the manifold ways in which a wide range of essayists and essays have brought it to life. By reconceiving the most fundamental aspect of the personal essay—the I of the essayist—Klaus demonstrates that this seemingly uncontrived form of writing is inherently problematic, not willfully devious but bordering upon the world of fiction. He develops this key idea by explaining how structure, style, and voice determine the nature of a persona and our perception of it in the works of such essayists as Michel de Montaigne, Charles Lamb, E. B. White, and Virginia Woolf. Realizing that this persona is shaped by the force of culture and the impress of personal experience, he explores the effects of both upon the point of view, content, and voice of such essayists as George Orwell, Nancy Mairs, Richard Rodriguez, and Alice Walker. Throughout, in full command of the history of the essay, he calls up numerous passages in which essayists themselves acknowledge the element of impersonation in their work, drawing upon the perspectives of Joan Didion, Edward Hoagland, Joyce Carol Oates, Leslie Marmon Silko, Scott Russell Sanders, Annie Dillard, Vivian Gornick, Loren Eiseley, James Baldwin, and a host of other literary guides. Finally, adding yet another layer to the made-up self, Klaus succumbs to his addiction to the personal essay by placing some of the different selves that various essayists have called forth in him within the essays that he has crafted so carefully for this book. Making his way from one essay to the next with a persona variously learned, whimsical, and poignant, he enacts the palimpsest of ways in which the made-up self comes to life in the work of a single essayist. Thus over the course of this highly original, beautifully structured study, the personal essay is revealed to be more complex than many readers have supposed. With its lively analyses and illuminating examples, The Made-Up Self will speak to anyone who wishes to understand—or to write—personal essays.

From the bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia: discover Malcolm Gladwell's breakthrough debut and explore the science behind viral trends in business, marketing, and human behavior. The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas. “A wonderful page-turner about a fascinating idea that should affect the way every thinking person looks at the world.” —Michael Lewis