Professional and Public Writing: A Rhetoric and Reader for Advanced Composition / Edition 1

by Linda S. Coleman, Robert W. Funk

Overview

  This book introduces readers and writers to the techniques of discourse analysis, genre theory, and primary (including ethnographic) and secondary research. It also engages learners in extensive practice and a sequence of increasingly complex and comprehensive “Writer's Profiles,” ending with a researched literature review and argument. Two casebooks offer illustrative and thematically-linked readings from a wide variety of public and professional sources.   The bonk contains a broad-based sampling of academic writing, and professional and public genres—journal essays, fact sheets, newsletters, Web sites, and proposals.   For individuals taking stock of their acquired personal skills and those required of professionals in the writing careers to which they aspire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780131838857
Publisher:	Pearson
Publication date:	02/05/2020
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

Table of Contents

(NOTE: Each chapter begins with a Chapter Preview and includes a Writer's Workshop.)

Preface.

1. Being Aware of Your Writing Practices.

Reviewing the Core Elements: Purpose, Audience, Thesis, and Persona.

Refining Your Purpose.

Knowing Your Audience.

Focusing Your Thesis.

Controlling Your Persona.

Conclusion.

Checklist for Analyzing the Core Elements of Writing.

Writers on Writing.

President in Search of a Publisher, Jimmy Carter. Practicing History, Barbara Tuchman. Making the Truth Believable, Tracy Kidder.

Writer's Notebook.

2. Being Aware of Rituals, Practices, and Habits.

Writing Rituals.

Composing Practices.

Prewriting: Generating Content. Prewriting: Organizing Your Material

Working Habits.

Drafting. Drafting Collaboratively. Revising. Editing and Proofreading.

Writers on Writing.

Strengthened by a Pale Green Light, Reynolds Price.

Writer's Notebook.

WRITER'S PROFILE ONE: HOW DID I BECOME THE WRITER I AM?

3. Becoming Aware of Professional Writing Practices.

Investigating the Profession.

Analyzing a Discourse Community.

Reflecting on Your Experiences: Asking Questions. Observing a Discourse Community.

Writer's Notebook.

Studying Forms of Communication.

Genre. Writing Situation and Medium. Expanding the Definition: Oral and Visual Genres. Style. Design.

Studying Writers in Their Environments: Primary Research.

Ethnographic Research.

Writer's Notebook.

Getting Started on Primary Research.

Ethical Considerations. Making Contacts.

Keeping Things Organized.

The Project Notebook. Note Taking When Interviewing and Observing. Getting Ready to Take Notes. Preparing for an Interview.

Writers on Writing.

Natural Selections, E.O.Wilson.

4. Learning from Professional Writing.

Tracing the Genealogy of a Profession.

Writer's Notebook.

Putting Your Discourse Analysis Skills to Work.

Casebook of Readings: Privacy in the Information Age.

Writer's Notebook. Is Privacy Still Possible in the Twenty-First Century? Jerry Berman and Paula Bruening. Technology as Security, Declan McCullagh. Balancing Security & Privacy in the Internet Age, Institute of Management & Administration. American Nursing Association Action Report: Privacy and Confidentiality, Introduced by Beverly L. Malone. Stop That Face! Linda Rothstein. Talk Show Telling versus Authentic Telling: The Effects of the Popular Media on Secrecy and Openness, Evan Imber-Black.

Casebook of Readings: Weight, Body Image, and Identity.

Writer's Notebook. Eating Disorders Information Sheets from the BodyWise Handbook, The National Women’s Health Information Center. Fat World/Thin World: “Fat Busters,” “Equivocators,” “Fat Boosters,” and the Social Construction of Obesity, Karen Honeycutt. Shallow Hal (Movie Review), Roger Ebert. Who Says Only Women Have Plastic Surgery? (Advertisement), American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. Buff Enough? (Book Review), Jonathan Rauch.

WRITER'S PROFILE TWO: WHERE AM I GOING AS A PROFESSIONAL WRITER?

5. Learning from Public Writing.

Finding a Public Voice: Problem Solving Strategies.

Solving Problems with Others: Analyzing the Writing Situation. Solving Problems Alone: Analyzing the Writing Situation.

Writer's Notebook.

Putting Your Discourse Analysis Skills into Service.

Casebook of Readings: Targeting Discrimination.

Take Action: Children’s Rights Are Human Rights, Marc Kielburger and Craig Kielburger. Make Age Irrelevant by Beating Negative Attitudes, AARP Interview with Sally James. Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space, Brent Staples. Reality Bites, Lisa Bennett. I Spy Sexism: A Public Education Campaign, Third Wave Foundation. Stigma Watch: Being Alert to Mental Health Stereotyping, National Mental Health Association and Otto Wahl.

Casebook of Readings: Responding to Homelessness.

Writer’s Notebook. National Alliance to End Homelessness Web Site, Home page and FAQs. Transitions: Newsletter of the Center for Women in Transition. Let’s Solve S. F.’s No. 1 Problem, Mike Sullivan and Plan C. Vehicularly Housed Residential Community: Project Description, Vehicularly Housed Residential Association & the Coalition of Homelessness, San Francisco. “Can You 20p for a Cup of Tea?” (Campaign Poster) Thames Reach Bondway (TRB)/Imagination (GIC) Ltd. These Are Our Neighbors (Student Essay), Nicole Stewart.

WRITER'S PROFILE THREE: WHAT MIGHT I DO AS A PUBLIC WRITER?

6. Becoming a Practicing Writer.

The Secondary Research Process: Resources, Techniques, and Styles.

Selecting and Using Secondary Sources.

Specialized Reference Works. Indexes and Abstracts. Specialized Professional Journals. The World Wide Web.

Researching for Public Writing.

Evaluating Sources.

Recognizing Bias. Assessing Electronic Resources.

Documenting Your Sources.

What to Document. Styles of Documentation. Informal Documentation.

The Project Notebook.

Keeping Track of Your Research. Reading and Analyzing Sources.

WRITING PROJECT: CRITIQUE OF A PUBLISHED PROFESSIONAL ESSAY.

7. Argument.

Persuasion and Argument.

Making Assumptions.

Reviewing the Elements of Argument.

Claims. Evidence. Refutation.

Strategies for Arranging Arguments.

The Counterargument. The Pro and Con Argument. The Problem-Solution Argument.

Finding a Middle Ground.

WRITING PROJECT: RESEARCHED POSITION PAPER.

Sample Student Papers.

Full or Partial Inclusion: A Look at the Debate about Where and How to Educate Special-Needs Students, Toni Spainhour. The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union, Marty Ruhaak.

Guidelines for Making an Oral Presentation.

Writing and Speaking. Presentation and Delivery. Practice, Practice, Practice.

Appendix A: Using and Designing Web Sites.

Before You Start: Protecting Your Privacy.

Successful Surfing.

Getting There: Search Engines. Conducting Your Search. Evaluating Sites.

Constructing and Maintaining Your Own Web Site.

Tools for Construction: HTML and Servers. Designing a Web Site. Ways of Reading: Print versus Hypertext. Visual Complexity: Adding Images.

Navigating: Overall Site Organization.

Page Layout. Homepage: Core Information. Looking at a Sample Design. Editing and Maintaining Your Site.

Appendix B: Styles for Documenting Sources.

Documenting Sources Using MLA Style.

In-Text Citations. Preparing the List of Works Cited. Sample Entries for a List of Works Cited.

Documenting Sources Using APA Style.

In-Text Citations. Preparing the References List. Sample Entries for a List of References.

Documenting Sources Using Chicago Manual Style.

Using the Chicago Notes and Bibliography Style. Sample Entries for Notes and Bibliography Entries.

Documenting Sources Using CSE Style.

Using CSE Citation-Sequence Style. Using a CSE References List. Sample Entries for a References List.

List of Style Manuals and Supplementary Internet Sources.

Preface

College students are projected to make several career changes within their working lifetimes. These transitions and the challenges of their complex personal and public lives will require informed flexibility. Professional and Public Writing: A Rhetoric and Reader for Advanced Composition is designed to guide students through the writing required of them as students, professionals, and citizens. Its two central goals are:

• To help advanced students become confident, refined, and effective writers through an active critique of their undergraduate writing practices and of the writing requirements of their academic majors.
• To prepare students for the work required of professional and public writers in their varied discourse communities, each of which operates from distinct cognitive assumptions and within specific rhetorical contexts.

Two core strategies are used to achieve these goals:

• Review of and in-depth engagement with the rhetorical principles introduced in the students' earlier composition courses
• Introduction to and application of the principles and techniques of discourse analysis necessary for success in academic, professional, and public writing

Instructor Expertise

Because few English teachers are fully familiar with the many styles and genres required of student writers in their various majors, let alone the full range of demands made on all professional and public writers, Professional and Public Writing depends primarily on instructor expertise in teaching the fundamental rhetorical and research skills that enable any writer to enter a discourse community and identify its cognitive assumptions (values, interests, etc.) and rhetorical features (genres, style, design, etc.). The book provides guidelines and extensive materials for meeting these instructional goals.

Student Readiness

Although students are introduced to key concepts in freshman writing courses, they come to Advanced Composition actively pursuing a major and consciously moving into their professional and civic lives. This timing provides them with significant motivation and interest in refining their current academic skills and understanding the value of applying these skills to real-life situations. Professional and Public Writing is grounded in the assumption that these students can be taught the advanced rhetorical knowledge and research practices needed to write successfully for any discourse community within which they might find themselves. This same proficiency is of immediate use in completing the writing required by their advanced college courses.

Writing Assignments

The text is structured around extensive 'Writing Activities' and sequenced assignments that meet the needs of students from a range of disciplines and with diverse learning styles and interests. As part of the process, students are asked to keep a 'Writer's Notebook' and to engage in collaboration, peer review, and both primary and secondary research. Formal assignments include three increasingly complex and comprehensive 'Writer's Profiles,' a critical discourse analysis of a student-selected professional essay, and an argument based on a researched literature review. Each chapter also contains genre- and theme-based 'Writer's Workshops' that provide additional writing opportunities.

Genre Modeling

Samples of academic writing from a range of disciplines are used throughout the text for purposes of illustration and practice. In addition, two casebook chapters provide students the opportunity to read and analyze thematically linked readings:

• Professional Writing: 'Privacy in the Information Age' and 'Weight, Body Image, and Identity'
• Public Writing: 'Targeting Discrimination' and 'Responding to Homelessness'

The readings represent genres employed by public and professional writers from diverse discourse communities—for example, a proposal by a grassroots community organization, a case study by a sociologist, fact sheets prepared by the government for educators, a Web site for homeless advocates, a position paper by a professional nursing organization, a literary essay published in an interdisciplinary humanities journal, and a researched journal article written for a law journal. Extensive reading apparatus prompts students to apply the concepts of discourse and genre analysis introduced in the opening chapters.

Additional Features

• Frequent activities that encourage students to explore the correlation between their personal skills and those required of professionals in the careers to which they aspire
• Illustrations and readings from Across the Curriculum, including illustrative 'Writers on Writing' selections in Chapters 1-3
• An opportunity for students without a major to explore possible careers through research and writing
• An appendix on basic Web use and site construction that offers students and instructors options for research and publishing
• The nuts and bolts of both print and electronic research from project start to finish, including the skills necessary to evaluate and select appropriate sources
• Two complete sample student research projects illustrating MLA and APA styles and varied structures for argument
• Suggestions for formal oral presentations
• An appendix that describes the basic procedures and forms for citing and documenting sources according to MLA, APA, CMS, and CSE styles

Although Professional and Public Writing is indebted to research in the areas of advanced composition, writing across the curriculum, ethnography, genre theory, discourse community analysis, and multiple literacies, chapters are written in a clear and engaging tone, introducing appropriate jargon only when it supports more conscious understanding of a practice or concept.