Exploring Writing: Paragraphs and Essays 4th Edition by John Langan, ISBN-13: 978-0073534794

EXPLORING WRITING: PARAGRAPHS AND ESSAYS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1 Writing: Skills and Process 2

1. An Introduction to Writing 4

2. The Writing Process 25

PART 2 Basic Principles of Effective Writing 58

3. The First and Second Steps in Writing 60

4. The Third and Fourth Steps in Writing 90

5. Four Bases for Revising Writing 126

PART 3 Paragraph Development 162

6. Exemplification 164

7. Narration 175

8. Description 184

9. Process 195

10. Cause and/or Effect 206

11. Comparison and/or Contrast 216

12. Definition 230

13. Division-Classification 240

14. Argument 251

PART 4 Essay Development 270

15. Introduction to Essay Development 272

16. Writing the Essay 285

17. Introductions, Conclusions, and Titles 315

18. Patterns of Essay Development 329

PART 5 Research-Based Writing 368

19. Information Literacy 370

20. Working with Sources 385

21. Writing a Research Paper 417

PART 6 Handbook of Sentence Skills 434

SECTION I Grammar 436

22. Subjects and Verbs 437

23. Sentence Sense 442

24. Fragments 445

25. Run-Ons 457

26. Regular and Irregular Verbs 468

27. Subject–Verb Agreement 476

28. More about Verbs 481

29. Pronoun Agreement and Reference 485

30. Pronoun Types 490

31. Adjectives and Adverbs 496

32. Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers 501

SECTION II Mechanics 511

33. Capital Letters 512

34. Numbers and Abbreviations 519

SECTION III Punctuation 524

35. Apostrophe 525

36. Quotation Marks 531

37. Comma 538

38. Other Punctuation Marks 546

SECTION IV Word Use 552

39. Commonly Confused Words 553

40. Effective Word Choice 563

SECTION V Tests 570

41. Editing Tests 571

PART 7 Readings for Writers 588

INTRODUCTION TO THE

READINGS 590

GOALS AND VALUES 594

EDUCATION AND LEARNING 646

CHALLENGING SOCIETY 679

Index 717

Zoé L. Albright has been involved in diverse aspects of education for 22 years. For the last 18 years, she has been a faculty member at Metropolitan Community College–Longview, teaching developmental writing, composition, and literature. She has created and implemented traditional and online curricula for high school and college English and composition courses and for a variety of literature courses. She continues to research new educational theory and practices. Zoé has most recently served as co-author of English Skills with Readings, ninth edition, and contributing author to other Langan texts. She received her M.A. from Goldsmiths, University of London; B.S. and B.A. from the University of Idaho; and A.A. from Cottey College. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Kansas. Zoé currently resides outside Kansas City, Missouri, with her husband and teenage son.

John Langan has taught reading and writing at Atlantic Cape Community College for more than 25 years. The author of a popular series of college textbooks on both writing and reading, John enjoys the challenge of developing instructive materials that are clear and lively. Before teaching, he earned advanced degrees in writing at Rutgers University and in reading at Rowan University. He also spent a year writing fiction that “is now at the back of a drawer waiting to be discovered and acclaimed posthumously.” While in school, he supported himself by working as a truck driver, a machinist, a battery assembler, a hospital attendant, and an apple packer. In addition to his wife and Philly sports teams, his passions include reading and conveying to nonreaders the pleasure and power of books. Through Townsend Press, his educational publishing company, he has developed the nonprofit “Townsend Library”―a collection of more than 100 new and classic stories that appeal to readers of any age.