Joe Giampalmi - College Writing For Dummies

College Writing For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2022 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022941665

ISBN: 978-1-119-89503-9 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-89509-1 (epdf); ISBN 978-1-119-89505-3 (epub)

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 6
4. Chapter 7
5. Chapter 8
6. Chapter 9
7. Chapter 10
8. Chapter 11
9. Chapter 12
10. Chapter 13
11. Chapter 14
12. Chapter 15
13. Chapter 16

1. Chapter 2
2. Chapter 4
3. Chapter 7
4. Chapter 12
5. Chapter 15

You have a dream, and I have a vision to help you achieve that dream. My vision is to help you earn your college degree by guiding you through your most challenging first-year course, Writing 101 (or whatever your institution calls it). You made the first commitment toward that goal by buying this book. You understand the importance of college writing to help you reach your dream.

Ive been helping students like you achieve their dream by teaching writing for more than a half century, including more than three decades at the college level. Ive evaluated more than 10,000 essays, research papers, reaction papers, and reports. I started helping students with their writing when papers were completed on artifacts called manual typewriters and pages were submitted on erasable bond paper. Ask Siri or Alexa to explain it to you.

For you to succeed, I am asking two things:

• Commit your best effort.
• Increase your book reading ten minutes a day.

Successful people make time for whats important to them, and reading is as important as your writing. The commitment, book reading, and earning a degree are difference makers for you and your familys future especially if youll be the first college graduate in the history of your family.

College Writing For Dummies emerged from the need to help conscientious college writers like you improve their writing skills and progress to their sophomore year prepared and confident to write successfully throughout college and their careers. The highest college dropout rate occurs at the end of the first year when students dont pass their essay course.

In addition to this book based on my more than five decades teaching writing, its also based on my four decades writing magazine articles, authoring books, and writing a twice-monthly newspaper article for 34 years.

As I was teaching, I was also writing and facing the same challenges as my students. I frequently used examples of my writing in the classroom and explained to students how I generated ideas, created openings, and revised at three levels. In other words, as I taught writing I was learning and practicing the craft I was teaching.

Those hands-on experiences bring you this book, and here are some of its unique features:

• Defeating writers delay by beginning your essay in the middle
• Developing a college writing style with specific nouns, active verbs, and style-builders such as repetition, surprise, and figures of speech
• Using the essay as a foundation for other writing requirements such as reaction papers, reports, reviews of literature, and research papers
• Adapting the Writing 101 essay to essays required in other courses such as psychology, finance, the arts, and political science
• Completing an essay portfolio
• Incorporating student language to illustrate almost every skill in the book

Heres a quick sample of what I cover in this book:

• Giving, receiving, and applying peer feedback
• Choosing essay topics that build grades
• Understanding a composition course syllabus
• Writing an assignment in the sequence of the middle, ending, and beginning
• Revising at three levels