“I would describe
The DK Handbook as visually arresting and a breath of fresh air in the market of composition handbooks. . . . I think this text is remarkably suited to today’s generation of visual learners.”
—Joel Henderson, Chattanooga State Technical Community College
“Users were extremely positive about the use of examples and the distinctive formatting of the headers vs. the examples”
–Tharon Howard, Director of Usability Testing Facility, Clemson University
“These pages show that the authors have considered both the students’ desire for ease in accessing information and the instructors’ concerns about organizing their lectures. When may I have a copy of this textbook?”
–Cheryl Clements, Blinn College-Bryan
“Too often, students just want to use the handbook to check their punctuation. This text puts those concerns into context and connects them to a larger writing process. It shows students that it is ridiculous to worry about comma splices before you have figured out who you are writing to, what your purpose is, and how you are going to arrange your work.”
–Erica Messenger, Bowling Green State University
“I love it! Great! Easy to read, the layout makes locating information fast even when scanning the pages. . . . The visual approach is fantastic. Stunning.”
–Sharon McGee, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville (Advisory Board Member)
“Such a large chunk of material is available at a glance. Students can use the icons as they do on MS Windows and on the cell phones. This entire project makes so much sense.”
–Scott Douglass, Chattanooga State Technical Community College
“The audience section seems to be among the most comprehensive I’ve seen. I like it and could easily envision a detailed lesson built around this section.”
–Michael Knievel, University of Wyoming (Advisory Board Member)
“This is the most visually appealing handbook out there. The visuals are actually useful, not just decoration. The book is very user-friendly—easy to flip through. I think students will find it easy to use and will find it very useful for their writing.”
–Valerie Russell, Valencia Community College–East
“The DK Handbook is informative, clearly organized, and written in a way that speaks directly to the student rather than the teacher. Its design has website-like appearance, which most students would be familiar and comfortable with. The visual component of The DK Handbook makes it stand apart from most other handbooks I’ve read.”
–Kip Knott, Columbus State Community College
“Research = EXCELLENT! I especially like the sections on using library databases… this is not covered in such depth in other handbooks. I also like the way you talk about evaluating the relevance of sources and appropriateness. Examples here are great.”
–Kerith Dutkiewicz, Lansing Community College
“What strikes me foremost about this book is the layout and design. Instead of putting too much information onto one page, a concerted effort was made to highlight important sections of, for example, citations, and then build on those skills over several pages. I think this is a significant improvement over our current text in terms of layout and usability.”
–Darren DeFrain, Wichita State University
“This handbook covers the same material as my current handbook, but this one is clearer and more enjoyable to read. I like the design, the introductions, the examples, and the way the steps are broken down into bite-sized chunks of information.”
–Gary Zacharias, Palomar Community College
“The combination of simple language and layout make this most unlike other handbooks I have used. Of course, all handbooks strive to be accessible but this one seems to be aware of the student as audience—not the teacher. The readability and layout are exceptional!”
–John Allison, Morehead College (Advisory Board Member)
“I’ve never seen argument presented this clearly before.”
–Joseph Schrer, Community College of Allegheny County (Advisory Board Member)
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1. A PROCESS FOR COMPOSING What is composing?
What is rhetoric?
Audience
Purpose
Context
Strategies
Rhetoric and a process for composing a research paper
Understanding your project or assignment
2. FINDING IDEAS
Composing to learn and composing to communicate
A research process
Getting started with research
Finding a topic
Narrowing a topic
How do you know when you have a narrowed topic?
Other strategies for narrowing a topic
Questions to guide research
Using research questions to develop a topic
Kinds of sources, kinds of research
Kinds of research
Determining where to research
Choosing sources
Choosing sources—books
Choosing sources—periodicals
Choosing sources—webpages
Finding sources
Library research
Using library indexes
Using library catalogs
Using library journal databases
Steps in using databases
Online research
Search engines and directories
Online references
Online newspapers
Government sources
Archival and special collection sources
Field research sources
Interviews
Observations
Surveys
What if you can’t find anything on your narrowed topic?
Keeping track of sources
Starting a paper
3. ANALYZING ARGUMENTS AND EVALUATING SOURCES
What is analysis?
Understanding and analyzing texts
Developing a sense of the author
Understanding appeals to emotion
Understanding arrangement and logic
A sample analysis essay
Analyzing arguments
Thesis statements
What counts as evidence?
Expert testimony
Personal experience
Analogies
Facts
Field research
Shared values
Examples
Further questions to guide critical reading
Critical reading
Sample argumentative essay
A sample rhetorical analysis
Questions to guide critical looking
A sample analysis of a visual text
Evaluating sources
Evaluating sources for relevance
Sample sources
Evaluating sources for credibility: Print
Sample sources
Evaluating sources for credibility: Online
Sample sources
Researching ethically
Shared culture, academic research, and fair use
Developing a thesis statement
4. CONNECTING WITH AUDIENCES
Understanding your audience
Characteristics your audience might share
What do people know, think, and feel about the issue?
Making audiences real and specific
Some complexities of audience
Developing a statement of purpose
Starting to write for an audience
How to write a statement of purpose
Choices a writer can make based on a statement of purpose
A sample rough draft
Developing a revision plan
Writing for different kinds of audiences
Academic audiences
Workplace audiences
5. ORGANIZING AND SHAPING TEXTS
What is organization?
Organization and medium
Organization, audience, and genre
Online genres
Email
Blogs and other social networking websites
Popular genres
Letters to the editor
Letters of complaint
Magazine articles
Academic genres in the disciplines
Writing in the humanities
Writing in the sciences
Writing in the social sciences
Workplace genres
Memos
Resumes
Cover letters
Shaping paragraphs for audience and purpose
Unified and coherent paragraphs
Paragraphs that develop
Paragraphs that describe
Paragraphs that define
Paragraphs that narrate
Paragraphs that give examples
Paragraphs that use analogy
Paragraphs that divide
Paragraphs that blend organizations
Visual organization
Major elements of texts that mix words, pictures, and other visual pieces
Building visual organizations
Make some elements stand out
Group elements or make them similar
Align elements
Organization for oral presentations
The parts of an oral presentation
Other organizational features
Figuring out what to do with a paragraph that is too long
6. WRITING FOR DIVERSE AUDIENCES
Varieties of English
Language standardization and language variety
Academic English
English as a global language
Writing English when English is not your home language
Writing as a second language
Multilingual writers writing in English
Using inclusive language
How do you show respect for your readers?
Including all ethnicities
Including all ages
Including all genders
Including all abilities
Including all sexual orientations
Including all religions
Using an ESL dictionary
7. COMPOSING WITH STYLE
Style and audience
Style in writing
Clarity, concision, coherence, emphasis, engagement
Styling words
Dictionary definitions and associations
The names we use
Action verbs
Concrete nouns
Clichés
Jargon
Too many words
Styling sentences
Academic sentences
Sentences that are easy to read
Using coordination and subordination
Parallelism
Figurative language
Styling paragraphs
Concluding paragraphs
Introductory paragraphs
Transitions between paragraphs
Passive voice
Style in visual texts
Typography
Headings
Color
Style in oral presentations
Body language and gestures
Using visual supports
8. DOCUMENTING
Why cite and document sources?
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism—or misuse of sources?
Tips for avoiding plagiarism
Four facets of citing and documenting
Quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing
Quoting the words of others
Summarizing the words of others
Paraphrasing the words of others
Five kinds of sources
Collecting citation information from printed books
Collecting citation information when you are citing part of a printed book
Collecting citation information when you are citing printed periodicals
Collecting citation information when you are citing webpages
Citation information for databases to journals
Collecting citation information for other kinds of sources
MLA Documentation
MLA documentation for in-text citations
Variations on the pattern
MLA documentation for works cited
For books
For parts of books
For articles from periodicals
For webpages other than databases
For texts from online databases
For other kinds of texts
Author’s name
Titles
Website titles
A very long URL
Place of publication
Year of publication
Periodical volume and date
Page numbers for articles from periodicals
Additional information
A works cited page in MLA format
For other kinds of texts
Sample paper in MLA format
Guide to MLA documentation models
APA Documentation
APA documentation and in-text citations
Variations on the pattern
APA documentation for reference list entries
For periodical sources
For nonperiodical sources
Author's name
Year of publication
Titles
Additional information
Place of publication
Periodical volume and issue
For online texts
For other kinds of sources
A references page in APA format
Guide to APA documentation models
CSE Documentation
CSE references
CSE in-text citations
Details of the patterns
CSE sample references
Chicago Manual of Style documentation and in-text citations
CMS in-text citations and footnotes
CMS sample references
9. EDITING AND PROOFREADING YOUR WORK
Editing and proofreading
Grammar
There are 4 sentence functions
There are 4 sentence patterns
Simple sentences 1 / 2
Simple sentences 3
Subjects and predicates
More on predicates
Compound subjects and predicates
Prepositional phrases
Compound sentences
Complex sentences: Working with independent and dependent clauses
Complex sentences with adverb clauses
Compound-complex sentences
Avoiding sentence fragments
Avoiding run-on sentences
Parts of speech
Nouns
Pronouns
Choosing the expected personal pronoun
Pronoun agreement
Adjectives
Articles
Verbs
The tenses of English verbs
Using the tenses of English verbs in academic writing
Shifting verb tenses
Subject-verb agreement
The subjunctive mood of English verbs
Adverbs
Prepositions
Conjunctions
Avoiding shifts in grammatical forms
Shifts in person and number
Shifts in voice
Shifts in levels of formality
Avoiding misplaced and dangling modifiers
Punctuation
Commas
With numbers, place names, and dates
When you are quoting the words of others
To separate words in lists
To build sentences with multiple parts
When not to use commas
Semicolons
To separate the ideas in a list
To join two sentences
Colons
In certain conventional patterms
To prepare readers for information at the end of a sentence
To link two sentences
Parentheses
To explain abbreviations
For numbers in lists
For in-text citations
To add information
Dashes
Brackets
Hyphens
Slashes
Ellipses
Quotation marks
For titles of short works
To indicate you are using a word as a word
To indicate technical terms
To show irony
To indicate direct quotation
To indicate speech
Apostrophes
Periods
Question marks
Exclamation points
Mechanics
Using italics and underlining
Spelling
Using spell checkers
Capitalizing words
Abbreviations
Numbers
Glossary of grammatical terms and usage\n
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