Successful College Writing

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Product Overview

The guide you need to become a successful college writer.

Successful College Writing moves first-year composition students—whatever their level of preparedness—toward achieving their goals in college through a unique visual approach and extra support for academic reading and writing. Offering more help with reading and study skills than any other book of its kind, Kathleen T. McWhorter’s supportive, visual approach is evident in graphic organizers, flowcharts, and Guided Writing Assignments that provide hands-on writing activities and practical, step-by-step instruction for drafting and revising. Paired with Achieve, an engaging and powerful digital platform, Successful College Writing offers scaffolded help for students learning how to write for an academic audience.

Success Stories

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Prof. Kiandra Johnson, Spelman College

See how the resources in Achieve help you engage students before, during, and after class.

Prof. Jennifer Duncan

Use diagnostics in Achieve for a snapshot into cognitive and non-cognitive factors that may impact your students’ preparedness.

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Related Titles

Successful College Writing with 2021 MLA Update

Kathleen McWhorter

Successful College Writing

Kathleen T. McWhorter

Content Material

Authors

Kathleen T. McWhorter

Kathleen T. McWhorter is professor emerita of humanities and former director of the Learning Skills Center at Niagara County Community College. She has also been on the faculty of the State University College at Buffalo. She is the author of a number of books on writing for freshmen-level students, including the popular guide Successful College Writing, Seventh Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2018), and the composition reader Reflections: Patterns for Reading and Writing, Second Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017). She has also written a number of textbooks on reading and writing for developmental students, including In Concert: Reading and Writing, Second Edition (2016); In Harmony: Reading and Writing, Second Edition (2016); Reading Across the Disciplines: College Reading and Beyond, Sixth Edition (2015); Academic Reading, Eighth Edition (2014); and Efficient and Flexible Reading, Tenth Edition (2014).

Part 1 An Introduction to Reading, Writing and Learning in College
1 Reading and Writing for College Success
2 Active Reading and Responding
3 Thinking, Reading, and Writing Critically
Just-in-Time Guide to Reading and Responding

Part 2 Strategies for Writing Essays
4 Prewriting: How to Find and Focus Ideas
5 Developing and Supporting a Thesis
6 Writing Effective Paragraphs
7 Drafting an Essay
8 Revising Content and Organization
9 Editing Sentences and Words

Part 3 Patterns of Development
10 An Introduction to Patterns of Development
11 Narration: Recounting Events
12 Description: Portraying People, Places, and Things
13 Illustration: Explaining with Examples
14 Process Analysis: Explaining How Something Works or Is Done
15 Comparison and Contrast: Showing Similarities and Differences
16 Classification and Division: Explaining Categories and Parts
17 Definition: Explaining What You Mean
18 Cause and Effect: Using Reasons and Results to Explain

Part 4 Reading and Writing Arguments
19 Reading Arguments
20 Writing Arguments

Part 5 Writing with Sources
21 Planning a Research Project and Evaluating Sources
22 Finding Sources, Taking Notes, and Synthesizing Ideas
23 Drafting, Revising, and Formatting a Research Project

Part 6 Academic and Business Applications
24 Reading and Writing about Literature
25 Essay Examinations and Portfolios
26 Multimedia Presentations and Business Writing

Part 7 Handbook: Writing Problems and How to Correct Them

Product Updates

Summer 2024 Updates:

New! Corequisite Resource Manual in Achieve
Discover what Achieve offers for your corequisite composition course. Whether your focus is on honing students' reading and sentence skills, building the reading-writing connection, scaffolding the writing process, or fostering habits for lifelong learning, Achieve has the interactive resources you need. The new Corequisite Resource Manual includes a full description of each available resource, its pedagogical benefits, and best practices for assigning it. Now available in the Achieve courses for Patterns for College Writing, Achieve for Readers and Writers, The Bedford Guide for College Writers, and Successful College Writing.

Eighth Edition Updates (2021):

ACHIEVE with Successful College Writing
Achieve puts student writing at the center of your course and keeps revision at the core, with a dedicated composition space that guides students through drafting, peer review, source check, reflection, and revision, developed to support best practices in commenting on student drafts. Achieve also includes a full e-book, a set of reading comprehension quizzes, and book-specific writing assignments. For corequisite composition courses, Achieve lets students sign in to their composition and corequisite sections with one easy process–and no additional fees.

"Academic Writing" sections in Parts 1 and 2 that show students how to introduce, present, and explain material borrowed from sources; avoid plagiarism; write titles, introductions, and conclusions appropriate to academic papers; and develop a tone appropriate to an academic audience

"Explore, Research, Write" assignments that help students move toward source-based writing, by providing vetted, reliable, and relevant sources from which students can draw information.

"Just-in-Time Tips" that call students’ attention to challenging features in a reading and offer strategies for understanding and thinking critically about it.