It can be daunting to make the transition into university English courses and other classes requiring essay writing. Introduction to Academic Reading and Writing Skills for University Students helps bridge the gap between high school and college, providing students with preparation for the challenges of essay writing and post-secondary level analysis of complex reading materials. The text addresses the topic from a number of facets. It includes composition guidance to overcome mental blocks, targeted planning for the writing task, and coverage of the basic essay structure requirements. Through exposure to writing from various authors, students summarize and analyze readings, leading into the task of preparing a properly formatted and developed research paper for submission. Editing strategies round out the process, along with an appendix of marking terms. Introduction to Academic Reading and Writing Skills for University Students: features removable pages for focused and practical in-class exercises, plus a variety of charts and templates to clarify concepts and to develop concrete examples. begins with a review of study skills and note-taking strategies, then moves through a comprehensive review of grammar to boost competence and confidence. provides the perfect challenge for students of various backgrounds, whether or not English is their first or second language.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Preface Introduction Writing in the Twenty-First Century, and Why It Still Matters SECTION 1 STUDY SKILLS FOR UNIVERSITY—A New Playing Field Discussion and Writing Opportunity: What Type of Learner Are You? (Diagnostic Writing) Listening and Note-Taking Charting Sentence Method Cornell Notes Other Useful Techniques Review Exercise: Choosing and Developing Your Strategy SECTION 2 GRAMMAR—Working with the Building Blocks of Communication Discussion and Writing Opportunity: How Can We Achieve "Clear Writing"? (Personal Reflection) An Overview of the Parts of Speech Nouns: Abstract and Concrete, Common and Proper, Countable and Uncountable Pronouns: Gender, Number, and Case Adjectives: Possessives, Comparatives and Superlatives, Present and Past Participial Forms Verbs: Regular and Irregular, Transitive and Intransitive, Tense and Form, Active and Passive Voice Adverbs: Modification of Verbs, Adjectives, and (other) Adverbs Conjunctions: Subordination and Coordination, Correlatives, Conjunctive Adverbs Prepositions: Position and Idiom Interjections: Levels of Formality An Overview of Sentence Structure Phrases Clauses: Main (Independent) and Subordinate (Dependent) Grammatical Types of Sentence Structures: Simple, Compound, Complex, and Compound-Complex Stylistic Types of Sentence Structures: Loose, Periodic, and Balanced (Parallelism) Common Errors: Fragments, Run-Ons, Dangling and Misplaced Modifiers, Mixed Constructions Essentials of Punctuation Period and Ellipsis Comma Semicolon Colon Dash Exclamation Quotation Apostrophe Question Marks Review Exercise: A Comprehensive Grammar Inventory SECTION 3 COMPOSITION STRATEGIES—The Art of Rhetoric Discussion and Writing Opportunity: From Exposition to Persuasion—An E-mail to a Professor Paragraphing Paragraph Format Topic Sentences Paragraph Development Unity and Coherence Transitions Drafting the Essay Overcoming Mental Blocks: Freewriting, Mind Mapping, Brainstorming, and Questioning Outlining Expository and Persuasive Writing How to Convince an Oppositional Audience Crafting a Viable Thesis Statement Understanding Logic: Inductive and Deductive Reasoning, Syllogisms, Fallacies Fallacies: When Logic Goes Wrong Developmental Strategies: Cause and Effect, Process, Classification and Division, Comparison and Contrast Presentations Review Exercise: Putting Together a Logical Argument SECTION 4 RHETORICAL ANALYSIS—Reflections on Writing Discussion and Writing Opportunity: From Personal Response to Objective Analysis Comprehension Summarizing Critical Reading Protocols for Critique and Analysis Sample Rhetorical Analysis Essay Review Exercise: Analyze This! Choose an Essay from the Cited Readings SECTION 5 WRITING RESEARCH ESSAYS—Charting Your Journey Discussion and Writing Opportunity: Formulating a Research Topic Choosing Research Sources: "No Wikipedia" and Beyond Using Secondary Sources Avoiding Plagiarism, Starting with an Original Outline Annotations, Citations, and Bibliographies When to Use and Not to Use the Personal Approach: Debates and Presentations Protocols for Citation and Document Format Review Exercise: Documentation Dilemmas SECTION 6 EDITING—Fine-Tuning Your Work Discussion and Writing Opportunity: Creating a Targeted Checklist Proofreading Strategies Academic/Professional Writing Style: Avoiding Colloquialisms, Slang, Clichés, Vague, and Informal Language Spelling Checks and Grammar Checks Finding and Correcting Glitches Review Exercise: Peer Editing SECTION 7 READINGS Fables by Aesop "On Education Politics: Book Eight" by Aristotle (translated by Benjamin Jowett) The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (excerpted) "Language" by Ralph Waldo Emerson An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (excerpted) "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell "The President's War Message" by Franklin D. Roosevelt "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan "Walden" (excerpted) by Henry David Thoreau "Simplicity" by William Zinsser APPENDIX OF MARKING TERMS