Purpose and Process: A Reader for Writers, 5/E
Stephen P. Reid, Colorado State University

ISBN-10: 0131823973
ISBN-13: 9780131823976

Publisher: Prentice Hall
Copyright: 2004
Format: Paper; 608 pp
Published: 04/28/2003

Suggested retail price: $70.60
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For courses in Freshman Composition.

This innovative reader focuses on writers' purposes and processes for reading and writing, and on the connections between, reading and writing. Every chapter integrates purpose, process, and rhetorical strategies for achieving specific writing goals. Sixty-four diverse selections by both professional and student writers illustrate these purposes.

  • NEW - 17 professional essays.

    • Provides students with new material that teaches them active, critical reading.

  • NEW - Research appendix on conducting research and documenting sources.

    • Guides students from research plan to gathering sources, citing sources in text and using MLA documentation.

  • NEW - Summarizing academic texts and writing responses.

    • Provides students with a section on summarizing and responding.

  • NEW - Graphic images, artwork, advertisements and cartoons added.

    • Helps students practice reading and responding to visual texts.

  • NEW - Three kinds of argument highlighted—Traditional debate-style, Rogerian argument and constructive argument.

    • Encourages students to go beyond adversarial argument, so that they can examine multiple points of view behind most controversial topics.

  • Two introductory chapters on reading and writing.

    • Familiarizes students with critical reading and the various purposes and processes for writing.

  • Prereading journal assignments, reader-response activities, and collaborative annotations of a professional essay.

    • Shows students how readers actively make meaning from texts even as texts are acting upon them.

  • Four basic writing stages—Illustrated by the individual process of nine student writers.

    • Familiarizes students with the dimensions of collecting, shaping, drafting, and revising.

  • Complete analysis, discussion and writing apparatus with each essay.

    • Provides students with questions about meaning, purpose and strategy, audience and language, and ideas for further discussion and writing.

  • 17 professional essays.

    • Provides students with new material that teaches them active, critical reading.

  • Research appendix on conducting research and documenting sources.

    • Guides students from research plan to gathering sources, citing sources in text and using MLA documentation.

  • Summarizing academic texts and writing responses.

    • Provides students with a section on summarizing and responding.

  • Graphic images, artwork, advertisements and cartoons added.

    • Helps students practice reading and responding to visual texts.

  • Three kinds of argument highlighted—Traditional debate-style, Rogerian argument and constructive argument.

    • Encourages students to go beyond adversarial argument, so that they can examine multiple points of view behind most controversial topics.



1. Reading: Purposes and Processes.

Honor Society Hypocrisy, Ellen Goodman. How to Mark a Book, Mortimer Adler. Television and Reading, Marie Winn. Learning to Read, Malcolm X. The Library Card, Richard Wright. Confessions of a Bibliophile, Bill Holm.



2. Writing: Purposes and Processes.

My Sister, Kari, Nicolle Mircos. Freewriting, Peter Elbow. Shitty First Drafts, Anne Lamott. The Maker's Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts, Donald M. Murray. Writing Around Rules, Mike Rose. Mother Tongue, Amy Tan.



3. Observing.

West Texas, William Least Heat-Moon. Lenses, Annie Dillard. Soup, The New Yorker. Toys, and Barbies, Roland Barthes and Emily Prager. Life at Close Range, Gretel Ehrlich. “Muller Bros. Moving & Storage,” Stephen Jay Gould. Fetal Pig, Elizabeth Weston.



4. Remembering.

Shame, Dick Gregory. Los Pobres, Richard Rodriguez. Freedom From Choice, Brian Courtney. Living in Two Cultures, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston. In Death's Throat, Robert Hughes. Metamorphosis, Peggy L. Breland. The Wake-Up Call, Walter Goedeker.



5. Investigating.

Attack of the Killer Cats, Leon Jaroff. Reading Statistical Tea Leave, Karen W. Arenson. Lost in Cyberspace, John Skow. The E-Learning Curve, Glenn C. Altschuler. America's Food Cop, Bob Condor. The Ads and Fads of the Super Bowl, Geralyn Falkowsky. The Beauty Behind Beauty Pageants, Mary White.



6. Explaining.

Conversational Ballgames, Nancy Sakamoto. Lies, Lies, Lies, Paul Gray. How to Find True Love: Or Rather, How It Finds You, Lois Smith Brady. Thirteen Ways to Leave Your Lousy Job, Jon Spayde. Why We Crave Horror Movies, Stephen King. Cat Bathing as a Martial Art, Bud Herron. A Question of Language, Gloria Naylor. Wine Tasting: How to Fool Some of the People All of the Time, Michael J. Jones.



7. Evaluating.

The Roadster Returns, Consumer Reports. Corn-Pone Opinions, Mark Twain. In Defense of Talk Shows, Barbara Ehrenreich. Send in the Clones, Brian D. Johnson. All's Not Well in the Land of “The Lion King,” Margaret Lazarus. For the Death Penalty, Ernest Van Den Haag. The Two Best Letters on Television, Craig Cooley.



8. Problem Solving.

It's Time to Ban Handguns, Lance Morrow. Let's Get Rid of Sports, Katha Pollitt. TV Can Be a Good Parent, Ariel Gore. Cross Talk, Deborah Tannen. “Now, If I Ruled the World…” Anne and Paul Ehrlich, Frederik Pohl, Susan Merrow, and Richard Bangs. A White Woman of Color, Julia Alvarez. The Problem of Dropouts Can Be Solved, Jenny Sharpe.



9. Arguing.

Active and Passive Euthanasia, James Rachels. Death and Justice, Edward I. Koch. The Argument Culture, Deborah Tannen. The Ethics of Endorsing a Product, Mike Royko. Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. A Casebook on School Vouchers, Gary Rosen, Bob Chase, Sandra Feldman, James E. Ryan, Michael Heise and Richard Rothstein. Immigration, Emily Sintek. Battered, Kimberly S. Freeman.



Appendix: Conducting Research and Documenting Sources.


Credits.


Index.

Innovative in its approach, this best-selling reader focuses on writers' purposes and processes for reading and writing—and on the connections between reading and writing. Stephen Reid outlines practical guidelines and strategies for achieving specific writing goals and illustrates these strategies with captivating selections by both professional and student writers.

Encouraging writers to take control of their reading and writing, Purpose and Process, Fifth Edition, contains:

  • Argument Chapter revised to explain three kinds of argument: the traditional debate-style argument, Rogerian argument, and constructive argument to help you examine the multiple points of view behind most controversial topics.
  • All new images throughout the text that allow you to draw conclusions and make connections between images and the written word.
  • New Research Appendix on conducting research and documenting sources that guides you from research plan, to gathering sources, citing sources in the text (while avoiding plagiarism), and using MLA documentation.

View a Sample Chapter PDF:

 

"The implication that there is a human purpose behind the act of writing was very appealing..."
"The rhetorical selections are so clearly articulated that students and teachers can easily work with them."
Michelle Le Beau, UNM - Valencia

 

"The implication that there is a human purpose behind the act of writing was very appealing..."
"The rhetorical selections are so clearly articulated that students and teachers can easily work with them."
Michelle Le Beau, UNM - Valencia

For First-Year Composition - Reader


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