Writing Analytically

As a seasoned engineer who dreaded english classes in college, but now enjoys writing enough to take a course in the subject, this book presented a digestable approach for writing analytically and thoughtfully. Though some might criticize the authors for trying to package writing into simple steps and methods, I disagree that his approach talks down to the audience. As an engineer, I appreciate that most any formidable task, like writing a coherent paper, can be broken down into smaller tasks that are easier to accomplish and understand, if presented correctly. Writing doesn't come easy for me, and the methods presented here were not trivial, but thought provoking. I can't say if this book would help those writing fiction, I believe it would, but for the non-fiction I wrote, this book was very worthwhile. This fifth edition of a text for undergraduates integrates earlier versions of the book, which are oriented toward thesis and evidence, with the emphasis of later editions on observation and interpretation. The book illustrates flexible organizational schemes beyond the five- paragraph form and demonstrates ways of responding to secondary sources other than merely agreeing and disagreeing. Students are invited to make a thesis evolve rather than remain static as it encounters different types of evidence. The authors assume that professors will want to supply their own subject matter for students to write about, but the book does contain writing exercises that can be applied to a wide range of print and visual materials. For this edition there is a new chapter on rhetorical analysis. The text can be used for first-year writing courses or seminars, as well as in more advanced writing- intensive courses in a variety of subject areas. Both authors teach English at Muhlenberg College. In developing the text, the authors align themselves with the thinking of Carl Rogers on the goal of making argument less combative, and have been heavily influenced by Peter Elbow, Ken Macrorie, and other early proponents of the process movement in writing pedagogy. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The popular, brief rhetoric that treats writing as thinking, WRITING ANALYTICALLY, Fifth Edition, offers a series of prompts that lead you through the process of analysis and synthesis and help you to generate original and well-developed ideas. The book's overall point is that learning to write well means learning to use writing as a way of thinking well. To that end, the strategies of this book describe thinking skills that employ writing. As you will see, this book treats writing as a tool of thought—a means of undertaking sustained acts of inquiry and reflection.

Discusses that learning to write well means learning to use writing as a way of thinking well. This book includes strategies that describe thinking skills that employ writing.