Breaks down the most important aspects of argumentative or persuasive essay writing. For any student writing essays in any subject.

Secrets of Argumentative Writing Revealed Experienced professor of academic writing reveals the techniques that make your writing sound scholarly. Want to raise your grade in college or graduate school? Even high schoolers can benefit from this advanced course in essay writing. There is no better way to transform your writing. Students report that major improvements in their writing and their GPA occurred as a result of using Crack the Essay.

If you want to learn how to shoot a basketball, you begin by carefully observing someone who knows how to shoot a basketball. If you want to be a writer, you begin by carefully observing the work of accomplished writers. Recognizing the importance that modeling plays in the learning process, high school English teacher Kelly Gallagher shares how he gets his students to stand next to and pay close attention to model writers, and how doing so elevates his students' writing abilities. Write Like This is built around a central premise: if students are to grow as writers, they need to read good writing, they need to study good writing, and, most important, they need to emulate good writers. In Write Like This, Kelly emphasizes real-world writing purposes, the kind of writing he wants his students to be doing twenty years from now. Each chapter focuses on a specific discourse: express and reflect, inform and explain, evaluate and judge, inquire and explore, analyze and interpret, and take a stand/propose a solution. In teaching these lessons, Kelly provides mentor texts (professional samples as well as models he has written in front of his students), student writing samples, and numerous assignments and strategies proven to elevate student writing. By helping teachers bring effective modeling practices into their classrooms, Write Like This enables students to become better adolescent writers. More important, the practices found in this book will help our students develop the writing skills they will need to become adult writers in the real world.

This volume details the development and initial evaluation of a supplemental literacy course intended to support at-risk high school students in the US. Developed using design based research (DBR), the course combines argument writing and knowledge building literacy routines to support academic literacy development. Acknowledging the demand for US students to meet academic literacy standards that emphasize explanatory and argumentative writing, the text foregrounds knowledge building as key to effective writing development. Chapters trace the development and implementation of course literacy routines designed using DBR and use whole-class and individual case studies to demonstrate how informational reading, discussion, and argument writing become an activity system to support literacy development. Ultimately, the text has important implications for literacy course design, and the use of knowledge building analysis and DBR in research. The text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators in higher education with an interest in academic literacy education, writing and composition, and secondary education more broadly. Those specifically interested in methodologies relating to classroom teaching and learning as well as argumentation and argument writing will also benefit from this book.

How does one help undergraduate students learn quickly how to produce effectively organized, persuasive, well-reasoned essays? This book offers a straightforward, systematic introduction to some of the key elements of the construction of arguments in essay form. The focus here is on practical advice that will prove immediately useful to students—recommended procedures are emphasized, and detailed examples of academic and student writing are provided throughout. The book introduces the basics of argumentation before moving on to the structure and organization of essays. Planning and outlining the essay, writing strong thesis statements, organizing coherent paragraphs, and writing effective introductions and conclusions are among the subjects discussed. A separate section concisely explores issues specific to essays about literary works.

THIS TITLE HAS BEEN UPDATED TO REFLECT THE 2016 MLA UPDATE. The New York Times best-selling book on academic writing--in use at more than 1,500 schools.

The Structure of Argument covers critical thinking, reading, writing, and research. Concise but thorough, it includes questions, exercises, writing assignments, and a full semester’s worth of readings—everything students need in an affordable, compact format. Presenting Aristotelian and Rogerian as well as Toulmin argument, The Structure of Argument has been totally revised, with more than three-quarters of the readings new (including many multimodal selections available online at no extra charge), new coverage of multimodal argument, expanded treatment of key rhetorical concepts, a fresh new design, and additional support for research. Its emphasis on Toulmin argument makes Structure highly teachable, since the approach fits with the goals of the composition course.

This brief spiral-bound booklet provides a portable, scannable, and simple guide to the basics of argumentative essay writing. Designed to complement in-depth classroom instruction, it serves as a portable resource that students can use on their own or in class for quick, step-by-step guidance on how to plan, research, write, and edit argumentative essays. Advice on avoiding plagiarism and documenting sources is included, along with up-to-date MLA and APA citation guidelines and a sample essay. Laminated for convenience and durability, the booklet is intended as a lasting reference tool that students can use throughout their academic studies. Additional resources, including an essay outline tool and grammar exercises, are provided on a free companion website.

This brief rhetoric helps students develop strategies for critical reading, critical thinking, research, and writing that will help them argue clearly and convincingly. It teaches them to identify and develop arguments, to read and form reactions and opinions of their own, to analyze an audience, to seek common ground, and to use a wide, realistic range of techniques to write argument papers that express their individual views and original perspectives on modern issues. It includes clear explanations and examples of argument theory and reading and writing processes, research and documentation skills, and offers engaging, class-tested writing assignments and activities. 49 Essays for Analysis cover several broad issue and sub-issue areas, all of contemporary concern. Unique chapters discuss student argument styles, Rogerian argument, and argument and literature.