* Written in a clear, engaging style, this text combines four books--a rhetoric, a research guide, a reader, and a handbook--into one convenient teaching tool. The Rhetoric section presents a full range of writing strategies, along with chapters on paragraphs, sentences, style, and three specialized types of writing. This section also includes in-depth chapters on planning and drafting, as well as revising and editing a paper. The Research Guide section includes three comprehensive chapters on the research process, making supplemental handouts or guides unnecessary. The Reader section contains forty-four essays that illustrate the different writing strategies and display a wide variety of styles, tones, and themes. The Handbook section offers easy access to the major elements of grammar, punctuation, and mechanics, and includes a unit on spelling and a glossary of word usage. * Available in an alternate version--without the Handbook section.
Here's the thing: this text is bare bones and mostly "just the facts Ma'am"; just the thing for community college or non-English major students. I've found the "Reader" section, which contains real-life essays on topics from immigration to machsimo to defining family, to be a useful supplement for modeling examples of writing topics, strategies, and architecture. Plus, the TOC sports a cross-reference that matches up the categories of the essays in the "Reader" section to the "Rhetoric" section, so I don't have to flog my brain, and, gasp -- do it myself.
While not perfect, this really does work as a good composition textbook. It's clear, provides a workable number of readings from which to select, and succeeds in getting to the point. I admit, though, that I've never used the grammar section.