From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Text and Reader

From Inquiry to Academic Writing helps students understand academic culture and its ways of reading, thinking, and writing. With a practical and now widely proven step-by-step approach, the text demystifies cross-curricular thinking and writing. An extensive thematic reader brings students into interdisciplinary debates that not only bear on their college careers but also reflect larger cultural issues that they will encounter outside the academy.

The fourth edition provides extensive coverage of academic habits and skills (reflection, summarization, synthesis, and visual analysis) and features more than 40% new readings grouped by interdisciplinary themes.

Combine the text with LaunchPad for From Inquiry to Academic Writing for even more engaging content and new ways to get the most out of your course. This LaunchPad includes

• Interactive exercises and tutorials for reading, writing, and research








• LearningCurve adaptive, game-like practice that helps students focus on the topics where they need the most help, such as fallacies, claims, evidence, and other key elements of argument








• Text-specific reading comprehension quizzes








• Practice sequences to help students apply the strategies of observing, asking questions, and examining alternatives.

Preface for Instructors

How This Book Supports WPA Outcomes for First-Year Composition

1 Starting with Inquiry: Habits of Mind of Academic Writers

What Is Academic Writing?

What Are the Habits of Mind of Academic Writers?

Academic Writers Make Inquiries

Academic Writers Seek and Value Complexity

Academic Writers See Writing as a Conversation

Academic Writers Understand That Writing Is a Process

Academic Writers Reflect

Becoming Academic: Three Narrative

Ta-Nehisi Coates, from Between the World and Me

Richard Rodriguez, Scholarship Boy

Gerald Graff, Disliking Books

2 From Reading as a Writer to Writing as a Reader

Reading as an Act of Composing: Annotating

Reading as a Writer: Analyzing a Text Rhetorically

E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Preface to Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to KnowSteps to Analyzing a Text Rhetorically

Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr., Hirsch’s Desire for a National Curriculum

Writing as a Reader: Composing a Rhetorical Analysis

David Tyack, Whither History Textbooks?

An Annotated Student Rhetorical Analysis

Quentin Collie, "Rhetorical Analysis of ‘Whither History Textbooks?"

Writing a Rhetorical Analysis

Sherry Turkle, "The Flight from Conversation"

3 From Writing Summaries to Writing Yourself into Academic Conversations

Summaries, Paraphrases, and Quotations

Writing a Paraphrase

Writing a Summary

Clive Thompson, On the New Literacy

Writing Yourself into Academic Conversations

Tom Standage, History Retweets Itself

4 From Identifying Claims to Analyzing Arguments

Identifying Types of Claims

Dana Radcliffe, Dashed Hopes: Why Aren’t Social Media Delivering Democracy?

Analyzing Arguments

Analyze the Reasons Used to Support a Claim

An Annotated Student Argument

Marques Camp, The End of the World May Be Nigh, and It’s the Kindle’s Fault

Susan D. Blum, The United States of (Non) Reading: The End of Civilization or a New Era?

Analyzing and Comparing Arguments

Stuart Rojsatczer, Grade Inflation Gone Wild

Phil Primack, Doesn’t Anyone Get a C Anymore?

5 From Identifying Issues to Forming Questions

Identifying Issues

Identifying Issues in an Essay

Anna Quindlen, Doing Nothing Is Something

Formulating Issue-Based Questions

An Academic Essay for Analysis

William Deresiewicz, The End of Solitude

6 From Formulating to Developing a Thesis

Working Versus Definitive Theses

Developing a Working Thesis: Four Models

Establishing a Context for Stating a ThesisSteps to Establishing a Context for a Thesis

An Annotated Student Introduction: Providing a Context for a Thesis

Colin O’Neill, Money Matters: Framing the College Access Debate

Analyze the Context of a Thesis

Kris Gutierrez, from Teaching Toward Possibility: Building Cultural Supports for Robust Learning

A Practice Sequence: Building a Thesis

An Annotated Student Essay: Stating and Supporting a Thesis

Veronica Stafford, Texting and Literacy

7 From Finding to Evaluating Sources

Identifying Sources

Searching for Sources

Evaluating Library Sources

Evaluating Internet Sources

Writing an Annotated Bibliography

8 From Synthesis to Researched Argument

Synthesis Versus Summary

Writing a Synthesis

Paul Rogat Loeb, Making Our Lives Count

Anne Colby and Thomas Ehrlich et al, Undergraduate Education and the Development of Moral and Civic Responsibility

Laurie Ouellette, Citizen Brand: ABC and the Do Good Turn in US Television

Dan Kennedy, Political Blogs: Teaching Us Lessons about Community

John Dickerson, Don’t Fear Twitter

Steve Grove, You Tube: The Flattening of Politics

Avoiding Plagiarism

Integrating Quotations into Your Writing

An Annotated Student Researched Argument: Synthesizing Sources

Nancy Paul, A Greener Approach to Groceries: Community Based Agriculture in LaSalle Square

9 From Ethos to Logos: Appealing to Your Readers

Connecting with Readers: A Sample Argument

James Loewen, The Land of Opportunity

Appealing to Ethos

Appealing to Pathos

Appealing to Logos: Using Reason and Evidence to Fit the Situation

Recognizing Logical Fallacies

Analyzing the Appeals in a Researched Argument

Meredith Minkler, Community-Based Research Partnerships: Challenges and Opportunities

10 From Image to Text

Analyzing Visual Rhetoric: Advertisements

Further Advertisements for Analysis

Analyzing Visual Rhetoric: Maps, Tables or Charts, and Graphs

Emily Badger, Mapped: The Place Where Most Public School Children Are Poor

Susan B. Neuman and Donna Celano, Access to Print in Low-Income and

Using Graphs to Present Findings

11 From Introductions to Conclusions: Drafting an Essay

Drafting Introductions

Developing Paragraphs

Elizabeth Martinez, Reinventing ‘America’: Call for a New National Identity

Drafting Conclusions

Analyzing Strategies for Writing: From Introductions to Conclusions

Barbara Ehrenreich, Cultural Baggage

12 From Revising to Editing: Working with Peer Groups

Revising versus Editing

The Peer Editing Process

Peer Groups in Action: A Sample Session

An Annotated Student Draft

Rebcca Jegier, Student-Centered Learning: Catering to Students’ Impatience

Working with Early Drafts

Tasha Taylor (student writer), Memory through Photography

Working with Later Drafts

Tasha Taylor (student writer), Memory through Photography

Working with Final Drafts

Tasha Taylor (student writer), Memory through Photography

Further Suggestions for Peer Editing Groups

13 Other Methods of Inquiry: Interviews and Focus Groups

Why Do Original Research?

Getting Started: Writing an Idea Sheet

A Student’s Annotated Idea Sheet

Dan Grace (student writer), Idea Sheet for Parent/Child Autism Study

Getting Started: Writing a Proposal

An Annotated Student Proposal

Laura Hartigan (student writer), Proposal for Research: The Affordances of Multimodal, Creative Writing and Academic Writing

Interviewing

Using Focus Groups

14 Education: What does it mean to be educated? Who has access to a good education, and why?

MARK EDMUNDSON, Who Are You and What are You Doing Here? A Word to the Incoming Class

A professor claims you may have to fight with your college to get a "real education"

LAURA PAPPANO, How Big-Time Sports Ate College

A journalist examines the impact of big-time sports on university life.SUSAN DYNARSKI, Why American Schools are Even More Unequal Than We Thought

A journalist argues for a new approach to addressing the needs of the most financially vulnerable students.SEAN F. REARDON, JANE WALDFOGEL, AND DAPHNA BASSOK, The Good News about Educational Inequality

Scholars discover encouraging evidence of a narrowing gap between high- and low-income children’s readiness for school.NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES, School Segregation, the Continuing Tragedy of Ferguson

A writer exposes the history of educational inequalities that provide context for Michael Brown’s shooting death in Ferguson, Missouri.

15 Sociology: How do race, class, and gender influence us?

ALLAN G. JOHNSON, What is Privilege? A sociologist explains how patterns of privilege are often hard to see, but have a profound impact on our lives.

CLAUDIA RANKINE, The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning

Connecting the past to the present, a writer examines personal and political aspects of mourning in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement.

C. J. PASCOE, "Dude, You’re a Fag": Adolescent Masculinity and the Fag Discourse

Calling someone a "fag" has little to do with homosexuality, argues a sociologist.

"Looking at ‘fag’ as a discourse rather than a static identity reveals that the term can be invested with different meanings in different spaces."

BARBARA EHRENREICH, How I Discovered the Truth About Poverty

In a short, pithy essay, one of America’s best-known social commentators takes issue with a classic study of poverty from fifty years ago. Nowadays we have to conclude "that poverty is not, after all, a cultural aberration or a character flaw. Poverty is a shortage of money."

BELL HOOKS, Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor

An African American cultural critic makes the case from her personal experience that "Television shows and films bring the message home that no one can feel truly good about themselves if they are poor."

16 Media Studies: What can we learn from what entertains us?

MELISSA AVDEEFF, Beyoncé and Social Media: Authenticity and the Presentation of Self

A scholar of popular music considers the "public private" meanings of Beyoncé’s Instagram account.

EVAN KINDLEY, from Quiz Mania

A critic examines the significance of "Buzzfeed’s knack for monetizing the zeitgeist."

WILLIAM POWERS, Not So Busy

An author asks how we can make a good life in a digital age.

MARK HAIN, ‘We are Here for You’: The It Gets Better Project, Queering Rural Space, and Cultivating Queer Media Literacy

A scholar of Communication and Culture considers the role of DIY "It Gets Better" videos for rural LGBTQ youth.

KEN GILLAM AND SHANNON R. WOODEN, Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Disney/Pixar

Two English professors suggest that in recent family movies such as The Incredibles, Toy Story, and Cars, Disney’s Pixar studio "consistently promotes a new model of masculinity, one that matures into acceptance of its more traditionally ‘feminine’ aspects."

JEAN KILBOURNE, "Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt": Advertising and Violence

A media educator takes aim at sex in advertising, which she claims is "more often about power than passion, about violence than violins."

SHERRY TURKLE, Growing Up Tethered

Is personal development in adolescents hindered by new technologies and the "compulsions of the networked life"? A professor in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT presents many examples that suggest so.

17 Psychology and Biology: How do our physical and cultural selves intersect?

CAROL DWECK, from Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

A professor of psychology describes two different "mindsets" that shape our responses to challenges, and argues: You can change your mindset.

MARY AIKEN, Designed to Addict

A Cyberpsychologist provides scientific explanations for online behaviors that are likely familiar … and perhaps downright harmful.

MARGARET TALBOT, from Brain Gain: The Underground World of ‘Neuroenhancing’ Drugs

A New Yorker writer reports on how a new generation of high achievers is increasingly drawn to drugs that improve their already exceptional performances.

AGUSTÍN FUENTES, from The Myth of Race

An anthropologist uses a range of examples to demonstrate the startling implications of his claim that while "humans vary biologically, we can demonstrate that this variation does not cluster into racial groups. What we refer to as human races are not biological units."

WILLIAM J. PEACE, Slippery Slopes: Media, Disability, and Adaptive Sports

The author of the Bad Cripple blog examines the effects and consequences of narrow media depictions of disability as something to be miraculously and inspirationally "overcome."

18 Sustainability and Environmental Studies: How do our decisions affect our environment?

RACHEL CARSON, Fable for TomorrowIn a ground-breaking text, the scientist Rachel Carson launches the modern environmental movement.

SANDRA STEINGRABER, Despair Not

Although she marshals a range of sobering evidence about climate change and environmental toxins, an ecologist and cancer survivor exhorts us not to despair about the future: "We can break the spell. We can prepare the way."

DERRICK JENSEN AND STEPHANIE MCMILLAN, As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial

This excerpt from a satiric graphic novel makes a challenging argument: All the little things we do to help the environment make us feel better about ourselves do not help the planet as much as we like to think.

ANDREW J. HOFFMAN, The Full Scope

A scientist considers rhetorical strategies to change "hearts and minds" in the contentious climate-change debates.

ANNA LAPPÉ, The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork

Yes, "industrial smokestacks" and "oil-thirsty planes and automobiles" contribute to climate change, writes the co-founder of the Small Planet Institute. Yet, the global system for producing and distributing food accounts for roughly one-third of the human-caused global warming effect.

"MICHAEL POLLAN, Why Bother?

One of today’s most important writers on food and sustainability sees environmental hope in small lifestyle changes: "Planting a garden sounds pretty benign, but in fact it’s one of the most powerful things an individual can do . . . to change the cheap-energy mind.

"MCKAY JENKINS, Can GMOs be Sustainable?

An expert on environmental debates offers a nuanced view of GMOs, from the perspective of "enlightened local farmers.

"CAROLYN MERCHANT, Eden Commodified

This study by a professor of environmental history, philosophy, and ethics weaves together our fascination with the idea of an Edenic nature and our consumerist desires for convenience to help us think about what those desires may really cost.

19 Economics: How do economics shape our self- understandings and possibilities? What kinds of choices do we have?

SARA GOLDRICK-RAB, from Paying the Price

An expert on the student loan crisis argues making college affordable is good for everyone.

ROBERT B. REICH, The Rise of the Working Poor

An economist explains policy shifts that have "reduced the number of poor people who are jobless, while increasing the number of poor people who have jobs."

RICHARD H. THALER, CASS R. SUNSTEIN, AND JOHN P. BALZ, Choice Architecture

Scholars of business, law, and political science demonstrate how "small and apparently insignificant details can have major impacts on people’s behavior." Do you know when you’ve been "nudged"?

NAOMI KLEIN, from No Logo

What’s wrong with feeling good about buying a product for the prestige of owning a particular brand name? A journalist asks us to think about how and why we have been socialized to feel this way.

ANN DUCILLE, from Multicultural Barbie and the Merchandising of Difference

"What did it mean for me that I was nowhere in the toys I played with?" A professor of African American studies explores the ways we all help establish cultural norms through producing and consuming goods and ideas.