From Idea to Essay - Softcover

Novice writers need this book trusted and successful composition book as they begin their writing careers not as prepared as they often should be. This systematic rhetoric-reader-handbook carefully leads readers through the process of essay writing. It provides numerous samples of writing through readings, specific guidelines on how to approach each rhetorical mode, writing assignments for each mode, and student and professional models of completed assignments. The book covers nine rhetorical modes and includes a complete unit on the research paper and a comprehensive handbook section. Pre-reading, prewriting, and writing exercises offer guidance in the fundamentals of reading and writing. New material has been added on database searches, research on the Internet, and documenting electronic sources. An ideal tool for the novice writer or teacher.

Born in Belgium, the daughter of an American minister, Jo Ray McCuen-Metherell had moved from Brussels to Paris to Bern, Switzerland, by the time she was seven years old. In Bern, she attended the Freies Gymnasium and spoke not only fluent French and German but also English, which was the language spoken to her by her American parents. After World War II, Dr. McCuen-Metherell's parents sent her and her brother to Pacific Union College (in California's Napa Valley), where she received a B. A. in English. She taught English and French in high school for several years and then took night classes at the University of Southern California, where she earned an M.A. and Ph.D. While working on her doctorate, she was hired to teach English at Glendale Community College and later to serve as Dean of the Evening College. A chance meeting in 1973 with Anthony C. Winkler, a successful novelist, led to a literary partnership that has produced 15 coauthored textbooks used at colleges and universities across the United States.

Born February 25, 1942, in Kingston, Jamaica West Indies. Educated in Jamaica at Excelsior College, Mount Alvernia Academy and Cornwall College, the last two being in Montego Bay. Educated in the United States at Citrus Community College, Glendora California (AA degree 1965). Taught briefly at Pasadena City College and for a year Moneague Teachers College in Saint Anne, Jamaica, an experience chronicled in Going Home to Teach (1995.) From 1968 to 1975 Winkler had a sales territory as a bookman, covering Southern California, Las Vegas and Utah for Appleton Century Crofts textbook publishers, and later Southern California and Arizona for Scots Foresman. In 1969 he decided he could write textbooks as well as anyone and through a chance meeting with the sales representative of another company, he submitted the manuscript POETRY AS SYSTEM and was offered a contract for its publication. Eventually, he met Jo Ray McCuen and the two became textbook writers and collaborators. Over the years they have produced more than a dozen textbooks, most on rhetoric and writing, which have survived through multiple editions. In 1975, Winkler quit his job as a bookman and became a full-time freelance writer. In addition to his textbooks, his body of work include the following: "The Painted Canoe" (novel 1983), "The Lunatic" (novel 1987), "The Great Yacht Race" (novel 1992), "Going Home to Teach" (autobiography 1995), "The Duppy" (novel 1997), "The Annihilation of Fish and other stories" (short story collection 2004), "Dog War" (novel 2006), "Trust the Darkness: My Life As a Writer" (autobiography 2008); Plays: "The Hippopotamus Card" (produced by WDR German radio network), "The Burglary" (premiered in Toronto July 7, 2005); Movies: "The Lunatic" (1991), "The Annihilation of Fish" (1999), "Biography Bob Marley, an Intimate Portrait by His Mother" (1996, with Cedella Booker, Marley's mother)