Evergreen: A Guide to Writing With Readings- Text Only, Seventh Edition [Paperback]

Fawcett (Author), Susan Fawcett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2003 | ISBN-10: 0618397582 | ISBN-13: 978-0618397587 | Edition: 7 Pap/Cdr

As part of Fawcett's best-selling developmental writing series, Evergreen earns consistent acclaim for its clear, step-by-step instruction, engaging exercises, and high-interest readings for paragraph-to-essay level courses. The text's longstanding popularity stems from its solid foundation in the process and modeling approach to writing, plus its flexible organization. Following the advice of reviewers and users across the country, the author has added new critical-thinking assignments, revised the majority of existing practice sets and models, and integrated more dynamic, contemporary visuals throughout the text. Compelling and sometimes controversial images stimulate students to write and discuss their responses.

Chapter 1 features a revised introduction designed to increase students' interest in the writing process and, consequently, the likelihood that they will use the textbook. In addition, a new chapter on research prepares students for other composition and college-level courses, covering such topics as how to avoid plagiarism, write summaries, include quotes, paraphrase, find information using the library and the Internet, and cite MLA sources.

• New! Sixty percent of the reading selections in the Seventh Edition are new, including "A Smoker's Right" by Mario Vargas Llosa, "Bam! Crash! Kapow! Girls Are Heroes Now" by Susan Hopkins, and "Cell Yell: Thanks for (Not) Sharing," by Eric A. Taub.
• New! Throughout the text, URLs point students to relevant web sites for further exploration of chapter concepts and reading practice.
• New! A brief chapter on how to strengthen an essay with research has been added to the text, helping students to prepare for college-level assignments.
• New! The Seventh Edition features 75 new models and practice exercises that cover provocative, high-interest topics.
• New! A new section on misplaced modifiers provides greater focus on this difficult topics. In addition, students have more opportunities to practice mixed-error proofreading throughout the text.
• New! An extensive suite of technology products includes an updated textbook web site with new PowerPoint slides and activities, downloadable diagnostic and mastery tests, links to popular ESL sites, and a Community of Evergreen bulletin board for instructors. Students also have access to the ESL-related sites and a checklist of "The 10 Most Common Writing Problems and How to Fix Them" to be printed and used when writing. In addition, the EverWrite CD-ROM features over 120 editing exercises with reading passages for correction, as well as 350 grammar exercises and tests tailored to the text.
• At the end of each unit, Writer's Workshops showcase student examples of paragraphs and essays to reinforce the grammar and sentence skills in context. A series of questions and activities follow these examples and promote collaborative learning by asking students to read, discuss, edit, and write in small groups.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Susan Fawcett is a former professor of English and director of the writing lab at Bronx Community College, CUNY. She is the author of two leading writing textbooks, Evergreen and Grassroots,as well as a text for business majors called Business English: Skills for Success, 2/e. In 2000, Evergreen won the McGuffey Prize for sustained excellence in a language and literature text, awarded by the Text and Academic Authors Association. Ms. Fawcett's poetry and nonfiction articles on education, health, and the environment have appeared in such magazines as The Nation, Poetry, Ms., Woman's Day, and Ploughshares. Her formal education took place at Ohio University, the University of London, and Columbia University, with the support of Fulbright and Woodrow Wilson fellowships. Through presentations in the U.S. and South Africa, she has worked to improve college writing instruction, and recently, to promote textbook authorship of minority faculty. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 557 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH); 7 Pap/Cdr edition (March 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618397582
• ISBN-13: 978-0618397587
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #958,547 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very useful text, October 12, 2005

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Evergreen: A Guide to Writing With Readings- Text Only, Seventh Edition (Paperback)

We use Susan Fawcett's book 'Evergreen' in writing courses at the community college where I work, as well as in our Tutoring Center (we also use her book 'Grassroots', which is a good companion at the more basic level). Whereas 'Grassroots' is for those who need help writing sentences and with more basic grammar concepts, the 'Evergreen' book is for those who have mastered that level of writing, and are ready to develop more fully structured themes and essays.

The first unit of 'Evergreen' reviews the basic concepts of the writing process - what is one writing for? Who is the likely or intended audience? How should a finished paper look? Believe it or not, it is on this last point that so many grades have risen or fallen - a paper can be wonderfully written, but if it is scribbled on scrap paper rather than typewritten and neatly printed, it may suffer in grading, just as a letter from a business will not be as well received if it has spelling errors and problems with formatting. (This is a similar introduction to the 'Grassroots' text.)

The second unit looks for explicitly at the paragraph, developing concepts such as coherence, topic sentences, ideas to include and exclude, as well as outlining and revising.

The third and fourth units in this book are really the heart of the writing process. In the development of the paragraph, there are different approaches and techniques one can take - the paragraph can be descriptive, narrative, explanatory of a definition, comparison and contrast, persuasive, and a few other means. These lead naturally into the development of the essay, which is generally a series of paragraphs that are linked by a common idea or theme - some of the same processes that go into the development of a paragraph parallel the development of an essay, and many of the same descriptors above apply to paragraph forms, too. The fifth unit extends this kind of essay development by exploring sentence variety, language awareness and consistency in the revision process.

Units 6 and 7 are review chapters for grammar concepts, punctuation, and spelling. These are really review areas - they do not go into enough depth or repetition for this to be an introductory text, but rather will assume some familiarity with the concepts being presented.

The final section has a collection of reading selections, some from well-known authors and other figures. There are pieces that provide examples for the different kinds of essays described earlier in the book - some pieces are narrative, some are persuasive, some are humourous.

This is a good book to use to become a better writer. It is useful in classroom settings, but might also be used for individual study (such as we do in the Tutoring Center).

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 2nd Edition Review, January 31, 2010

By 

Chris James (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evergreen: A Guide to Writing With Readings- Text Only, Seventh Edition (Paperback)

Note: I am reviewing the 2nd Edition.

I stumbled upon this text in my parents bookshelf. I am twenty-six years old now, and I have not come across a guide to writing as thorough and straightforward until now. Whereas many textbooks tend to discuss grammar in a broken and ambiguous fashion, Susan keeps you turning pages with interesting and uncomplicated illustrations of concepts ranging from how to structure a paragraph to grammatical concepts such as how to identify a prepositional phrase. The ideal reader is someone who is in high school or college. Although, I have discovered this book now and I plan on keeping a copy nearby next time I sit down to write.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book to strengthen writing skills for students, April 24, 2006

By 

D. Fitzhugh (Herndon, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Evergreen: A Guide to Writing With Readings- Text Only, Seventh Edition (Paperback)

I actually purchased this book becuase it helped give me some inspiration for addtional exercises for my ESL students because I thought that some of the material in the text we were using was not covered effectively. I really like this book, and can be used for high level ESL or native English writing. Easy to follow, well-ordered, and overall a good writing skills text.