Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum (10th Edition) [Paperback]

Laurence Behrens (Author), Leonard J. Rosen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 25, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0321486439 | ISBN-13: 978-0536474735 | Edition: 10th

This rhetoric and reader guides the reader through the essential college-level writing skills of summary, critique, synthesis, and analysis, and offers a focused opportunity for practicing these skills.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The original–and best-selling–interdisciplinary composition text, Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, Tenth Edition, provides the tools and strategies for students in all majors to learn to communicate effectively. The tenth edition continues to provide sound writing instruction, focusing on the key research-writing skills of summary, synthesis, critique, and analysis. An anthology of engaging thematic readings provides depth of coverage in each discipline-specific chapter.

New in the Tenth Edition

• A new chapter on “The Practice of Writing” (Ch. 7) allows students to practice the skills and strategies that they have learned in earlier chapters and that will make them better writers.
• A new chapter based in sociology, “Marriage and Family in America” (Ch. 8), looks at what’s happening to marriage in the twenty-first century, including feminist and gay perspectives.
• A new chapter based in biology, “To Sleep or Not to Sleep” (Ch. 11), explores the research about adolescents’ need for sleep–and how little they actually get.
• “Has the Jury Reached a Verdict?” (Ch. 14) on law has been updated to include accessible journalistic analyses of the case law discussed.
• New readings in every unit bring the most current perspectives to topics based in folklore, business, American studies, and psychology.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 880 pages
• Publisher: Longman; 10th edition (February 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321486439
• ISBN-13: 978-0536474735
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best apparatus out there, October 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum (8th Edition) (Paperback)

This cut down by more than half the time it has taken my students to learn to write summaries, integrate sources, understand argument, and write syntheses.

Many of the readings are also interesting and productive, especially those on Folklore and Obedience to Authority. I'd teach it in combination with a course reader, though, since there's almost no attention to the process of helping students find their voice and write more beautiful prose.

But no one book can do everything, and I plan to keep teaching this one. My students like it too -- with its focus on arguable ideas and the wonderful step-by-step breakdown of the writing process.

25 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Convoluted Nightmare -just terrible, March 1, 2007

By 

C. F Higgins (Warrenville, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum (Paperback)

I'm currently using this for a freshman English course, and I find it is a complete mess. There are historical mistakes (claiming Cicero was the greatest writer of the Roman Empire -when Cicero wrote during the Republic), spelling errors, and even grammatical errors (take the title of Chapter 4 for instance: "Types of Synthesis: Explanatory and Argument" -has the author ever run into the term parallelism?).

The book is full of redundancies and proprietary terminology. Some of the concepts are barely explained, others are beaten to death. The writing style is not consistent, leading to the suspicion that many people had their hands in this one -perhaps "authors" in India. Some of the exercises are barely comprehensible. For instance:

"Look over the preceding readings and make a list of the ways they address the overall topics of computers, communication, and relationships. Make your list as detailed as you can. Then write several lists grouping together the readings that deal with similar aspects of the overall topics" (108).

We really don't want our students writing like this, so the last thing we should do is expose them to a textbook like this.

Some of the reading selections are good, and others are vapid, pointless, and generally worthless. Essays about dirty dorm rooms and lack of parking spaces behind the gym -oh yes, this is really provocative.

I challenge anyone to find me a worse textbook.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably one of the most useful books for class and writing papers, December 4, 2009

By 

P. Rodriguez "Paul" (Oklahoma City, OK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum (10th Edition) (Paperback)

I have used this book in about six classes and it has come in handy several times when writing research papers in both MLA and APA citations.