Substance, Style, and Strategy

Substance, Style, and Strategy developed from the author teaching an Advanced Composition course at the University of Connecticut. Throughout William's teaching, he found that advanced writers required some basic reminders of elementary stylistic considerations - such as problems with modifiers, minor punctuation issues, and strategies for revision. The first chapter, Developing a Personal Style, is designed to bring writers "up to speed" regarding basic writing skills. However, what he really craved was a sense that their writing could have substance and purpose. Consequently, the author has developed a program that helps students gain experience in varieties of writing that would be of use to them while in school, but also of use to them as they grow older. Personal writing is very important for developing a sense of self-understanding and for helping students assess their own experience in living. Writing biography is rooted in our natural curiousity about other people, great and small. Students who write about personal friends or relatives develop a fuller understanding of those people and a deeper appreciation for their own roots.
The Argumentative Essay is designed to offer a simple, direct and effective means by which students can develop workable strategies for identifying and defending a position while also being fair to all sides of an argument. It is a non-technical but thorough introduction to how we argue in print. The Familiar Essay approaches the moments of reflection that help us make sense out of the details of ife experience. These are the types of essays that take stock of experience and that deepen our understanding of life. The Critical Essay is generally familiar territory for students and deals with the analytic strategies that permit us to gain deeper insight into the experience of literature and other arts. The strategies presented here are workable, direct, and useful. Finally, the Appendix: Materials for Research, treats the most useful basic research strategies for a modern writer. The print sources found in libraries are probably most useful to college students, but the new resources on-line, including the various available search engines and their most effiencent use, are central to this chapter.
A number of unusual and important strategies for research show up in this chapter and guide students with example searches. The examples that appear in each chapter are illuminating and instructive primarily because they show students how to solve the problems that all writers confront. The result is that the book offers a thorough grounding in how to be a writer for life.