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Chemeketa Press - Roy K. Humble

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101 pages

English

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The Humble Essay is so much more than a writing textbook. It gives you tools, tips, and tricks that actually explain what a writer does. It doesn’t sugarcoat the process or dumb down the very real challenges that entering a college writing space requires. This book is more like a friend. It’s the kind of friend that will coach you through a tough time and encourage you, and it will make you laugh while you go through it. It’s the kind of friend who holds your hair back when you’re sick of writing and gives you the courage to try again.

Roy K. Humble is the kind of writing teacher who understands the struggle of learning how to write like a college student and doesn’t just tell you what you want to hear. His lessons here are profound, but in the sense that they are delivered by someone who wants you to feel included in the conversation about what good college writing should be. He writes to students in language they can understand without becoming English majors and with just enough humor to keep them reading. He writes for faculty, moving step by step through the unadorned guiding principles of effective formal writing so that faculty have a great framework on which to build their classes. Perhaps most importantly, Humble understands that the price of a book matters to students, so his books are affordable. From every perspective, Humble gets it.

The Humble Essay has students covered on these important topics:

Understanding the college essay as an idea
Grasping the stages of the writing process
Organizing the college essay around cohesive paragraphs
Thinking for yourself as a college student
Gathering and synthesizing sources and information
Guiding readers through a thoughtful college essay

Sujets

Writting

Disciplines

Language Arts

Sciences de l'éducation

Textbook

General officer

Writing

Grammar

College

General

Research

Composition

Informations

Publié par	Chemeketa Press
Date de parution	01 avril 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781955499194
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0900€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Humble Essay
Fourth Edition
A Readable Introduction to College Writing
Roy K. Humble
The Humble Essay
2022 by Chemeketa Press
ISBN-13: 978-1-955499-18-7
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Chemeketa Press
Chemeketa Community College
4000 Lancaster Dr NE
Salem, Oregon 97305
collegepress@chemeketa.edu
chemeketapress.org
Printed in the United States of America.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Chemeketa Press is located on the land of the Kalapuya, who today are represented by the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians, whose relationship with this land continues to this day. We offer gratitude for the land itself, for those who have stewarded it for generations, and for the opportunity to study, learn, work, and be in community on this land. We acknowledge that our College s history, like many others, is fundamentally tied to the first colonial developments in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Finally, we respectfully acknowledge and honor past, present, and future Indigenous students of Chemeketa Community College.
Contents About This Book To Student Writers To My Colleagues Part One: What the College Essay Expects from You Chapter 1: Stick to One Main Idea Commonly Misunderstood Terms Thesis and Thesis Statement Thesis and Topic Topic, Thesis, and Thesis Statement at Work The College Essay and What It s Not College Essays and Stories College Essays and Reports College Essays and Reflection Papers College Essays and Five-Paragraph Trainer-Essays College Essays and Artful Essays Free Advice: Wait for the Idea Chapter 2: Follow the Rules of Formal Writing Formal and Informal Sentences Grammar Punctuation Word Choice Formal and Informal Paragraphs Opening Paragraphs Ingredients for a Good Opening The Hooking of Formal Readers Body Paragraphs Topic Sentences and Supporting Sentences Using More Than One Paragraph for Complex Ideas Organizing Supporting Sentences Using Transitions Closing Paragraphs Free Advice: Do as I Say, Not as I Do Chapter 3: Learn Something New How to Not Learn Anything Writing with Rituals Writing Like a Knucklehead How to Learn Something New Step 1: Educate Yourself About Your Topic Step 2: Find and Improve Your Main Idea Step 3: Carefully Present Your Idea Free Advice: Make the Process Work for You Part Two: How to Write The College Essay Chapter 4: Educate Yourself About Your Topic Step 1: Get to Know Your Topic Begin with Reference Works If Your Topic Is a Text, Read It Step 2: Narrow Your Focus How to Find a Focus of Your Own What to Do When Nothing Engages You Step 3: Research the Focus Turn Questions Into Key Word Searches Build Your Understanding with Serious Popular Articles Deepen Your Understanding with Scholarly Works Free Advice: Write More about Less Chapter 5: Find and Improve Your Main Idea Find Your Main Idea How to Develop a Writerly Thesis Statement Improve Your Main Idea Make Your Thesis Statement More Precise Make Your Thesis Statement More Accurate Free Advice: Practice the Writerly Thesis Statement When It Matters Less Chapter 6: Plan the Body of Your Essay Build a Topic Sentence Outline Before You Draft Step 1: List Your Evidence Step 2: Prioritize the Evidence Step 3: Plan the Actual Paragraphs Step 4: Organize the Paragraphs Step 5: Write the Actual Topic Sentences Or Build a Topic Sentence Outline After You Draft Organize Your Paragraphs Use Obvious Patterns First Or Use Logical Patterns Free Advice: Start Organizing with Easy Patterns Chapter 7: Present Your Idea with Detailed Information Summaries and Details Summaries Introduce or Interpret Information Details Back Up Your Summaries Drafting the Body of Your Essay Define Important Words Illustrate and Defend Your Main Idea Give Credit to Your Sources of Information Give Credit Whenever You Paraphrase or Summarize Give Credit When You Quote the Actual Words, Too Give Credit Precisely Give Credit Before You Use the Information Sometimes Give Credit with Attribution Sometimes Give Credit with Formal Documentation Free Advice: Don t Worry about Too Many Details Chapter 8: Guide Your Readers Topic Sentences Transitions Obvious and Possibly Engaging Openings The Big Picture Anecdotes Textual References and Quotations Provocative Statements Other Techniques Complete and Possibly Triumphant Closings The Second Half of an Anecdote The Call to Action Free Advice: Please Finish Your Essay Chapter 9: Proofread Your Essay How to Proofread Your Essay Examine the Assignment Guidelines Examine the Sentences Examine the Words Be Good to Yourself by Being Hard on Your Essay Free Advice: Keep Proofreading in Its Place Free Advice: Keep Writing
About This Book
To Student Writers
Even though it s now in its fourth edition, The Humble Essay still lacks all of the fancy doodads that students and faculty have come to expect from a top-flight composition book like this. It lacks photographs, for example, plastic tabs, and even colored ink. There s no interactive PDF or links to videos or links to anything else, either.
You might wonder why all the usual stuff is missing. The answer is simple - you don t need it. You don t need it to learn how to write, and your professor doesn t need it to teach you how to write. It s only there so that textbook companies can pretend they have good reason to charge you five times the price of this book.
To learn how to write an effective college essay, you only need a few things. First, you need a set of simple, sensible guidelines. That is exactly what you ll find in The Humble Essay - and in language you can understand without becoming an English major. If this little book has anything going for it, that s it.
It s also a good idea to work with someone who s more experienced at writing than you are, someone who can help you use these guidelines and check your progress. A writing professor comes to mind.
The most important requirement, however, is simply that you write, and write a lot, so that you can see for yourself what it means to follow these guidelines. Learning to write the college essay is like learning to French kiss. Reading about it will only take you so far. To learn how to do it, you have to actually do it - again and again and again. That s how ideas about writing turn into actual writing skills.
If you re reading this book because it s part of a class you re taking, pause now and give quiet thanks for all the writing assignments that will soon be coming your way. They, more than anything, will help you put these guidelines into practice. Embrace these assignments with the blind faith that they will do you some good - because they will.
Don t be afraid of struggling, either. You will struggle. But so what? Whenever you learn something new - roller-blading, trigonometry, veganism, a stupid board game that forces you to cooperate with others, anything - struggling is an important part of the learning process. In fact, struggling shows that you re getting somewhere, pushing past the edges of what you already know. So don t take it personally when you screw up. Make your mistakes, correct them, and then move on to more sophisticated errors. It s not a big deal.
Once in first grade, I got a frowny face on a math test. My class had moved from addition to subtraction without any warning, and I d missed seven of nine problems. Seven of nine! I was a mess the rest of the day, barely able to hold it together during the longest afternoon recess of my life. How was I going to tell my mother?
When I came home from school, my mother was in her bedroom watching Queen for a Day , so I wasn t allowed to bother her, but my big sister Nadine was in the living room practicing for her interpretive dance recital. I dropped onto the couch and began crying.
What now? she asked.
I blubbered to her about the frowny face.
Oh brother, she said, waving her arms like a willow tree enlivened by a summer breeze. It s just math. Anyone can learn math .
That was one of the more supportive things Nadine ever said to me. It gave me the courage to return to school the next day and begin the hard work of learning take-aways. And she was right, too. It was just math, and with a little help and enough practice, anyone really can learn math. I did.
The college essay might feel overwhelming at first, but what do your feelings know? Nothing! The truth is that writing is just another thing you re going to learn how to do, so tell your feelings to knock it off. You don t need a criminally overpriced book to learn how. You don t need a fancy website or online videos. You just need a few basic ideas, and you need to practice.
Anyone can learn how to write, and that includes you.
To My Colleagues
This fourth edition is more of a step back toward the second edition than a step forward from the third edition into a bold, new future. The third edition added a full suite of chapters on the mechanics of formal writing. Practical as that seemed at the time, it made the book cumbersome and less friendly to students.
Most of that material has since been improved and added into Your Guide to College Writing (Chemeketa Press), Daniel Couch s terrific handbook for college writers, so this edition removes all but one of the chapters on mechanics. The chapter that remains focuses on paragraphing. It begins with a quiet introduction to the rules of formal writing and then follows up on the first chapter by showing what it means to stick to one main idea, paragraph by paragraph. Most importantly, it shows students in some detail how formal paragraphing works. I don t find enough of that in most writing handbooks.
Otherwise, this edition continues the proud, possibly misguided work that The Humble Essay has been doing in one form or another for