PART 1: How to Write Paragraphs and Essays
1 Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing: Making Connections
2 Writing Basics: Audience, Purpose, Form, and Process
3 Finding Your Topic and Writing Your Thesis Statement: Making a Point
4 Supporting Your Point: Finding Details, Examples, and Facts
5 Drafting: The Complete Version
*6 Revising: Seeing a Draft with Fresh Eyes

PART 2: Writing Different Kinds of Paragraphs and Essays
7 Narration: Writing That Tells Important Stories
8 Illustration: Writing That Gives Examples
9 Description: Writing That Creates Pictures in Words
10 Process Analysis: Writing That Explains How Things Happen
11 Classification: Writing That Sorts Things into Groups
12 Definition: Writing That Tells What Something Means
13 Comparison and Contrast: Writing That Shows Similarities and Differences
14 Cause and Effect: Writing That Explains Reasons or Results
15 Argument: Writing That Persuades

PART 3: Four Building Blocks of Effective Sentences
16 The Basic Sentence: An Overview
17 Make Sentences Complete: Avoiding Fragments
18 Join Sentences Accurately: Correcting Run-ons
19 Make Subjects and Verbs Match: Solving Agreement Problems
20 Indicate Time Clearly: Addressing Verb Problem
 
PART 4: Editing for Clarity, Cohesion, and Conventions
21 Word Choice: Selecting Accurate and Specific Nouns and Verbs
22 Pronouns: Keeping Reference Clear
23 Description: Modifying Nouns and Verbs
24 Balance and Rhythm: Making Sentences Easy to Read
25 Capitalization, Apostrophes, and Spelling
26 Commas
27 Quotation Marks and Italics
28 Other Punctuation

APPENDIX: Citing Research Sources in MLA Style

* = New to this edition
 

• Achieve with Real Writing  combines a flexible, integrated suite of tools for designing and facilitating writing with carefully curated content on critical thinking and reading, student writing samples and assignments, readings by diverse writers, and grammar instruction—all in one place—so instructors can focus on helping their students become more effective writers.
• Readings that reflect students’ lived experience: The readings in this new edition represent a diverse array of voices and perspectives—including selections by Nneka M. Okona, Eugene Robinson, Steven Thrasher—and address relevant and relatable topics from “ghosting” to the relationship between happiness and success, to the complexities of patriotism for Black Americans. The goal is to make sure students see themselves in the writers and reading selections in the text and help students hone their critical reading and thinking skills while engaging with topics that are relevant and important to them.
• In Achieve, instructors can assign LearningCurve activities on active, critical, and interpretive reading; reasoning and logical fallacies; and the recognizing the key parts of the rhetorical situation (topic, purpose, audience)  to students who need extra practice.
• In Achieve, instructors can also assign prebuilt, autograded multiple-choice quizzes to check reading comprehension and motivate students to complete the assigned reading.
• A more balanced approach to writing and grammar instruction. The Part 1 chapters on the writing process now include a separate chapter on revision that asks students to focus on what is—and what isn’t—working, with special attention to unity, development, and coherence. The grammar coverage retains its friendly, accessible tone and ample opportunity for practice, but has been streamlined to focus on the four building blocks of effective sentences (sentence fragments and run-ons, subject-verb agreement, and other verb problems) and editing for clarity, cohesion, and conventions. Coverage of pronoun reference has also been updated to reflect contemporary usage on questions like using the singular they and making writing inclusive. Together, these revisions demonstrate the text’s balanced approach to writing instruction that puts equal emphasis on developing clear, focused, well-organized paragraphs and essays while also providing ample instruction in writing clear, appropriate, grammatically correct sentences.
• In Achieve, instructors will find tools for students who need extra help with grammar outside the classroom, including four distinct diagnostics followed by personalized study plans that provide instructional resources targeted to each students identified growth areas. Feedback links to the e-book provide students with point-of-need support within the context of their own writing.
• In Achieve, instructors will also find auto-graded quizzes for each chapter in Parts 3 and 4 as well as LearningCurve activities on topics that frequently affect multilingual writers and other developmental writers, such as sentence structure and parts of speech (articles, nouns, prepositions, verbs), give students frequent opportunities for practice.
• Easier-to-follow coverage of the Four Basics for each rhetorical mode: In each of the Part 2 chapters, a new numbering system and boldface words at the beginning of each item highlight the “four basics” of a successful paragraph or essay:
• 1. Main Idea: An effective paragraph or essay makes a point or creates a main impression (thesis or topic sentence).
• 2. Primary Support: It offers strong reasons, key examples, or key characteristics to support the thesis or topic sentence.
• 3. Secondary Support: It provides details and evidence to support each reason, example, or characteristic.
• 4. Organization: It organizes primary and secondary support logically, with transitions that guide readers from point to point.
• The “Fourth Basic” section (on organization) now also includes not only coverage of transitions appropriate to each mode but also a graphic organizer (flowchart) that illustrates for students how a paragraph or essay in each rhetorical mode should be structured. These numbered “four basics” are now carried throughout the chapter, leading to a simplified, easier-to-understand  “Paragraphs versus Essays” graphic that shows students how to recognize and apply the four basics to their own writing.
• Achieve reinforces the Four Basics by providing a rubric and interactive assessment activity using the text’s sample student paragraph, so students can first practice giving feedback based on key criteria for assessment without worrying about hurting the feelings of a classmate. 
• Achieve’s Writing Tools scaffold peer review using the four basics to help students learn how to assess their own writing and that of their classmates, while allowing instructors to monitor and manage every step of the peer review process to ensure that students stay on track.
• New “Reading Strategies in Action” activities: Following the readings in each Part 2 chapter, the Reading Strategies in Action prompts ask students to apply one or more of the reading strategies introduced in Part 1 to the reading they’re doing in the text. By reinforcing good reading habits, Real Writing helps students master the college-level reading skills they’ll need to succeed in college and in the workplace.
• An updated MLA appendix: Writing research papers is an extremely important part of many college courses. With that in mind, we provide updated instructions and model citations for documenting sources in MLA style (MLA Handbook, 9th Edition, April 2021) for students who are completing research assignments.