PDF Along These Lines Writing Sentences and Paragraphs with Writing from Reading Strategies

Along These Lines Writing Sentences and Paragraphs with Writing from Reading Strategies (7th edition)
483 pages

 

I. Sentence-Level Skills: Grammar for Writers (Chapters 1-19)

• The Simple Sentence (Chapter 1): Covers recognizing sentences, verbs (action and being, main and helping), subjects, core subjects, and the role of prepositional phrases and word order.
• Beyond the Simple Sentence: Coordination (Chapter 2): Explains how to combine simple sentences using coordination with a comma and a coordinating conjunction (fanboys) or with a semicolon (alone or with a conjunctive adverb).
• Avoiding Sentence Errors (Chapter 3-6): Provides steps for recognizing and correcting run-on sentences, comma splices, and sentence fragments.
• Sentence Refinement (Chapters 7-9): Focuses on achieving parallelism, correctly using adjectives and adverbs, and correcting problems with misplaced and dangling modifiers.
• Verbs and Agreement (Chapters 10-13): Discusses verb tenses (present, past, progressive, perfect), consistency of verb tense and voice, and rules for subject-verb agreement (including special cases like indefinite pronouns and collective nouns).
• Pronouns (Chapters 14-15): Covers pronoun-antecedent agreement and reference (avoiding ambiguity and gender bias), pronoun consistency (point of view), and pronoun case (subjective, objective, possessive).
• Mechanics (Chapters 16-19): Reviews the correct use of punctuation (period, question mark, semicolon, comma, apostrophe, colon, exclamation mark, dash, parentheses, hyphen, quotation marks, capital letters, numbers, and abbreviations), basic spelling rules, common sound-alike/look-alike words, and correct usage of prepositions and idiomatic expressions.

II. Writing in Stages: The Process Approach (Chapters 20-29)

• The Writing Process (Chapter 20-23): Defines the four major stages of writing—Prewriting, Planning, Drafting and Revising, and Editing and Proofreading—and provides checklists and strategies for each stage.
  • Prewriting (Chapter 20): Generating ideas through freewriting, brainstorming, keeping a journal, narrowing topics, and forming a topic sentence.
  • Planning (Chapter 21): Checking details for sufficiency and relevance, arranging details for coherence (logical order), and developing an outline.
  • Drafting and Revising (Chapter 22): Creating multiple drafts, making structural changes, and using transitions for coherence and flow.
  • Editing and Proofreading (Chapter 23): Making final corrections in grammar, mechanics, word choice, and catching careless errors (typos, misspellings, etc.).
• Paragraph Patterns (Chapters 24-27): Focuses on the structure and development of different types of paragraphs.
  • Narrative (Chapter 24): Telling a story with a point, focusing on time order and vivid details, and incorporating dialogue.
  • Descriptive (Chapter 25): Showing a person, place, or thing using specific and sensory details, organized by space or another logical order.
  • Illustration (Chapter 26): Supporting a general point with specific examples, knowing the difference between specific and general statements, and using effective transitions.
  • Process (Chapter 27): Explaining how to do something (directional) or how something happens (informational), organizing steps in time order, and maintaining consistency of grammatical person.
• Moving to Essays (Chapter 28): Explains how to transition from paragraphs to multi-paragraph essays by developing a clear thesis statement, organizing the body paragraphs with supporting topic sentences, and crafting effective introductions and conclusions.
• Writing from Reading (Chapter 29): Teaches how to actively engage with readings using strategies like prereading, purposeful reading, and annotating. It covers three main types of response writing: summary, reaction, and agree or disagree paragraphs, and includes a section on applying these skills to essay tests.

III. Appendix: Basics of College Research

• Provides guidance on locating materials (online catalog, subscription services, Internet search engines), evaluating sources for validity using the RAVEN strategy, and documenting research (in-text citations and bibliographic information).