Cover: The Bedford Book of Genres, 4th Edition by Amy Braziller; Elizabeth Kleinfeld

The Bedford Book of Genres

Fourth  Edition©2025  Amy Braziller; Elizabeth Kleinfeld

About

A guide for every genre - and every student
From memes to podcasts and rhetorical analyses to researched arguments, The Bedford Book of Genres invites you to unpack how genres work in order to experiment with your own writing. The new edition guides you in using AI tools responsibly in your composing processes, with examples.

Table of Contents

Preface for Instructors

PART 1 RHETORIC + READING

1 Rhetorical Situations + Choices

  • Understanding Rhetorical Situations + Choices
  • Identifying Rhetorical Situations
  • Reading Academic Texts
  • PRACTICE: Reading Any Text Rhetorically

2 Genres

  • Understanding Genres
  • Some Genre Conventions
  • PRACTICE: Choosing a Social Response

3 Rhetorical Situations + Genres Together: Reading as a Writer

  • What Do Rhetorical Situations Have to Do with Genres?
  • ANNOTATED READINGS: Visualizing Rhetorical Situations + Genres
  • Using Genres to Inform, Narrate, or Persuade
  • A CASE STUDY: Responding to One Event: Two Rhetorical Situations, Two Genres

PART 2 THE WRITING PROCESS

4 Composing: Drawing on Experience + Evidence

  • Responding to an Assignment
  • Freewriting
  • Choosing a Genre to Compose In
  • Composing Your Genre Piece

5 Revising + Remixing

  • Revising Your Work
  • Remixing Your Work into Different Genres

6 Reflection: The Composer’s Statement

  • Genres for Reflection
  • Analyzing Composers’ Statements

PART 3 GENRES

7 Academic Genres

  • Academic Genres & Assignments
  • Researched Arguments
  • Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
  • Researched Poster Presentations
  • Presentations
  • Rhetorical Analyses
  • Literacy Narratives
  • Digital Stories
  • Photo Essays
  • Academic Writing Projects

8 Workplace Genres

  • Workplace Genres + Projects
  • Cover Letters + Résumés
  • Business Memos
  • Infographics: Visual Instructions
  • Proposals
  • Workplace Writing Projects

9 Public Genres

  • Public Genres & Projects
  • News Articles
  • Editorials & Opinion Pieces
  • Advertisements
  • Wikipedia Entries
  • Graphic Memoirs
  • Podcasts
  • Fairy Tales
  • Comics
  • Congressional Testimony
  • Lists
  • Public Writing Projects

10 Assembling a Multimodal Project

  • The Possibilities of the Multimodal Project
  • The Steps to Assembling a Multimodal Project
  • Examples of Multimodal Projects
  • Multimodal Project Suggestions

PART 4 COMPOSING WITH SOURCES

11 Exploring Topics + Creating a Research Proposal

  • Considering Your Rhetorical Situation
  • Choosing a Topic Through Basic Research
  • Moving from a Research Question to a Proposal
  • Organizing Your Sources

12 Evaluating & Choosing Sources

  • Getting Started with Sources
  • Previewing a Source
  • Evaluating a Source

13 Integrating & Documenting Sources

  • Integrating Sources into Your Writing
  • Quoting
  • Paraphrasing
  • Summarizing
  • DOCUMENTING SOURCES: A Guide to MLA & APA Styles
  • MLA Style
  • MLA Models
  • APA Style
  • APA Models

14 Composing: Drawing on In-Depth Research: A Student Case Study

  • Project Overview
  • Potential Sources
  • Evaluating, Annotating, & Choosing Sources
  • Composing & Integrating Sources
  • Documenting Sources in MLA Style

Index

  • Index of Genres
  • Index of Themes
  • Index

Amy Braziller

Amy Braziller is Professor Emeritus at Red Rocks Community College. She received her BA from Empire State College and her MA in Literature from New York University. She has presented on teaching writing and new media at numerous national and regional conferences. Her research focuses on the intersections between classroom and personal writing. Amy, who is at work on a series of personal essays related to her punk rock days in New York City, blogs about food, film, music, LGBTQ issues, and social media distractions at amybraziller.com.

Elizabeth Kleinfeld

Elizabeth Kleinfeld is the Writing Center Director and Professor of English at Metropolitan State College of Denver. She received her BS from Bradley University and her MS in English and PhD in Composition and Rhetoric from Illinois State University. She has published on disability, writing centers, and student source use in various journals and collections, including Computers & Composition Online and Praxis. Her research interests include disability studies, feminist pedagogies, and teaching for social justice. She blogs about grief and disability at elizabethkleinfeld.com.