A Student's Companion to Hacker Handbooks by Bedford/St. Martin's - First Edition, 2019 from Macmillan Student Store

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A Student's Companion to Hacker Handbooks

First  Edition©2019  New Edition Available Bedford/St. Martin's

About

Conquer the comp course.

If you find you’re stuck in an I’m-not-good-at-writing way of thinking, you probably would benefit from more opportunities to practice writing skills and writing habits. That’s the only edge other writers may have over you: They’ve just done it more. A Student’s Companion to Hacker Handbooks helps you make the most of your handbook and the most of your composition course by giving you opportunities to practice writing thesis statements, organizing ideas, summarizing sources, reading actively, editing for clarity, and more in a useful workbook-style format. Sometimes it’s not about perfect. It’s about practice.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Succeeding in college

1. Becoming a college writer 
a. Choose topics you care about
b. Form a community of readers around you
c, Engage with the texts you read
d. Consider counterarguments

2. Time management
a. The case for time management
b. Taking charge of your time
c. Four time-wasting habits to avoid
d. Two tools to keep you on track

3. Ethics and personal responsibility
a. What is cheating?
b. How widespread is cheating?
c. The case for integrity
d. Tools teachers use when they suspect cheating
e. How to be a responsible student: 10 tips
f. How to paraphrase (to avoid plagiarism)

4. College etiquette
a. Four truths
b. Attitude
c. Starting out
d. Classroom rules
e. Collaborating with others: The group project
f. Communicating with your professor

Part 2: Succeeding in your writing course
5. Developing active reading strategies
a. On-ramps for reading assignments
b. Pay attention to titles
c. Read for patterns
d. Understand vocabulary
e. Identify main ideas
f. Outline what you read
g. Converse with a reading

6. Strengthening peer review and collaboration skills
a. What is peer review
b. Tips for offering feedback to a peer
c. Tips for working with feedback from a peer
d. What is collaboration
e. Tips for collaborating effectively

7. Outlining and planning your writing
a. Using an informal outline to plan
b. Using a formal outline to plan
c. Using headings to plan
d. Using a map to plan

8. Writing for an audience
a. The link between purpose and audience
b. Specific, specialized, or target audiences
c. Content, vocabulary, tone, and exigence
d. Questions to help identify audience
e. Comparing sample paragraphs

9. Graphic organizers for common types of writing 
a. A basic essay
b. An analytical essay
c. A compare/contrast essay (Option 1)
d. A compare/contrast essay (Option 2)
e. An argument essay (Option 1)
f. An argument essay (Option 2)
g. An annotated bibliography
h. A proposal

10. Graphic organizers for common types of paragraphs
a. Example
b. Illustration
c. Narration
d. Description
e. Process
f. Compare/contrast
g. Analogy
h. Classification
i. Cause/effect
j. Definition

11. Using sentence guides to develop academic skills
a. Presenting information and others’ views
b. Presenting your own views
c. Putting it all together

12. Integrating sources: Quotation sandwiching (MLA)
a. Integrating a single source
b. Integrating more than one source (synthesizing)

13. Revising paragraphs and essays
a. Tips for revising globally
b. Tips for revising sentences

Part 3: Practicing reading, writing, and research skills
14. Reading exercises
Exercise 14-a Using titles as on-ramps for reading
Exercise 14-b Using patterns of organization as on-ramps for reading
Exercise 14-c Using vocabulary as an on-ramp for reading
Exercise 14-d Examining a writer’s annotations
Exercise 14-e Using on-ramps to annotate and understand a reading
Exercise 14-f Talking back to a reading

15. Thesis statement exercises
Exercise 15-a Choosing effective thesis statements
Exercise 15-b Writing a thesis statement for an argument essay
Exercise 15-c Building strong thesis statements

16. Topic sentence exercises
Exercise 16-a Choosing suitable topic sentences
Exercise 16-b Writing topic sentences
Exercise 16-c Writing unified paragraphs

17. MLA research exercises 
Exercise 17-a Avoiding plagiarism in MLA papers 1
Exercise 17-b Avoiding plagiarism in MLA papers 2
Exercise 17-c Recognizing common knowledge in MLA papers
Exercise 17-d Integrating sources in MLA papers 1
Exercise 17-e Integrating sources in MLA papers 2
Exercise 17-f MLA documentation: In-text citations 1
Exercise 17-g MLA documentation: In-text citation 2
Exercise 17-h MLA documentation
18. Plagiarism exercises
Exercise 18-a Is this plagiarism?
Exercise 18-b Developing responsibility

19. Paraphrase and summary exercises
Exercise 19-a Building understanding (writing a summary)
Exercise 19-b Using your own words and structure (writing a paraphrase)
Exercise 19-c Writing paraphrases and summaries

Part 4: Practicing sentence-level skills
20. Active verbs
Exercise 20-a Active verbs 1
Exercise 20-b Active verbs 2

21. Parallelism
Exercise 21-a Parallelism 1
Exercise 21-b Parallelism 2

22. Misplaced and dangling modifiers
Exercise 22-a Misplaced and dangling modifiers 1
Exercise 22-b Misplaced and dangling modifiers 2

23. Sentence variety
Exercise 23-a Sentence variety 1
Exercise 23-b Sentence variety 2

24. Sentence fragments
Exercise 24-a Sentence fragments 1
Exercise 24-b Sentence fragments 2

25. Run-on sentences
Exercise 25-a Run-on sentences 1
Exercise 25-b Run-on sentences 2

26. Subject-verb agreement
Exercise 26-a Subject-verb agreement 1
Exercise 26-b Subject-verb agreement

27. Pronoun reference
Exercise 27-a Pronoun reference 1
Exercise 27-b Pronoun reference 2

28. Pronoun and noun case
Exercise 28-a Pronoun and noun case 1
Exercise 28-b Pronoun and noun case 2

29. Verbs
Exercise 29-a Verbs 1
Exercise 29-b Verbs 2
Exercise 29-c Verbs 3

30. Articles
Exercise 30-a Articles 1
Exercise 30-b Articles 2

31. Commas and unnecessary commas
Exercise 31-a Commas and unnecessary commas 1
Exercise 31-b Commas and unnecessary commas 2
Exercise 31-c Commas and unnecessary commas 3

32. Apostrophes
Exercise 32-a Apostrophes 1
Exercise 32-b Apostrophes 2

33. Quotation marks
Exercise 33-a Quotation marks 1
Exercise 33-b Quotation marks 2

Answer key

Diana Hacker

Diana Hacker personally class-tested her handbooks with nearly four thousand students over thirty-five years at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland, where she was a member of the English faculty. Hacker handbooks, built on innovation and on a keen understanding of the challenges facing student writers, are the most widely adopted in America. Hacker handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin’s, include A Writer’s Reference, Ninth Edition (2018); A Pocket Style Manual, Eighth Edition (2018); The Bedford Handbook, Tenth Edition (2017); Rules for Writers, Eighth Edition (2016); and Writer’s Help 2.0, Hacker Version.

Nancy Sommers

Nancy Sommers, who has taught composition and directed composition programs for thirty years, now teaches in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. She led Harvard’s Expository Writing Program for twenty years, directing the first-year writing program and establishing Harvard’s WAC program. A two-time Braddock Award winner, Sommers is well known for her research and publications on student writing. Her articles “Revision Strategies of Student and Experienced Writers” and “Responding to Student Writing” are two of the most widely read and anthologized articles in the field of composition. Recently she has been exploring different audiences through blogging and through publishing in popular media. Sommers is the lead author on Hacker handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin’s, and is coauthor of Fields of Reading, Tenth Edition (2013).

Bedford/St.Martin's

Established in 1981, Bedford/St. Martin’s is the largest college publisher of textbooks for English composition courses. They publish best-selling textbooks like A Writer’s Reference, The St. Martin’s Guide to College Writing, and Patterns for College Writing.