"Writing Matters!" offers an introduction to academic writing for students who have relatively limited English skills, as well as those students who are somewhat proficient with spoken English but need to improve their writing. With "Writing Matters!" students learn the basic rules of English sentence structure, grammar points and mechanics, and the basic organizational skills needed to write clear, well-developed paragraphs. Thus, the text is unique - all skills are integrated in one book - the material in each chapter alternates between developing the student's skills of sentence structure and those of paragraphing."Writing Matters!" is a core writing book - teachers and students using this text do not need a grammar book supplement. It is written with a one-semester, 5- to 6-hour-a-week course in mind. The text offers a variety of flexible activities that allow students to work on an individual basis, in pairs and peer groups, or as an entire class. In the Sentence Structure and Grammar chapters, students concentrate on basic sentence skills, accurate verb-tense usage, subject-verb agreement, and the avoidance of run-ons, comma splices, and sentence fragments.
In the Paragraph chapters, students learn to develop the basic three-part English paragraph (Topic sentence, body, conclusion), using these specific steps in the writing process: prewriting for ideas (clustering, listing, note-taking, brainstorming); making an outline to plan a paragraph; writing the first draft; revising and editing; and, writing the final draft.