This lively collection of fifty-eight short, readable essays provides useful models of the rhetorical modes. Authored by both student and professional writers, the readings are all brief but complete essays.

Along with familiar names like Maya Angelou and Russell Baker, the text features many new voices such as Bharati Mukherjee, Humberto Fontova, and Bjorn Skogquist. Detailed chapter openers discuss the writing process and introduce each rhetorical mode; headnotes for each essay give a brief biography of its author and explains its context. The introductory section “Freeze Frame” establishes the reading and writing connection, a concept reinforced throughout the text. Nearly half the essays are new to this edition including several new longer, more challenging essays which allow professors to introduce more complex writing assignments.