The Scribner Essentials for Writers offers the most comprehensive coverage of essays and the writing process available in a college handbook.

Offering accurate and comprehensive demonstrations of how writers actually write, this handbook includes a discussion of the kinds of reading and thinking required of college students in conjunction with their writing activities and is based on the authors' premise that these processes are interrelated and support each other. The first part shows key relationships among the processes of writing, reading, and thinking creatively and logically, and provides strategies for developing the ideas that will make a good essay. The coverage of essay writing offers the most detailed and descriptive discussion on writing essays among college handbooks and includes more samples of student writing than any other such text on the market. Separate chapters treat writing exploratory, argumentative, and literary essays and emphasize that good writing is within reach of any student who is attentive throughout the process of writing and revising their work.

This premise is sustained throughout the grammar and research sections of the book as well, where numerous Writing Hints, Usage Notes, and Computer Tips alert students to the best ways of developing a well-constructed, polished essay using today's tools for writing and research.