Real-World First-Year Composition/Exposition and Argumentation: From Good to Great is designed for students who have largely mastered high-school-level conventions of formal academic writing and are now moving beyond the five-paragraph essay to more advanced engagement with the text. It is well suited to composition courses or first-year seminars and valuable as a supplemental or recommended text in other writing-intensive classes. It provides a friendly, down-to-earth introduction to professors’ goals and expectations, demystifying the norms of the academy and how they shape college writing assignments. Each of the nine chapters can be read separately, and each includes suggested exercises to bring the main messages to life.

Students will find in Real-World First-Year Composition/Exposition and Argumentation: From Good to Great is a warm invitation to join the academic community as novice scholars and to approach writing as a meaningful medium of communication. With concise discussions, clear multidisciplinary examples, and empathy for the challenges of student life, the author conveys a welcoming tone. In addition, the text includes peer-to-peer wisdom from real students about their strategies for and experiences with college writing.

While there are many affordable writing guides available, most focus only on sentence-level issues or, conversely, a broad introduction to making the transition. Real-World First-Year Composition/Exposition and Argumentation: From Good to Great, in contrast, provides both a coherent frame for approaching writing assignments and indispensable advice for effective organization and expression.

About the Author

JL Myers teaches English at the University of Tulsa and Tulsa Community College. He holds a BA in American Studies and an MFA in Creative Writing from Oklahoma State University. He co-wrote and produced Find Me, an award-winning independent feature film. He’s been published by Mongrel Empire Press, Sugar Mule, Ripe Magazine, The Oklahoma Center for Poets & Writers, Twisted South Magazine, and The Yemassee Review, among others. Myers contributed to several chapters in Academic Universe: Reading and Writing at Oklahoma State University. You can check out his most recent fiction and creative nonfiction at The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and he’s got a collection of Okie-centric fiction forthcoming titled Six Beer Honest. When he’s not reading/grading student papers, he’s editing a creative nonfiction collection for another author, doing final edits on his crossroads book Lead Bayou and making notes on his dystopian novel series set in the not-too-distant future.