About This Book

Welcome to the exciting new edition of A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in First-Year Writing! This edition includes dozens of interactive activities throughout the chapters, made possible by a Teaching Enhancement Award from the Center for Faculty Excellence at Cleveland State University, granted to Melanie Gagich and Emilie Zickel.

These interactive activities were created by the authors or adapted from existing openly licensed H5P activities. This edition will replace the first and will be maintained and updated annually

Prior Introduction to the Book 

This book still combines the Introduction to Writing in College by Melanie Gagich and ENG 102: Reading, Writing and Research by Emilie Zickel, which were both supported by Cleveland State University’s 2017 Textbook Affordability Small Grant. The book was then revised, edited, and formatted by Melanie Gagich, Emilie Zickel, Yvonne Bruce, Sarah Lacy, John Lanning, Amanda Lloyd, Charlotte Morgan, and Rashida Mustafa. This work was made possible through the generous support of the Cleveland State University Office of the Provost.

Within each chapter there are sections written by Melanie Gagich, Emilie Zickel, or other members of the textbook team (see above) and authorial attributions are given. This book also contains other resources integrated under Creative Commons licenses. These open access resources include complete and also remixed chapters from Monique Babin, Carol Burnell, Susan Pesznecker, Nichole Rosevear, and Jamie Wood’s The Word on College Reading and Writing, links to several essays from the open source textbook series Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, and several links to articles from the open source website Writing Commons. Additionally, parts of this book also come out of a remixed version of Robin Jeffrey’s, About Writing, which have been rearranged, amended, edited, and enhanced with digital reading experience by including videos and visual reading features. Shared and remixed materials will be denoted with attribution information when necessary.

Our Philosophy

When Melanie and Emilie decided to combine our individual textbooks, we decided that we wanted the new text to function more like a manual or guide to rhetorical concepts and writing genres, to composing in a college setting, and to helping students succeed in FYW at Cleveland State rather than a formal textbook. Together we conceptualized a text that does not necessarily answer all student questions or cover all material taught by FYW instructors at CSU or at other institutions. Instead, we wanted to create a text that is less prescriptive than a traditional textbook  and allows for the picking and choosing of content by instructors and by students. We believe this type of text fosters student-centered pedagogies because it is a tool for students that supports them during many different writing moments such as when the instructor isn’t there to reinforce concepts that have been discussed already in class.

Further, the text lacks a unifying tone because we feel that one of the central philosophies behind Open Access Educational Resources is the need for and importance of collaboration and the sharing and “remixing” of others’ content. Our text was not written by one or even two authors, rather it is a collection of a diverse array of viewpoints and writing styles, which, to us, exemplifies one of the many ways that our book is different from a traditional, printed, and academic textbook. We feel that the inclusion of work by multiple authors can also provide a starting point for conversations in writing class about how writing “actually works in the real world” (Wardle and Downs).

In sum, the book cannot and should not replace the voice of the instructor. We envision it as a manual or guide also because we want all instructors to be able to use it how they see fit. We hope that this text will reflect not only our voices and the voices of our team of part-time instructors but also offer students resources for navigating and succeeding in college and support for working on writing assignments.

A Note About Citations

This text was written in and chapters have been edited to reflect the 8th edition of MLA.

A Note About the Use of Color

Within this text you will find links to works within the book and to outside works. These links will be indicated by the use of the color green. 

Also within this text you will find a series of defined words. These words will be indicated by the use of the color blue and you can hover over them or click on them to see each definition.

About the Authors

Melanie Gagich is a Senior College Lecturer in the First-Year Writing Program at Cleveland State University. If you would like to contact her, she can be reached at m.gagich@csuohio.edu or mgagich@gmail.com.

Emilie Zickel is an Associate Lecturer in First-Year Writing at Cleveland State University. If you would like to contact her, she can be reached at e.zickel@csuohio.edu or at ezickel@gmail.com

Cover Image

The cover image was created by Chad Q. Berry and is licensed under a Creative Commons license as CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Creative Commons Licensing

This book is licensed under a Creative Commons as CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0.

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