by George Brosi

Strategies for Successful Writing: A Rhetoric and Reader by James A. Reinking and Andrew W. Hart is an excellent text which has great little chapters on a variety of kinds of essays which make a logical progression to prepare the English 101 student for the rigors of English 102. I believe that the English 102 student can benefit by turning back to Reinking and Hart often in the process of creating the research paper required in 102.

The lessons from the first two kinds of essays covered in Reinking and Hart, "Description" and "Narration," need to be incorporated in all writing, including research papers. The spirit of story-telling and compelling descriptions make the difference between dull prose and effective expression of ideas.

Chapter 6 of Reinking and Hart is "Process Analysis." This

kind of writing is also often essential to a good research paper. Many if not most topics for research papers involve at least one, if not several, processes.

There is a logical progression from "Classification" to "Comparison" to "Cause and Effect." At times it makes sense in a research paper to present a phenomenon by first classifying its parts, then comparing them and then demonstrating the causal relationships involved. At other times only one or two of these efforts may be needed. Nevertheless, these three skills are often called for in research papers.

Chapter 11 of Reinking and Hart, "Definition," is almost always an important part of a research paper. Many, if not most, research papers need to begin with definitions because the way the critical words are defined will determine whether or not the paper's thesis is successfully argued.

It is crucial for English 102 students to realize that university level research papers are necessarily argument papers. Thus Chapter 12 of Reinking and Hart, "Argument," is essential, and can be constructively turned to often during English 102.

Beyond that, it is often helpful for students to realize that one way a research paper can be constructed is by putting together a series of shorter essays, and often it is just the kind of essays covered in this text which make the best components of a research paper. Chapter 13 of Reinking and Hart is on "Mixing the Writing Strategies" and provides some good preliminary thinking about combining the skills involved.

Chapter 19 is all about "The Library Research Paper."