本书内容丰富且融入了诸多教学新成果。作为大学非英语专业高年级学生使用的写作教材，第一章即把普通论文、学术论文以及论文为什么也可采用多种体裁的问题讲透，让学生不为“论文”二字迷惑，摆脱高深感，走向学习的轻松与愉快。着力传递作者对理论和语言现象的“所以然”的认识，比如作者对主题句成熟与不成熟的新提法与分析；论文引出段的倒金字塔结构的提法与讲解；对被国内教材忽略而被英美教材推崇的用好语言的关键理论与技巧的介绍；对标点符号用法倾向来自英美国家的新知等。

书中内容编排独特新颖，充分体现循序渐进的学习规律。总体上改变写作教材大多先讲修辞、后讲文章结构的做法，使结构与让文章进一步完美的修辞(谴词造句)回到它们的自然秩序——有如先建毛坯房，再做装饰。

Part One An Overview of the Essay

I What Is an Essay

1 The Basic Structure of an Essay

2 Essays in Different Types of Writing

 1) Narration and the narrative essay

 2) Description and the descriptive essay

 3) Exposition and the expository essay

 4) Argumentation and the persuasive essay

II What Is a Research Paper

Part Two Writing an Essay

I Planning and Shaping the Essay

1 Choosing and Limiting a Topic

 1) Choosing a topic

 2) Limiting the topic

2 Determining Our Purpose and Audience

 1) Determining our purpose and writing a statement of purpose

 2) Identifying our audience and adjusting our tone

3 Gathering Material

4 Formulating a Thesis Statement

 1) Elements of the thesis statement

 2) Functions of the thesis statement

 3) Advantages of an early thesis statement

 4) Locations of the thesis statement

 5) Some reminders when writing our thesis statement

5 Organizing and Outlining the Essay

 1) Qualities of outline

 2) Types of outline

 3) Rules for writing an outline

Ⅱ Drafting the Essay

 1 Writing the Introductory Paragraph

 2 Writing the Concluding Paragraph

 3 Gaining Unity and Coherence

 4 Developing the Essay by Different Patterns of Organization

1) Developing the essay by process—and—analysis

2) Developing the essay by division-and-classification

3) Developing the essay by cause-and-effect

4) Developing the essay by comparison—and—contrast

5) Developing the essay by exemplification

6) Developing the essay by definition

 5 Essay Checklist

Ⅲ Revising the Essay

 1 Revising the Essay

1) Revising for content and organization

2) Revising for style

 2 Editing the Essay

 3 Dealing with the Final Draft

 4 Proofreading

Part Three Writing a Research Paper

Ⅰ Learning About the Central Information System of

 Modern Academic Library

Ⅱ Doing Prewriting Work

 1 Choosing and Limiting a Topic

 2 Doing Preliminary Reading

 3 Writing a Preliminary Bibliography

 4 Writing a Preliminary Outline and Thesis

 5 Reading and Taking Notes

 6 Revising the Outline and the Thesis

Ⅲ Writing the First Draft

Ⅳ Rewriting the Paper

 1 Revising the Draft

 2 Editing and Documenting the Paper

1) MLA style

2) APA style

3) CMS style

4) CBE style

3 Dealing with the Final Draft

4 Proofreading

Part Four Making Good Use of the Language

Ⅰ Striving for Clarity

Ⅱ Striving for Accuracy

Ⅲ Practicing Economy

1 Dropping Needless Repetition

2 Avoiding Needless Expansion

3 Removing Unnecessary Introducers

4 Cutting Down on Prepositions

5 Eliminating Dead Nouns

6 Omitting the Piling -ion Words

Ⅳ Gaining Appropriateness

1 Attending to Word Formality

2 Avoiding Overwritten Style

3 Avoiding Awkward Clichs

4 Avoiding Abuse of Euphemisms

Part Five Using Punctuation Marks Correctly

Ⅰ End Punctuation Marks

1 Period (.)

2 Question Mark (？)

3 Exclamation Point (!)

Ⅱ Internal Punctuation Marks

1 Comma (,)

2 Semicolon (;)

3 Colon (:)

4 Dash (--)

5 Virgule (/)

Ⅲ Enclosing Marks

1 Quotation Marks (“”) (‘’)

2 Parentheses （()）

3 Brackets ([])

Ⅳ Punctuation of Individual Words and of Terms

1 Apostrophe (')

2 Ellipsis Points (...)

3 Hyphen (-)

Two-Letter Abbreviations for US States

Proofreaders' Marks

Correction Symbols

Bibliography