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8 % Part III: Genres of Writing [ 125 ]

learn to look closely and critically at something (the rhe toric of verbal or visual

text, a data set, a pro cess, etc.) to identify its component parts and determine how

they relate to one another and what can be learned about the subject through

Introducing the genre. As we note in the chapter, analy sis is a practical skill used

in everyday life as well as in the classroom, so you might begin by asking students

to talk about decisions they’ve made that depended upon some type of analy sis

Using the exercises. Throughout the chapter, you’ll ﬁ nd brief exercises that give

students an opportunity to stop and think about key concepts. These exercises are

italicized and are marked by a red ﬂ ourish and call on students to Reﬂ ect on what

they’ve learned. You might use them as brief classroom exercises or assign them as

Introducing the genre features. The characteristic features of the genre are given

in a bulleted list on p. 206, and each is explained and illustrated in the following

pages. Introducing the features in class, by discussing the examples under each,

works well especially if you then follow up with a discussion of the annotated

essay (beginning on p. 221) to point out how each feature is used in a single text.

Analy sis is a complex pro cess, so students may need help in ﬁ guring out

exactly what to focus on, how much description to provide, and what we mean by

A question that prompts you to take a closer look. Student writers, like any writers,

work best when they are engaged by their topic, working on something that piques

their interest and about which they want to learn more. That’s especially true for

analytical writing. To get them started, you might use the Reﬂ ection exercise on

p. 206, prompting them to “look for analy sis in everyday use” as a platform to

[ 126 ]

restaurant” in her city to a group of students visiting from New Zealand. She did a

quick search of half a dozen popu lar restaurants, analyzing the range of prices in

Encourage students to attempt a couple of topics and then run them by their peers

( we’ve had success having students work in groups at this point). Once they’ve

narrowed their pos si ble topics to one or two viable ones, you’ll want to help them

clearly articulate a question that needs to be answered. The questions should have

no single factual or “correct” answers, and they should be open- ended ones that

require students to gather information: Which car should I buy and why? How do

Some description of the subject you are analyzing. While students may assume

they know what’s involved in describing their subject, you’ll want to emphasize

the importance of ﬁ rst identifying their intended audience and thinking hard

about what kind of description that audience will need.

It might help to look at the example on p. 208 and discuss what kind of detail

of the circumstances that led to the law (or the effects it could have), a pro cess

analy sis might call for description of how the law came to be or how it will work,

and data analy sis could call for a description of who is likely to be affected or the

costs of implementation. You might choose one topic students are considering as

an example and have students discuss as a class how they would describe that

topic for vari ous kinds of analy sis.

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8 % Part III: Genres of Writing [ 127 ]

a student wants to analyze and then work together to look closely at how each

word functions, how rhyme and repetition and rhythm illuminate the passage.

Then ask if these discoveries suggest any insight about the lyr ics. It might also be

analy sis (pp. 213–15), causal analy sis (pp. 215–16), and data analy sis (pp. 216–18).

You might consider assigning a general topic and allowing students to respond to

it using dif fer ent analytical approaches. For example, after two presidential

debates were held at Hofstra University, some students were interested in discov–

ering more about the pro cess of selecting the site for those debates, some wanted

to look closely at the language and visuals used in the promotional materials,

and some wanted to understand the effects the debates had on the election.

Every campus has its own local issues that can be approached from a variety

of perspectives and analyzed using multiple approaches. The impor tant thing is to

help students focus on what they’re interested in and understand how to show

appropriate evidence for what ever topic and kind of analy sis they choose.

Clear, precise language. All writing should be clear, but because analy sis is so

often a vehicle for helping others understand something, you’ll want to reinforce

the need for clarity and precision in this kind of writing. Here again is reason to

discuss audience—to make sure students are aware that what’s clear to some read–

ers may not be at all clear to others. This might be a place to discuss some of the

examples in the chapter. The speed- skating pro cess analy sis on pp. 214–15 was

written for an audience of students and their parents; how would its language

have been dif fer ent if it were written for undergraduate physics majors? The base-

[ 128 ]

Teaching visual analy sis. Reading visuals may seem difﬁ cult to some students;

they are so immersed in the visual but may not have experience formally analyz-

ing images. Showing them what an analy sis of a visual consists of can be an

Describing the visual. Visual analy sis begins with looking closely at the visual and

observations of the overall scene, ﬁ gures, action, background, use of light and

shadow, space. Some questions you can use to guide students include:

• What’s the subject of the visual? What is the focal point? (What drew your

eyes ﬁ rst?)

• Describe the scene.

• What objects do you notice in the scene? What does their presence tell

you?

• What is the action (what’s going on) in the visual?

• What about the use of light, shadow, and color?

Discovering and using contextual information. Information about when and

where the visual was ﬁ rst published will help students ﬁ gure out what historical,

po liti cal, or cultural implications the piece might have. A Google search will often

bring up the date and place of an image’s publication, but some images might call

for additional research into the history, politics, or any controversies surrounding

Paying attention to any words used. The Luckovich example is a great starting

point because he has matched visual humor with the appropriate verbal. Students

might consider what difference would be made by the text ing driver’s and Death’s

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8 % Part III: Genres of Writing [ 129 ]

Closely analyzing the message. Most students will be fully aware that in a visual

the “message” is conveyed by the multiple ele ments explored in describing the

visual: subject, focal point, foreground/background, ﬁ gures, physical details,

Developing insight into what the visual “says.” Because visual analy sis is a form of

rhetorical analy sis, having students ask the same types of questions about the

photo graph, cartoon, ad, or video that they use to analyze any other text will

• Who is the intended audience?

• How does the author, photographer, cinematographer, designer, or artist con-

nect with that audience?

After objectively cata loguing the ele ments within the visual, students will need

to think about them and what they express. Prompt students at this point to reﬂ ect

ble and that their goal here is to be able to support any claims they make with evi–

dence drawn from the visual itself.

Using precise language. We’ve seen that students can experience difﬁ culty in ﬁ nding

the most precise words to describe a visual. Work with them on moving from an

initial basic observation to more evocative speciﬁ cs.

students can use in analyzing other essays (and then in conducting their own

analy sis). You might then assign the exercise on p. 224 and have students ﬁ nd an

[ 130 ]

analytical article and annotate it as we’ve done with Forde’s. Should they ﬁ nd arti-

cles that do not include all the genre features we list in our chapter, ask them if

doing so would make it a stronger piece. You might ask them how they would revise

it, where they’d add in any missing features, and how the analy sis beneﬁ ts from

the additions.

“Why Is Every one So Focused on Zuckerberg’s Hoodie?” by Somini Sengupta

(pp. 228–30). Sengupta’s essay provides an example of visual analy sis and is anno-

tated to show the features students should attend to as they compose their own.

Her analy sis is a bit dif fer ent from the analy sis of the cartoon on pp. 225–27 in

that the visual in question is an object out in the world— a hoodie— whose “mes–

“Calvin and Hobbes: The Voice of the Lonely Child,” by Libby Hill (pp. 240–45). Ask

students to carefully read this analy sis of the cartoon Calvin and Hobbes and anno-

tate. This will lead them to pay attention to how Hill uses the genre features, and

also to how she appeals to two kinds of readers: those who are familiar with the

comic strip and those who are not. Here are suggested answers to the study ques-

tions that follow the text:

1. Hill’s main insight is that Calvin and Hobbes represents something

beyond the usual interpretation of the strip as clever, engaging, well-

drawn, fun, and lightly philosophical. In ¶2, after she skewers the “repur–

posed strip with a preachy message” as violating the “inherent spirit” of

2. Answers will vary according to which strip is selected.

3. Hill establishes her authority by expressing her obvious ﬂ uency on the sub-

ject of Calvin and Hobbes, her knowledge of its history (and that of the faux

strip). After establishing her authority and making her claim that Hobbes

is “a manifestation of pure loneliness” (¶2), Hill appeals to her audience’s

emotions to make them feel the importance of this topic and analy sis. She

includes them in the experience of “being isolated from your peers” (¶3),

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8 % Part III: Genres of Writing [ 131 ]

4. Answers will vary.

5. Answers will vary.

“Advertisements R Us,” by Melissa Rubin (pp. 246–51). This is an example of a

source– based academic essay, and one that we think serves as a good model of a kind

of visual analy sis students are interested in doing. Here are suggested answers to

the study questions:

1. Answers will vary, but the general nature of Rubin’s insights about the ad

has to do with the ways that its imagery and text reﬂ ect the values of the

United States of 1950 in such areas as racial and gender roles, the prestige of

2. The whole essay is deeply informed by the historical context in which the ad

appeared, which is the main focus of Rubin’s analy sis. For example, she dis-

cusses the effects of World War II on society and industry in ¶4–6, the por–

4. Details that Rubin notes about the ﬁ gures in this ad include their clothing,

gender, ethnicity, likely occupations, how and where they are standing, and

their happy expressions. She also notes the overall composition of the crowd,

including the diversity (and lack thereof). Most students will likely agree

that she has represented the ﬁ gures accurately, but answers may vary.

5. Answers will vary.

Additional readings. If you’re teaching with Every one’s an Author with Readings,

the following selections at the back of the book also demonstrate analytical writing:

Dennis Baron, “Should Every body Write?”

David Crystal, “2b or Not 2b?”

Andy Hinds, “I’m Considering Becoming a Sports Fan— How Do I Pick a

Team?”

[ 132 ]

You and your students can also ﬁ nd some examples of visual analy sis in the

readings:

Tressie McMillan Cottom, “The Logic of Stupid Poor People”

Suggested assignments and evaluation criteria. You’ll ﬁ nd sample assignments

for an analy sis in the “Sample Writing Assignments” section of this Guide that can

Chapter 14: Reporting Information / “Just the Facts, Ma’am”

Although students may have had a lot of experience reading websites, magazines,

newspapers, and other texts that report information, their experience writing

reports may be limited to high school research papers and lab write- ups. In college,

they will likely be asked to write reports in a variety of disciplines; equally and

perhaps more impor tant, they will need to be able to report information from

dents are freshmen or doctoral students, is helping authors maintain a stance of

objectivity rather than subtly or overtly taking a stance in situations where that is

not what is called for. We ﬁ nd that one key issue is word choice.

Separating fact from opinion is frequently a challenge, especially when the

subject involves humans or the interpretation of data, a point we frequently

return to in class. For many reasons, students are quick to want to write about how

they feel about a topic or information they have gathered, rather than reporting

the information in cases where reports are what is called for. You might ﬁ nd it

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8 % Part III: Genres of Writing [ 133 ]

This chapter introduces the genre, provides some information about using

the exercises, discusses the key genre features in some detail, offers suggestions

about teaching the readings and helping students use the Roadmap, and models a

pos si ble writing assignment on reporting information. It also provides some advice

on teaching proﬁ les.

Introducing the genre. Ask students to brainstorm about reports they have writ–

ten or read— book reports in elementary school, lab reports in high school science

classes, and so on. Students who are taking courses in the natu ral, social, or applied

sciences may already have experience reading reports such as those produced by

Using the exercises. You’ll ﬁ nd several brief exercises labeled Reﬂ ect throughout

the chapter that give students an opportunity to stop and think about key concepts.

Exercises are italicized and are marked by a red ﬂ ourish. They can be used as brief

should give students both a good idea of what reports look like and concrete strate–

gies for effectively composing them.

A topic carefully focused for a speciﬁ c audience. Key here is the notion of audi–

ence. Effective reports are always tailored for a speciﬁ c audience, and, as noted in

the book, often a diverse one. This fact has great consequences for the se lection,

organ ization, and pre sen ta tion of the information included. You might ask students

to go to the Proud Ground website (www . proudground . org / about / publications / )

and download the current annual report or the one referenced in the text (2012)

[ 134 ]

page from the report that includes photo graphs provides an excellent example of

the use of images and text to offer readers information while supporting an

implicit appeal to readers’ emotions: give to this great cause if you don’t already;

continue giving if you do give; or, better yet, give more. You might ask students to

speculate on how the parts of the annual report (for example, the charts on p. 265)

differ from the reports Proud Ground must generate for government agencies that

Deﬁ nitions of key terms. It’s especially impor tant to help student authors appreci-

ate the need to clearly deﬁ ne terms and to be sure that any claims make sense in

light of the deﬁ nitions given. The examples in this section show two authors,

Michael Oden and Henry Fountain, using a range of textual techniques to provide

It’s worth pointing out that rarely will expert report writers cite a dictionary

deﬁ nition or use the formula “The deﬁ nition of X is Y.” Instead, they employ a

range of other strategies for letting readers know the deﬁ nitions of key terms, a

number of which are mentioned in this section. A useful activity might be to ask

students to collect examples of the many ways authors of reports provide deﬁ ni–

tions. It can also help to remind students that one can deﬁ ne by giving examples (as

Trustworthy information. Providing trustworthy information is all about ethos—

speciﬁ cally, creating and maintaining an ethos that persuades readers that the

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8 % Part III: Genres of Writing [ 135 ]

A big challenge for student authors, especially when investigating a topic

they have limited knowledge of— and this would include cases where they might

think they are experts when, in fact, they are not—is ﬁ guring out which sources to

trust. It might be useful to engage students in a discussion of how they determine

(PTSD) among veterans of the recent wars in the Middle East. Rather than relying

on a deﬁ nition from, say, Webster’s, the author would be much better served using

the deﬁ nition given in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Man-

ual of Mental Disorders (DSM). What ever Webster’s has to say would be far too gen-

eral for a paper on PTSD for a psy chol ogy course— even an undergraduate one. You

might ask students to consider this example: you could pres ent it to them as a case

of which source would be the better one and, further, ask why using the fourth

edition of the DSM would be a less effective choice than using the ﬁ fth edition in

terms of presenting trustworthy information. Such a discussion will help students

to realize the need to match the sources they use— even for things like deﬁ nitions—

with the audience(s) they’re writing for in terms of creating an ethos of trustworthi-

ness. Doing so will involve choosing the most relevant and up- to- date information

pres ent (often projecting into the future), and then ending up in the pres ent

moment again. Annual reports and policy documents like the Livable City report

that look toward the future modify this strategy in vari ous ways.

Other strategies include deﬁ ning, describing (generally in rich detail, as in

the excerpts from Gourevitch’s “Mr. Brown” on pp. 270–72), providing concrete

examples, comparing or contrasting speciﬁ c examples cited, and analyzing causes

and effects— basically, any technique that can be used in developing a text. And

as discussed on p. 254, an orga nizational strategy in many of the social and physi–

cal sciences is the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) format.

Katryn Sheppard’s full essay in Ch. 28 (pp. 620–35) uses the IMRAD format.

[ 136 ]

use of headings, the style of references, and so on— and that they should expect to

have to familiarize themselves with several such systems. These might include the

system of the Modern Language Association (MLA) for writing in most En glish

and lit er a ture classes, including lit er a ture in languages other than En glish; that of

the American Psychological Association (APA) for psy chol ogy and many journals in

education or related ﬁ elds; that of the Council of Biology Editors for writing in the

life sciences; that of the Chicago Manual of Style for writing in history; and so on.

A related issue regarding the formatting and pre sen ta tion of information is

the use of visuals, whether charts such as the ones from the Proud Ground report

reproduced on p. 265, or the especially effective visuals in the Fountain video of the

double- full- full- full. Here, as elsewhere during the course, it is worthwhile to spend

A conﬁ dent, informative tone. If readers are going to trust an author’s report, they’re

going to have to believe the author is, at some level, an authority— again, a ques-

tion of ethos. Creating such an ethos requires a conﬁ dent, informative tone. The

overwhelming challenge we ﬁ nd in teaching report writing, as we have noted, is

helping students steer clear of reporting information in ways that are overly posi-

tioned (generally without acknowledging such positioning and often without

An example all students can understand will help explain this concept and

what it means to them as authors. We would not expect someone who supports a

woman’s right to determine the outcome of a pregnancy— that is, whether to abort

the fetus or carry it to term—to use an expression like unborn child to refer to the

fetus, for if a fetus is an unborn child, then abortion must be murder because it

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8 % Part III: Genres of Writing [ 137 ]

author’s stance. This is the challenge those writing reports face: writing in such a

way as to hold off on letting readers know exactly what they might think. Port–

Teaching proﬁ les. As noted, we have included the commonly assigned genre of

proﬁ les in this chapter. The example, “Heart and Sole: Detroiter Walks 21 Miles in

Work Commute” by journalist Bill Laitner, is a proﬁ le of a Detroit factory worker

who spent ten years walking twenty- one miles a day, ﬁ ve days per week (on top

of a daily bus ride) to get to work because he did not make enough money to pur–

chase and insure a car. Laitner’s proﬁ le of James Robertson attracted so much atten–

tion that people all over the country contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars

to a fund set up by a college student who read about Mr. Robertson. (As a result,

Mr. Robertson now has a car and an apartment.) Laitner’s article represents a com–

mon kind of proﬁ le— one focusing on an individual who is noteworthy in some

way. Proﬁ les ( whether or not so named) are a common genre in many disciplines.

As noted in the discussion on p. 270, proﬁ les are ﬁ rst– hand accounts. The

author has to have direct experience of some sort with the speciﬁ c person, place,

event, or institution being proﬁ led. For a business student reporting on the likely

investment value of a par tic u lar start-up com pany, this experience could include

a great deal of background reading, interviewing some members of the com pany,

and perhaps even visiting their ofﬁ ces. For a student in a course on bilingualism

writing about the linguistic and cultural challenges faced by Somali women

who are refugees in the local community, it might involve interviewing some of

these women as well as interviewing social workers who seek to assist the women

and reading what ever is available about Somali women elsewhere in the United

[ 138 ]

Such interviews, combined with more traditional research methods, should

provide detailed information about the subject. Barry Estabrook’s “Selling the Farm”

and Bill Laitner’s “Heart and Sole” provide great examples of proﬁ les that incorpo-

rate details gathered from interviews, observations, and public documents (e.g., bus

schedules). In our experience, one challenge will be helping student authors choose

mation was collected— would be a simple and effective way for them and for you

to track pro gress.) This exercise would likewise be useful in helping model the

research pro cess as a whole, helping them see how each step of the research pro–

cess generates new questions.

A key concern for a proﬁ le is ﬁ nding an in ter est ing angle. One of the in ter est–

ing angles that Laitner identiﬁ es is how Robertson maintained an extraordinary

Teaching the essays. Looking closely at the example essays can help students see

the Characteristic Features in action, understand how the features function in

reports, and think about how they could use them in their own writing.

“Same- sex Marriage,” Wikipedia (pp. 267–69). This piece is annotated to show the

Characteristic Features of the genre. Why Wikipedia? First, Wikipedia is an exam–

ple of an encyclopedia, and readers expect encyclopedias to be sources of infor–

mation; that is, reports about what is known about a topic, including where the

controversies are to be found. Second, in addition to being the online starting

point for most student research (and, truth be told, for most academics when we

goal. You can use this warning as a discussion starter on the role of Wikipedia in

academic research as well as the importance of conveying trustworthy, factual

evidence in an objective manner. You could likewise ask students to seek out

Wikipedia entries that are labeled as problematic and then in pairs discuss the

sources of the prob lems.

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8 % Part III: Genres of Writing [ 139 ]

“Heart and Sole: Detroiter Walks 21 Miles in Work Commute,” by Bill Laitner (pp. 273–

79). This essay, a proﬁ le, is annotated to show the characteristic features of that

genre. You might ask students to compare and contrast Laitner’s proﬁ le, written for

“Selling the Farm,” by Barry Estabrook (pp. 287–92). You might use this essay to

discuss both the importance of facts presented in a neutral way and the connec-

tion between that pre sen ta tion and the audience. Estabrook wrote this proﬁ le for

Gourmet magazine, but it’s fairly easy to identify ways it could be tweaked as a

factual report for a dif fer ent audience and type of publication. Here are suggested

answers to the study questions:

1. Answers will vary. Details likely to be mentioned include the opening

sentence, noting that for the ﬁ rst time in 144 years no one at the farm got

up before dawn to milk the cows; the description of the setting and ambi-

2. Details that might especially appeal to Gourmet readers include Carol

Borland’s statement “You will be witnessing what is going to be the fate of

all heritage farms” in ¶5; the information about the quality awards and

free- range pasturing of the Borlands’ cows in ¶6; and the information about

maple sugaring in the ancestral nineteenth- century sugar house in ¶14.

3. In ¶3, Estabrook states, “For several months I’d been reading headlines and

following the statistics behind the current nationwide dairy crisis,” and he

then provides a number of these statistics. In the account of the auction

itself, he provides numerous descriptive details and quotations to convince

4. For an objective report for a newspaper, Estabrook prob ably would have

begun by simply stating that the auction took place and what the overall

results were, then given details about what vari ous items sold for and per–

[ 140 ]

dairy farmers getting out of the business, but he wouldn’t have included

as much descriptive detail about the event, the farm, and the Borlands or

“The Right to Preach on a College Campus,” by Ryan Joy (pp. 293–96). This report

was written for the Portland Spectrum, a student publication at Portland State

University. In it, Joy explores whether a “street preacher” who chooses the Portland

State campus and its students, especially women students, as the target of incen-

diary and harassing language is covered by free speech rights. Joy’s essay is a good

example of a report that explores both sides of an issue while maintaining an

1. Joy situates the rights of the campus street preacher within a debate about

the preacher’s First Amendment constitutional rights to free speech, on

the one hand, and students’ rights to a safe and hostility- free environ-

ment on the other hand. He identiﬁ es the sides of this controversy in ¶1–3,

where he introduces the stakeholders— university administrators, stu-

2. In ¶1, Joy introduces the broad topic of free speech as a controversial issue

on university campuses that is of concern to students and administrators.

In ¶2–3, he introduces readers to the speciﬁ c case of an “itinerant street

preacher” on Portland State University’s campus who, though not afﬁ liated

with the university, regularly preaches on the campus in such a manner as to

3. By including legal cases about this same issue at the University of Tennes-

see (McGlone v. University of Tennessee) and the 1942 Supreme Court case

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8 % Part III: Genres of Writing [ 141 ]

4. Joy cites case law and quotes a po liti cal science professor who is presum-

ably an expert on First Amendment scholarship as well as the Chief of

Additional readings. If you’re teaching with Every one’s an Author with Readings,

the following selections at the back of the book also demonstrate the report genre:

Donald Barlett and James Steele, “Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear”

Nicholas Carr, “World and Screen”

You and your students can also ﬁ nd some examples of proﬁ les in the readings:

Ryan Kohls, “Clean Sweep”

Fi nally, you can ﬁ nd fresh readings that report information— and that do so in a

variety of media—by visiting everyonesanauthor . tumblr . com and ﬁ ltering posts

by genre.

Suggested assignments and evaluation criteria. You’ll ﬁ nd sample assignments

Chapter 15: Writing a Review / “Two Thumbs Up!”

At its simplest, a review contains two parts: an evaluation or judgment of some

kind and the criteria on which the evaluation is based. Students know this genre

well in its more common manifestations— they read and write reviews on social

[ 142 ]

This chapter describes the features readers expect in evaluative writing, offers

four example reviews, and provides a Roadmap that will lead students through

the pro cess of writing a review.

Introducing the genre. Students are experts at determining their own views on a

product— whether that product is a movie, video game, pizza joint, or sports team.

Students sometimes have difﬁ culty, however, transitioning from the informal

judgments they make in their daily lives to the kinds of reviews that they are

likely to be asked to write as students. You can help them make this transition by

showing them that even in the simplest and most opinionated of judgments, there

Using the exercises. You’ll ﬁ nd several brief exercises throughout the chapter that

give students an opportunity to stop and think about key concepts, to Reﬂ ect on

what they’re learning as they read. Exercises are italicized and are marked by a

red ﬂ ourish. They can be used as brief classroom exercises or assigned for journal

Introducing the genre features. Each of the characteristic features is explained in

the book, starting with a bulleted list of all of them on p. 302. In discussing these

features, you may ﬁ nd it useful to refer to the readings, especially the one on

the readers of the student newspaper. Once the source and rhetorical situation

have been identiﬁ ed and analyzed, you can then lead a discussion of each of the

characteristic features of a review in the context of this par tic u lar subject and

situation.

Relevant information about the subject. In determining what constitutes relevant

information about the subject being reviewed, keep your students’ focus on the

speciﬁ cs of their hy po thet i cal rhetorical situation. You might take one potential

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8 % Part III: Genres of Writing [ 143 ]

such as the New Yorker— privilege lengthy analy sis and critique. It can be helpful

to remind students that reviews can serve multiple functions for dif fer ent readers.

Imagine two readers reading reviews of a well– known politician’s recent memoir.

One reader might read the review in order to decide whether to purchase and read

this memoir. Another might read the review to gain a general knowledge of the

content so that he or she could participate in a discussion of the book at a meeting

of a book group.

Criteria for the evaluation. Students easily understand the need for explicit and

fair criteria for evaluation when they are reviewing popu lar subjects in popu lar

contexts. But what is clear in reviewing a movie (where obvious criteria would

include strength of plot, quality of acting, music, cinematography, and special

effects, for example) is not so obvious when reviewing a book for an ethnic studies

or po liti cal science class. The sample student review, Anya Schultz’s “Serial: A Cap-

tivating New Podcast” (pp. 336–39), can be especially helpful in this regard. You

To give students a sense of what constitutes a strong review in other disciplines,

you might ask your colleagues in other departments for examples of successful

student reviews written for their classes or for book review assignments that they

have given. A review from a philosophy class, for example, would likely highlight

A well- supported evaluation. The question of what constitutes a well- supported

evaluation is rhetorically situated. Think about how differently Consumer Reports

and an environmentally oriented magazine might evaluate a new entry into the

[ 144 ]

Attention to the audience’s needs and expectations. Both Ch. 15 in Every one’s an

Author and this chapter in the Guide have emphasized the rhetorical situatedness

of all reviews, including academic reviews of all sorts. To help make this situated-

ness clear to students, you might bring in two scholarly journals from the same or

Or you might bring in a journal like College En glish and ask students to read

the editorial policy printed on the page before the table of contents. You’ll see that

this journal addresses most directly the College Section of the National Council

of Teachers of En glish, so this is the primary audience for the journal. You can ask

students to speculate about who these members are and what they value: they

will prob ably identify teachers of En glish at the high school and college level. You

can also point to the values the editorial policy focuses on, such as “the best emerg-

Awareness of the ethics of reviewing. The impact of reviews can be substantial— a

negative review by an impor tant critic can close down a Broadway show or take a

movie out of theatres and into DVD distribution—or it can be limited. One of the

authors of this book, in frustration at her experiences with mops for cleaning

ﬂ oors, went to Amazon . com and entered this phrase into its search engine: “a

really good mop.” She was completely satisﬁ ed with the results and purchased the

[ TEACHING WITH EVERY ONE’S AN AUTHOR ]