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...

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I
"Academic 11\Triting 1Vow: A Brief Guide for B11sJ1 Students is concise in its layout and
instructions and con1prehensive in its coverage of the necessary elements of college
wr iting. By d istilling the fundamentals of college writing into an accessible format,
David Starkey expertly guides the student writer through realistic yet critical practice.
T his 1nakes Academic 11Vriting Now the 111ost reliable resource fo r my students in both
first- and second-sen1ester composition."
-Clara Oropeza, Santa Barbara City College

"Starkey delivers clear, ordered advice in a voice so fa1niliar and colloquial that
an yone's anxiety about this often rigid acade1nic subject will start to calm. He 1noves '--.._
seamlessly between exarnples ranging fron1 everyday experience to the highest levels .................
of great writing, and what I like best is that underneath it ail he encourages students
to keep creativity and poetic insight alive while they tackle the challenge of \\'l·iting
rigorous, scholarly papers."
-Richard Guzman, 1Vorth Central College

"Starkey's Academic Writing Now: A Brief Guide for Busy Students is a great resource
for first-year \\'l·iting students and faculty who wan t to move swiftly through essen tial
concepts in order to get do\\'11 to the brass tacks of the academic essay. Starkey not
only invites student readers through conversation, efficiency, and practical wisdmn
but also targets key areas that writing instructors repeatedly discuss so that students
can in tern alize writing as a process and begin to reflect upon their \\'l·iting in a
----
n1etacognitive way."
-Calley Hornbuckle, Columbia College

Academic v\lriting Now: A Brief Guide for Busy Students is a rhetoric designed to
cover the basics of a college writing course in a concise, student-friendly fonnat.
Anything inessential to the business of college writing has been excluded . Each
chapter concentrates on a crucial element of composing an academic essay and is
capable of being read in a single sitting. The book is loaded ,vith "ti1nesaver tips;'
ideas for 1n aking the most of the student's tin1e, along with occasional warnings to
avoid comn1on errors 1nade by student writers. Each short chapter concludes with
questions and suggestions designed to reinforce the chapter's key elen1ents and
facilitate small-gro up in teractions and full-trigger class d iscussion.

T he second edition has been updated throughou t, with special attention to 1naking
the book even better su ited to accelerated and co-requisite composition cow·ses.
l\llLA citation style has been updated to reflect 202 1 changes, and a cu rrent APA
citation guide is new to the second edition.

David Starkey is Emeritus Professor of English at Santa Barbara City College, where
he served as Director of Con1position and Creative \A/riting. He is the author of the
textbook Creative \1\Triti11g: Four Genres i11 Briefand the editor of two collections of
scholarly essays on composition and creative writing: Teaching \!\friti11g Creatively and
Ge11re by Example: \!\friting What \,Ve Teach.

Designed by Chris Rowat Design

ISBN 978-1-55481-509-8

broadview press 1111111 11111

www. broadviewpress.corn 9 78 1554 8 15098
Academic Writing Now
 SECOND EDITION

A Brief
Guide for
Busy
Students
DAVID STARKEY

broadview press
BROADVIEW PRESS www.broadviewpress.com
Peterborough, Ont ario. Canada

Founded in 1985, Broadview Press remains a wholly independent publ ishing house. Broadview's
focus is on academ ic publi shing; our ti tles are accessible to university and college st uden ts as well
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© 2022 David Starkey

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Library and Arch ives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Tit le: Academ ic writing now : a brief guide for busy st udent s / David Starkey.
Names: Starkey, David, 1962- au thor.
Descript ion: Second ed ition. I Includes bibliograph ical references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210323515 I Canadiana (ebook) 20210323523 I ISBN
9781554815098 (softcover) I ISBN 9781770488335 (PDF) I ISBN 9781460407813 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCS H: Academ ic writing. I LCSH: Report writi ng. I LCS H: English language- Rhetoric .
Classification: LCC LB2369 .S73 2021 I DDC 808 .02- dc23

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PRINTED IN CANADA
 For Sandy
&
for my students,
who taught me everything I know
A stitch in time saves nine.

-English Proverb
 Contents

Preface to the Second Edition 13

Preface for Instructors: Busy, Busy, Busy 17
Introduction for Students: St rategies for Succeeding as a
College Writerl9

Part One Ready, Set . .. 25

CH Arr ER 1 Academic , vriting: An Overvie,v 27
Why Write? 27
vVriting as Inquiry and Process 28
High-School vs. University English29
What Do Professors Really Want?3o
vVorking Alone 31
Vvorking with O thers32

CHAPTER 2 Academic Reading 33

Effective Reading Habits 33
Annotation 39
Double-Entry Journal41
Analysis42
Surnn1ary 44
Reverse Outline 46
Paraphrase47
Quotations49
Working Alone 49
vVorking with O thers 50

CHAPTER 3 Ideas into Text 53

Getting Started 53
Lightning Research54
l O C ON T E N T S

Invention 55
TI1e TI1ree Appeals61
Discussion63
Sooner Rather TI1an Later66
Working Alone67
Working with Others68

C HAPT E R 4 Arguments and Organization 69

TI1esis Staternents69
Outlines 75
Considering Other Perspectives78
Topic Sentences78
Working Alone8o
Working \.Vith Others8o

CHAPT E R s Researching Yo ur Topic 83

TI1e CARS Checklist84
Library Databases 87
Books93
Internet Sources94
Working Alone97
Working with Others97

Part Two Go 99
C HA PT E R 6 Introduction: Hooking Your Reader 101
Opening Sentences 101
Topic Overview 107
Ending with Your TI1esis109
Working Alone110
Working with Others111

C HAPT E R 7 Body Paragraphs: And I Ought to Keep Reading

Because? 113
Paragraph Structure 113
Transitions116
Expert Opinions and Concrete Evidence117
Quotations 120
Interviews and Surveysl26
Narrative and Description 129
1Vlulti1nodal Movesl33
 CON T E N T S 11

vVorking Alone 140

vVorking with O thers140

CHAP TE R 8 Conclusion: Wait. .. Don't Stop 141

Conclusion Dos and Don'tsl42
Vvorking Alonel47
Working 'Nith O thersl47

Part Three Go Again 149

C HAPTER 9 Taking Another Look 151
Revisionl51
Editing161
Working Alonel69
Working with Othersl70

CIIAPT ER 1 0 Handing It Over 171

Design and Presentation 171
Proofreading175
Titlesl77
Damian's Revisionl78
Kno\.ving When to Stopl85
Working Alone 186
Working ,,vith O thersl86

APPENDIX I Genres of Academic Writing 187

Analyzing a Text 187
Arguing a Positionl91
Proposing a Solutionl96
Making an Evaluation202

APP EN DIX II A Brief Guide to Documentation 209

Identifying and Avoiding Plagiaris1n 210
Annotated Bibliography 211
MLA 9: Citing Your Sources 212
MLA 9: Sample Citations 215
APA 7: Citing Your Sources221
APA 7: Sarnple Citations 224

Permissions Acknowledgments229
Index231
 Preface to the Second Edition

Bringing the second edition of a textbook into the world is a tricky busi-
ness. On the one hand, the author and publisher 1nust 1nake purchasing the
second edition worthwhile, so there should be noteworthy revisions in the
1naterial. On the other hand, if the book was successful enough to 1nerit a
new version, there 111ust be elements that students and instructors valued
in the previous edition: you don't want to change too much.
I've tried to achieve th at balance by revising those aspects of Academic
Writing Now that I felt 111ost needed updating while retaining as light a
hand as possible when editing the instruction that students and colleagues
have found beneficial.
I believe the changes that will prove 1nost useful to students and instruc-
tors can be fou nd at the end of each chapter. Previously, the activities ,-vere
divided into "Questions and Suggestions for You" and "Questions and Sug-
gestions from You." I'd thought the second category would generate con-
stnictive feedback fro1n students the1nselves, but, based on my experience
and the input of colleagues, it didn't work as well as I had hoped. TI1erefore,
the chapter-ending activities have beco1ne "Working Alone" and "Work-
ing with Others." As the names indicate, suggestions for how to practice
each chapter's instruction-so1ne new, many revised and carried over fro1n
the previous edition-are now clearly divided into assign1nents students
can carry out on their own and those that require collaboration. Instruc-
tors should find the "vVorking vvith O thers" prompts especially suitable for
corequisite sections of accelerated co1nposition (more on that below).
In addition, three chapters have received 1najor revisions. Chapter 2,
"Acade1nic Reading," features a new, much 1nore current article, "Should
Two- and Four-Year Degrees Be Free?," which serves as the basis for learning
about textual analysis. TI1ere is also a new i111age at the center of the visual
analysis section. In Part Three, a new student essay, on reducing recidivis1n,
is the focus of Chapter 9, "Taking Another Look," and Chapter 10, "Handing
It Over." Finally, Appendix I, "Genres of Acade1nic vVriting," contains two
new model student essays .

13
14 PR E FACE T O T HE SECOND E D I T I ON

The Modern Language Association is restless in its quest to i1nprove its

docu1n entation systems, and Acadernic Writing Now includes examples of
the 9th edition of MLA, updated in 2021. Also included are instructions
for docu1n entation using the 7th edition (2020) of A1n erican Psychological
Association (APA) style, a feature that is new to this edition.
In other respects, the second edition of Acadernic Vvriting 1Vow will be
co111fortingly fa1nil iar. I've been told that one of the book's chief appeals is
its brevity, and I have endeavored to keep the instruction as concise and
student-friendly as possible. Thanks to its co1npact size, Academic Writing
Now remains one of the 1n ost inexpensive introductory co1nposition text-
books on the 1narket. I've also continued to assu1ne that 1nost instnictors
would rather assign their own readings, preferring not to be bound by a
textbook author's tastes or by the whin1s of a book's publication schedule.

AWN forALP
Not long after Academic Writing Now was first published, I began hearing
fro1n my fellow instructors that they were using the book in their accelerated
co1nposition courses. That made sense, as I was, too.
For those instructors ,.vho are new to the concept, accelerated or "coreq-
uisite" composition atte1npts to right a longstand ingwrong. Research shows
that students who assess below college-level English have difficulty not just
graduating but even moving up to the required first-se1n ester course. The
proble1n is particularly grave for students of color and lower-income students.
Under the leadership of Peter Adan1s, in the early 2000s the Conununity
College of Baltimore County began addressing this inequity by develop-
ing the Accelerated Learning Progran1 (ALP). In this 1nodel, first-se1nester
con1position classes consist of ten students who assessed at the college level,
along with ten who did not. Students in the latter group not only take the
college-level cow·se; they also enroll in an integrated reading a nd writing
corequisite.
A nu1n ber of CCBC's suggestions for the design of accelerated learning
progran1s have beco1ne staples of accelerated learning com1nunities across
the country. A1n ong those reco1111nendations are cohort lea rning (sn1all
groups of students taking n1ultiple courses together with the same instruc-
tor); sn1all class size and heterogeneous grouping (10 basic writers 1nain-
strea1n ed into a college-level class of 20); attention to behavioral issues and
life problems; and contextual learning (students aren't preparing to write
for college; they are actually writing for a college class).
As I was composing the first edition of Academic Writing Now, I hap-
pened to be in the right place at the right time. My own institution, Santa
 P R EFAC E TO TH E S E CO N D EO I TI ON 15

Barbara City College, was in the midst of developing an accelerated com-

position sequence, and I benefited not only fro1n teaching in the progra1n
but also fro1n the wise counsel of many colleagues, especially the program's
director, Kathy Molloy. As a result, A W1Y turned out to be a good fit for ALP,
and I believe the revisions to the second edition will n1ake it even 1nore use-
fu l for accelerated con1position students.

AWNOnline
111e Covid-19 pande1nic, for a while at least, made all of us online instruc-
tors. I was using Acadernic Writing Now in n1y own co1nposition classes
when the world basically shut down in March 2020, and-grateful for s1nall
1nercies-I was pleased that the book generally held up well in a distance
environ1nent.
I did, however, wish that the chapter-ending activities were n1ore clearly
divided into pro1npts for individual and collaborative work. Moreover, I felt
that so1ne of the activities could be revised so that they \\'Ottld work just as
easily online as they did in the face-to-face and hybrid courses where I'd
been using the1n. Consequently, in the second edition, each prompt in the
"Working Alone" and "Working with Others" sections has been specifically
crafted so that students can complete it just as easily in a digit al setting as
they ca n in a physical classroo1n.

A Word on Pronouns
Obviously, since the fi rst edition of Academic Writing Now \.Vas published in
2015, a great 1nany changes have occurred. One of these changes concerns
pronoun usage. Businesses and acade1nic institutions no"v routinely offer
people the opportunity to state which pronouns they prefer, including "they,
the1n, their." Therefore, in the second edition of Academic Writing Now,
you'll find that when t he gender of the referent is unclear, a singular noun
will receive a plural pronoun.
One of the n1ost persuasive argu1nents for this 1nodification can be found
in a 2019 New York Times opinion piece entitled "It's Ti1ne for '111ey."' Col-
umnist Far had Manjoo, a cisgendered father of two, calls for using "they"
instead of "he or she," which Manjoo claitns is "the clunkiest phrase ever
cooked up by s1nall-1ninded gra1111narians." Manjoo goes on to say, "we
should use 'they' 1nore freely, because language should not default to the
gender binary. One truth I've co1ne to understand too late in life is how
thoroughly and insidiously our lives are shaped by gender nonns." I agree,
a nd I hope readers of this book will, too.
 Preface for Instructors:
Busy, Busy, Busy

As you prepare to skitn over this preface, you are, no doubt, very busy. In
addition to the class or classes you're teaching (and the countless essays
you're grading), you rnay have ntunerous depart1nental responsibilities. Pos-
sibly you're also writing and publishing your own work. And n1ost of us have
personal lives that are at least as complex as those we reveal to the public.
Of course, if you feel overwhehn ed, your students probably feel the ti1ne
crunch even more. In addition to taking classes, 1nany are working and-
let's face it-probably enjoying some of the f reedo1ns and privileges that
co1ne with adulthood.
Tirne, for all of us, is in short supply.
Enter Academic Writing Now: A Brief Guide for Busy Students, a rhetoric
designed to cover the basics of a college writing course in a concise, student-
friendly format.
While the book can be successfully used in any first-year writing course,
what distinguishes it fro1n others in a cro,,vded 1narket is the fact that it is
written by a conununity-college English professor for two- and four-year
college and university instructors who, like the author, are in the trenches,
facing the sa1ne set of challenges-rnultiple course sections, oversized ros-
ters, heavy paper loads-,,veek after week, 1n onth after n1onth, year after year.
While some of our 1nore fortunate senior colleagues 1nay teach a single
co1nposition class a year, just to keep their hand in, most of us don't have
the luxury of spending hours sifting through a n1am1noth to1n e looking for
the perfect assign1nent. Like our students, we're always ready to cut to the
chase. Unfortunately, n1ost cornposition textbooks labeled "brief rhetorics"
contain hundreds of pages that are, strictly speaking, unnecessary. Aca-
dernic Writing Now assu1n es students will read the entire book; therefore,
anything inessential to the business of college writing has been excluded.
Each chapter concentrates on a crucial ele1nent of co1nposing an acaden1ic
essay and is capable of being read in a single sitting. The book is loaded ,,vith
"tirn esaver tips," ideas for making the rn ost of the student's time, along with

17
18PR E FACE F OR I NS TR UC T ORS

occasional warnings to avoid errors frequently n1ade by student writers.

Each short chapter concludes with questions and suggestions designed to
trigger class discussion.
In addition to explaining h<n.v to navigate the de1nands of acade1nic writ-
ing, the book's chief ai1n is to engage students at the conversational level we
try to establish in our classroorns. The prose is student-friendly, but on point
and goal-driven. Academic Writing Now 1nakes the reasonable assumption
that 1nost students ~vould rather be doing son1ething else besides reading a
cotnposition textbook.
But what, exactly, should students be learning? Many of our colleagues
in Atnerican high schools are now teaching to the Common Core State
Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. That's quite a 1nouthful, but
what it boils down to is writing instruction that is "(l) research and evidence
based, (2) aligned with college and work expectations, (3) rigorous, and (4)
internationally bench1narked."
For better or worse-depending on who1n you're talking to-college
instructors typically have 1nore leeway in their courses than high-school
teachers. Nevertheless, the general goals of the Conunon Core are probably
not too far frorn your own. Most of us 1nust follow a course of study outline
approved by a curriculun1 com1nittee. Our departments and institutions
require students to learn sumrnary and paraphrase, thesis and argu1nent.
Our students analyze texts and argue positions. They 1nust write persuasive,
evidence-based research papers. Learning to master these skills in as little
ti1ne as ten weeks 1neans focusing intently on the reading and writing pro-
cess itself rather than on metnorizing a broad spectnun of facts.
As a result, you won't find any sections here on, sa)r, logical fallacies, and
we'll only briefly touch on conunon gram1nar errors. Instructors can direct
students to plenty of free and excellent publisher- and university-sponsored
websites covering this 1naterial (Purdue University's Online Writing Lab,
or OWL, is exe1nplary). Si1nilarly, the book's fe,.v complete essays are used
to illustrate the basics of acadetnic ~vriting. Excellent and inexpensive read-
ers abound, and many English instnICtors have begun assigning the many
first-rate-and free-readings available online.
Ulti1nately, Academic Writing Now acknowledges that tnuch of the learn-
ing in any writing course takes place in the interaction between students
and their teachers, classtnates, tutors, fa1nily, and friends. A good textbook
is crucial, but it's only part of the picture. This one errs on the side ofleaving
the kitchen sink in the kitchen, where it belongs.
 Introduction for Students:
Strategies for Succeeding as a
College Writer

Students arrive at their college or university with different goals and back-
grounds, but the one thing you almost certainly have in conunon with
everyone else on campus is a sense that there's not enough tirne in the day
(or night) to acco1nplish everything you want to do.
Acadernic Writing Now: A Brief Guide for Busy Students is designed to
save you tirne by (1) concisely explaining how to ccnnpose an acade1nic essay,
and (2) conveying that information in a friendly, conversational fashion.
In short, I hope you'll want to read this book because it tells you ,,vhat you
need to know and because it is enjoyable to read-at least as enjoyable as a
textbook can be.
Throughout the book, I'll address ways to n1ake your life as a busy col-
lege student slightly less hectic. Often these will be s1nall tips I've culled
not just fro1n my 25 years of teaching composition classes but also from
scouring the work of my fellow academics and reading so1ne of the many
books and articles by ti1ne-management specialists. Let's begin, though,
with so1ne overall student-success strategies that you can use for just about
every assign1nent in every course you take.

Prioritize
Time-1nanagen1ent consultants tell us that above all we 1nust learn to pri-
oritize-to decide which task needs doing first and when. Every day of
the se1nester, you'll need, accurately and honestly, to assess what must be
co1npleted first.
Irnagine that tomorrow you have a quiz in history that's worth only 5 per
cent of your overall grade. You also have an essay in your English class that
accounts for 20 per cent of your total points. Even if you prefer history to
English, your real focus 1nust be on the English paper-it's one-fifth of your

19
20 I N T R O D U C T I O N F O R S T U D E N T S

entire grade. 1herefore, though you rnight spend up to an hour studying

for the quiz, you'll need to use the rest of the tune working on your essay.
Prioritizing in college is really just a n1atter of deciding on the urgency
and i1nportance of any particular assign1nent. In a perfect world, you would
be able to give every assignment its proper due, and if you have plenty of
free study ti1ne, you may con1e close to 1naking that happen. Ho,,vever, most
students face occasions when an activity they consider lacking in urgency
has to give way to s01nething more important.

Set Achievable Goals

1he n1ajority of decisions about prioritizing are far less clear-cut than the
history quiz vs. English essay example described above. Fortunately, one
of the best tactics for prioritizing is also one of the si1nplest: 1naking to-do
lists, often in the form of daily schedules. Once you see what you rnust do,
you'll be able to set realistic and achievable goals.
Let's say it's Tuesday, and your first essay is due next Monday. Let's also
say that you haven't done anything so far, so it's ti1ne to get n1oving. Sup-
pose the essay assign1nent requires you to analyze and respond to a single
article. You might divide your work as follows:

• Tuesday: Read and annotate article

• Wednesday: Sununarize article, ~vrite double-entry journal, generate
initial thesis and outline
• Thursday: Study for 1nath test on Friday 1non1ing (no tune to work on
Essay)
• Friday: Write as 1nuch of essay #1 as possible (plan on ending by 5 p.1n.
for social ti1ne)
• Saturday: Co1nplete first draft of essay #1, study for anthropology exam
• Sunday: Revise essay, study for anthro, do a fina l proofreading of essay
before going to bed
• Monday: Turn in essay #1

You'll notice that while this schedule is far fro1n perfect, it is at least realistic.
It takes into account the fact that the i1nportant assign1nents due in t~vo
other classes, which I've grayed out, will take some time away from your
writing process. The schedule also acknowledges that college isn't all work:
you need to set aside son1e time for ftu1.
That said, the schedule also recognizes that a week is probably the 1nini-
mu1n a1nount of time the average ~vriter needs to cornplete a passable final
draft. Can you really write a good essay in two hours? Maybe. Wouldn't it
 I NTRODUCT I ON FOR STUDEN T S 21

be 1ntich better if you took the entire two or three weeks you've been given,
breaking the process into 1nany short seg1n ents? Of course it would.
Setting achievable goals n1eans avoiding procrastination. You may think
you're procrastinating because your best work happens in a pinch, but 1nore
likely you're either afraid of failing, or you're one of those perfectionists who
can't stand even the tiniest defect in their own work. However, as I'll e1npha-
size throughout this book, it's okay to fail-in 1noderation, and especially in
the early stages of the writing process where even professional ,,vriters often
encounter difficulties. Writing p rofessor Donald Murray told his classes,
"Great is the enemy of good." Murray wasn't suggesting that students not
strive for greatness, but he wanted then1 to be realistic, to realize there were
ti1nes when it was better to settle for si1nply being proficient.
Perfection co1nes at a high price, especially in writing, where nothing
is ever really perfect. Sa1nuel Beckett fa1nously said, "Try again. Fail again.
Fail better." Part of becoming a successful college student involves admit-
ting you vvill fail occasionally. Over time, you vvill identify your strengths
and weaknesses, cultivating the fonner and reducing the latter. Indeed,
Arthur Costa and Bena Kallick, in their fascinating book Habits of Mind,
note that applying past kn owledge to new situations is one of the keys to
achieve1nent in any fi eld.

Reward Yourself for Achieving Your Goals

So1ne people are capable of writing an entire first draft in a single go. Others
have trouble completing a paragraph before feeling in dire need of a break.
Most of us prefer to have at least a quiet hour or two to work on a ,,vriting
project, and those periods of con1position can be quite exhausting.
Writing can be gratifying in its o,,vn right, but it's still important to
give yourself a little something extra for cc)lnpleting the work you set out
to do. It n1ight be ten minutes of texting vvith friends, or a quick nap, or a
run around can1pus, or a close yet short encounter vvith your favorite video
ga1ne. It doesn't matter what the reward is, just as long as you feel you'll be
co1npensated for your labor.
Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of1-Iighly Effective People, calls
this necessary 1nental and physical renewal "sharpening the saw," and he
believes "it is the habit that n1akes all the others possible." Fiction ,.vriter
Richard Ford even advises, "Try turning on the TV. Th at always works for
1ne. I forget all about writing the second SportsCenter co1nes on."
On the other hand, 1n ake sure the rewards you allot yourself aren't greater
than the amount of effort you've actually expended. I love to play music,
for instance, and 1ny writing room is crowded with musical instruments:
22 IN T RODUC T I ON F OR S T UDENTS

acoustic and electric guitars, basses, a drun1 kit, a keyboard, a 1nandolin.

When I face a difficult passage in a writing assign1nent, temptation is all
around 1ne. It's so 1nt1Ch 1nore fun to strike up a tune than it is to revise a
paragraph that doesn't quite 1nake sense.
And yet I've learned over the years that if I give in to these temptations,
it will only prolong what I have to do, and I won't enjoy the 1nusic nearly
as much as I would have if I'd postponed it as a reward for completing my
work. It's si1nilar to having a long drive ahead of you: ,.vhile you may need
to pull over occasionally to stretch and take care of your basic needs, if you
do so every ti1ne you get bored, you'll never 1nake your way ho1ne. In short,
thirty 1ninutes of television for every ten 1ninutes of writing won't result in
a whole lot of productivity.
Slotting these reward breaks into your writing schedule is yet another
reason to avoid procrastination. If it's 1nidnight and your paper is due at
eight the next rnorning, there won't be 1nt1Ch time for double-fudge stu1daes.

Minitnize D istractions
If you've recently 1noved fron1 ho111e into college housing, you n1ay worry
about how you're ever going to get your ,,vriting done. Noise, parties, new
friends dropping by all the tirne, distractions galore: \.vhat's a student to do?
Finding a space in which to study is one of the most com1non proble1ns
faced by college students. If you're in a donn or apartn1ent and have your
own roo1n, close the door. If not, you'll need to try and schedule quiet tin1e
with your roo1nn1ate or roo1n1nates. That isn't always possible, of course, so
you may end up deciding to write in the ca1npus library, or in a coffee shop,
or outside, if the weather's nice.
Sh1dents who attend college and live at home have probably already iden-
tified good times and places to study. Take advantage of those periods when
no one is going to bother you.
\iVherever you live, you'll want to identify habits that distract you fro1n
your work-for example, constantly checking your phone or e1nail or social-
media pages. If you're having trouble settling into a reading and writing
groove, you 1nay even need to take the drastic step of disconnecting yourself
fro1n the wired \.Vorld. If you ,.vrite on a cornputer or tablet but keep getting
sidetracked by online enticernents, you 1nay want to disable your internet
connection as you type, and turning off your phone while you con1pose
an essay is nearly always a good idea. Chapter 3 covers invention strate-
gies-ways to get started when you're feeling blocked-but a good first step
is si1nply to give yourself some peace and quiet.
 I N T R OD U C T I ON F O R S TU D E N T S 23

Say "No"
The best way to 1nini1nize distractions is to just say "no." Sure, that party
down the hall sounds like a lot of fun, but it will probably still be going on
after you get back fro1n the library, and you'll feel much better about join-
ing in the festivities knowing you've co1npleted your assigned \.vriting task
for the day.
Te1nporary distractions are relatively easy to resist. l-Iowever, if you're
putting yourself through college, it n1ay be harder to tell your boss that you
can't work Sunday because you have to turn in your essay on Monday. You
1nay have to co1npro1nise so1netin1es, but re1ne1nber those difficult refusals
now will, in years to come, allow you more frequent ly to say "yes" to the
things you really want to do.

Ask for Help

Talking about a writing assign1nent to anyone is a good idea, although your
instructor will normally be your go-to option. TI1e easiest way to ask the1n
is si1nply to raise your hand in class, but if you don't feel co1nfortable doing
that, all instructors keep office hours, and many will be willing to answer
brief questions via e1nail.
Chances are your ca1npus also has a writing center. Often the tutors are
well-trained fellow students, which usually 1nakes for a cordial and produc-
tive conference.
Finally, the casual conversations you have with friends , fa1nily, and class-
1nates can be as worth\.vhile as anything that takes place in a more fonna l
environ1nent. Say, for instance, you've been assigned to write about whether
or not the legal drinking age should be lowered fro1n 21 to 18. Your par-
ents, worried about your safety, n1ay have one perspective, ,,vhile your older
brother may feel very differently, and the exchange student frotn Italy 1nay
have something else entirely to contribute.

Re1nind Yourself of W hy You're Here

Some students cotne to college with the exclusive goal oflearning. TI1ey want
to know everything, and they look at every class as a potential windfall of
wisdotn and vitality. If you're one of those students, congratulations, you're
already ahead of the ga1ne.
Most students, however, enter college ,<\Tith the idea that it is an in1por-
tant part of a n1uch longer journey. Especially after the long ordeal of the
24 INTRODUC T I ON FOR STUDENTS

Covid-19 pandernic, they have corne to know what's irnportant to thern.

111ey aspire to interesting careers. 111ey irnagine the financial success that
will help support thernselves and their farnilies, including the parents whose
hard work has helped get thern where they are.
During those gloomy hours when you feel your essay will never corne
together, or when your assigned reading seerns to have been composed in
Martian, visualize yourself con1pleting your in1mediate task, and then proj-
ect further into the future. Ultimately, the mental picture you want to hang
onto is yourself in a cap and gown, receiving your diplorn a and going out
into the working world anned with confidence and the lasting skills you'll
learn in a class such as this one.
"Keep your eyes on the prize," civil rights leaders rerninded people push-
ing for justice and equality in the second half of the twentieth century. 111ey
had big drearns, and they accomplished many of then1. You can, too.
PART ONE: READY, SET •••
 CHAPTER ONE

Academic Writing: An Overview

vVHY WRITE?
WRITING AS INQUIRY AND PROCESS
HIGH-SCHOOL VS . UNIVERSITY ENGLI SH
WHAT DO PROFESSORS REALLY WANT?

WHY WRITE?
When we're not clear on the goals others assign for us, we so1neti1nes pro-
crastinate or refuse to engage in the assigned tasks at all. In order to maxi-
1nize the ti1ne you spend on your co1nposition class, it's helpful to think
about what's involved in acade1nic writing and why your instructor believes
it's necessary for you to learn the skills taught in this class. As you settle
into your acade1nic tenn, you may be wondering, "Why do I have to take a
con1position class in the first place?"
TI1ere are plenty of answers to that question. TI1e most practical one is
that 1nany of the courses you enroll in as an undergraduate-even if you
are 1najoring in the natural sciences or co1nputer science or engineering-
will require so1ne writing, and 1nany 1najors insist on quite a lot of writing.
Refining this talent is crucial to your success in higher education.
Later, once you enter the \\rorking world, you'll find that writing well
1nakes you an invaluable ,vorker or employer. Companies of all sizes fre-
quently cite the ability to co1nnnu1icate well as an e1nployee's biggest asset.
TI1erefore, knowing how to write clearly and persuasively is one of the 1nost
portable skills you can take away fro1n your college education.
Learning to write well also rneans cultivating critical thinking, a habit
of n1ind that seeks truth by taking nothing for granted. Critical thinking
leads to thoughtful and productive participation in our de1nocracy. Most
everyone feels strongly about at least one social issue, whether it's gun con-
trol or voting rights or which books should be in the local school library.

27
28 PAR T ONE: RE AD Y, S E T . . .

I-Iowever, unless you are able to articulate the reasons behind your beliefs,
you're unlikely to convince others to follovv them.
In short, writing well is one of the n1ost useful skills you will learn as
an w1dergraduate. Mastering the writing process isn't always easy, but it is
never a waste of your ti1ne.

WRITING AS INQUIRY AND PROCESS

Writing instructors often use the tenn "writing as inquiry," and anot her
reason for learning to write well is to discover your own core values. We
write to find out what we still need to know, to learn where our beliefs con-
nect with other people's and where they differ. "Start with questions, not
answers," writing professor Bruce Ballenger advises, and this book heartily
endorses that belief. \iVithout questions, we never get to the answers.
TI1e act of inquiry is usually a rnulti-step procedure, so it's not surpris-
ing if you often hear your instructor talking about the '\vriting process" as
though it were a fac t of life, like the Second Law of TI1ennodyna1nics, or
Jay Z. I've already used the phrase several tirnes in this book-what does
it 1nean?
Basically, ,.ve English teachers believe that very little writing can't be
i1nproved by retu rning to it again and again. Yes, sometin1es you only have
two hours to write a midterm or fina l examination, but in college ,~rriting
classes the assumption is that an out-of-class essay vvill go through more
t han one draft. For ease of explanation, textbooks tend to break writing
into various steps, and Acadernic Writing Now is no different. TI1at's why
the book is divided into three main sections: "Ready, Set . .. ," "Go," and "Go
Again." TI1e racing 1netaphor is in keeping with the book's focus on 1naking
efficient use of your time, but ,.vriting vvell rarely rese1nbles a hundred-1neter
dash. In fact, ,.vriting a strong academic essay is probably 1nore like taking
an afternoon walk in the woods. Still, even the rnost leisurely walker must
ultimately reach a destination, and when the woods are thick and the sun
is going dovvn, it helps to have a map. Academic Writing 1V ow is that 1nap.
Breaking down the writing process allows for a fuller discussion of each
step in con1posing an acade1nic essay, though of course you already know
that when you're in the 1nidst of writing, you're likely to be juggling all
sorts of 1nental processes. While you're jotting down one idea, another idea
occurs to you that belongs so1newhere else in your essay. After you write the
second idea, you realize the sentence that follows it needs to be rephrased,
so you 1night jtunp f ron1 what we call invention to revision in just a n1atter
of seconds. While students generally find it useful to think of ,.vriting as a
multi-step process, there's no denying that the way in which many of us
 A C A D E M I C W R I T I N G : A N O V E R V I E W 29

actually write can be a,,vfully n1essy. Acknowledging that fact, cornposi-

tion theorists use the ,,vord recursive to signal the irnportance of repeating
the various stages of the process, in whatever order they happen to occur.

HIGH-SCHOOL VS. UNIVERSITY ENGLISH

You've been learning to ,,vrite for years now, and high-school English classes
are crucial to your developrnent as a writer. Nevertheless, part of entering
a college writing class is shedding habits that helped you succeed in high
school but may hurt you now.
For instance, if your high-school experience validated the idea that the
longest papers with the biggest words get the best grades, you'll probably be
disappointed in college. Most university ,,vriting instructors prefer a voice
closer to the one you actually speak with than the n1ade-up one you 1nay
have used in your previous essays. You don't ,-vant to sound like you're just
hanging out with you r fr iends, but it's in1portant to present yourself as a
real-life human being, not a thesaurus gone haywire.
It's not only the tone and diction of your essays you'll need to consider
modifying, but also their structure. Just about every American high-school
student is fa1n iliar with the five-paragraph the1ne: introduction, t hree body
paragraphs, conclusion. It's a useful contraption, helping to keep the student
focused and allowing an overworked instructor to quickly assess whether
the essay is on target.
However, 1nany college instructors find the format too restrictive. They're
concerned that students ,von't delve deep into an issue if they're always
worried about fi nding three main points. Someti1nes there's only one 1n ain
point, but it needs to be explored in depth. Other ti1n es, you 1nay have fou r
or five important shorter ideas that you want to convey in your essay. In gen-
eral, you'll find that college assignn1ents allow you 1n ore freedom to explore
your ideas, but they also require that you think about your topic much 1nore
thoroughly. Below are th ree exa1nples of the types of "pron1pts," or writing
assignn1ents, you might encounter in a college co1nposition course:

• After reading an article that 1naintains that racis1n is still prevalent in

North A1nerica, use outside research as well as your own experience to
explain the extent to which you agree or disagree with the article. Use
the personal pronoun "I" whenever necessary.
• Read two articles with contrasting positions on the i1nportance of con1-
petitive football and basketball prograrns to the overall fina ncial and
spiritual health of universities. Decide which article best summarizes
your own opinion and explain why.
30 PAR T O N E : R E A D Y, S E T . . .

• Research what you consider to be a pressing social problem. Identify the

causes, determine the current effects, a nd propose at least one feasible
solution.

Assign1nents like these will oblige you to have a thorough understanding

of the a rticles a nd books you discuss, which is why the next chapter is
devoted to polish ing your read ing skills. You'll notice also that the topics
are relatively open -ended. You're not asked to take a defi nitive position, but
rather to "explain the extent to ,.vhich you agree or disagree" and deterrnine
"which article best sum1n arizes your own opinion."
One of the pleasures-1naybe we should we say shocks-of receiving a
college education is learning how many contrasting opinions there are on
any given topic. For 1nany students, the take-away fro1n their fi rst year of
university is just how large and co1nplicated the world really is.

WHAT DO PROFESSORS REALLY WANT?

Several years ago, the ad1ninistrators at 1ny college asked me to develop a
Writing Across the Curriculum handbook. I spent the acade1nic year talk-
ing to colleagues, holding workshops, and collecting written responses to
a questionnaire from every depart1n ent on ca1npus.
Three pieces of advice e1nerged again and again. My fellow professors
wanted students to (1) b e clear, (2) address their audience, and (3) stay on
task. Based on 1ny research, I'd say those goals are widely held in the United
States and Canada, and I think 1n ost students can reasonably hope to achieve
the1n by the end of an acade1nic tern1-as long as they work hard and n1ake
effective use of their instructor's expertise and ca1npus resources.
W hile essay writing 1nay seem daunting at the beginning of the terrn,
once you get into the swing of things, you'll fi nd it gets easier. Fortunately,
as I suggested earlier, there's no "wasted" writing. Suppose you fi nish typ-
ing your first draft and decide you hate it. Even if you Select All and hit
the Delete key, you've still gained valuable practice in crafting sentences,
organizing paragraphs, and thinking on the page.
Finally, re1n e1nber that 1n ost composition instructors are pretty generous
people. If they'd been intent on making a for tune, they ,.vould have gone
into hedge-fund 1nanage1n ent. Instead, they are passionate about wTiting
and learning; they want their students to succeed. This 1neans that even if
you haven't written acadernic essays recently, your instructor will be pulling
for you. Your teacher knows that as the tenn progresses, your papers will
get better. Th ey really will.
 ACAD E M I C WRI T I NG: AN OV E RV IE W 31

Timesaver Tip: Accept the fact you 1nay not enjoy every ,vriting
assignment. Professors assign essays to help their students learn,
and it's the rare professor who deliberately asks for an essay that the
professor thinks students will hate v.rriting. Nevertheless, you will inevitably
receive assign1nents that you don't want to do. You can spend hours, or even
days, 1noaning and groaning about what a waste of titne writing the essay will
be. Of course, the real waste of time is co1nplaining about a required assign-
1nent. 1he quicker you face what you need to do, the sooner it will be done.

Working Alone

\A/rite a short "literacy narrative" in which you describe your own history
as a writer. Begin with the first t i1ne you re1ne1nber putting words on paper
or a co1nputer screen and go all the way to the present. In your narrative, do
your best to answer Questions 1-6, but don't feel you need to give each one
equal attention. If sornething has been especially i1nportant-an inspiring
teacher, fo r example, or the gift of a favorite book-feel free to spend 1nore
tirne writing about that particular fac tor in the development of your literacy.
If it helps, you 1night v.rant to write headings above your response to each
question: "TI1e Most hnportant Thit1g I've Written," "My Biggest Challenges
as a Writer," and so on.

1. vVhat's the most important thing you've ever written and why?
2. What are your biggest challenges as a writer? If English is not your
native language, what difficulties have you faced vvriting in a second
(or third or fourth or fifth) language?
3. Who do you write for 1nost frequently? Teachers, friends, family, your-
self? How does your personal ,-vriting di~r from your writing for school?
4. What issues are 1nost likely to interfere with your ,-vriting this term?
What possible solutions do you imagine for each potential problern?
5. 1hink about all the places where you write: in your roon1, in class, on
the bus, etc. Then consider how v.rell you ,,vrite in each location, and
,~,hich places will be 1nost conducive to the acadenlic writing you'll be
doing in this class. (Go to those safe places vvhenever you can.)
6. TI1is chapter emphasizes the belief, ,.videly held a1n ong college writ-
ing instructors, that writing is a process. To what extent has your own
,~rriting experience been based on process? That is, how often have you
revised an essay 1nultiple tirnes, with each draft evolving fron1 the pre-
vious one? In contrast, how likely are you to concentrate on quickly
producing a single, standardized "product"?
32 PAR T ONE: R E ADY, SE T . . .

Working with Others

Share your literacy narrative with one or 1nore students in your class. As
you do so, try to answer the followi ng questions:

1. vVhat do you have in conunon?

2. How are each person's individual literacy narratives different?
3. What do you find most surprising about your own narrative, and that
of your partner(s)?

Finally, join together as a full group and share what you think is the n1ost
interesting thing you learned fro1n your own literacy narrative and/or fron1
the narratives of others.
 CHAPTER TWO

Academic Reading
EFFECTIVE READING HABITS
ANNOTATION
DOUBLE - ENTRY JOURNAL
ANALYSIS
SUMMARY
REVERSE OUTLINE
PARAPHRASE
QUOTATIONS

EFFECTIVE READING HABITS

The Need to Read

A student once told me he had a confession to make. I prepared 1nyself for
the worst-a crin1e he'd conunitted, or a tragedy in his fa1nily-but he sitn-
ply wanted me to know that reading \.vasn't exactly his favorite thing to do.
1hat student was far from alone. Sure, 1nost students do a lot of informal
reading: if you're writing texts and e1nail 1nessages and online posts, you're
reading them, too. I-Iowever, reading complex and challenging material
isn't how the average student 1unvinds after a long day. Even students "vho
love to read often find the1nselves overwhel1ned by the a1nount of material
they're assigned in their first year in college.
Still, reading effectively is a prin1ary concern in just about all college
courses, whatever the subject 1natter, and in nearly every college con1posi-
tion class you're going to have to write at least one essay that responds to
a written text. In 1nost co1nposition classes, essays by professional writers
will be central to the curriculum. Understanding what you read is crucial;
therefore, even if you initially take longer to co1nprehend your assign1nent,
doing so will always pay off in ti1ne saved later on.

33
34 PAR T ONE: RE AD Y , S E T . . .

Thnesaver Tip: Think of reading as the fir st step in your writing

process. Because acade1n ic essays usually respond to or dra\.v upon
written work by other sources, carefully reading your assign1nents,
and saving all the writing you do along the way, w ill provide you with
essential material for co1nposing your essay.

Reading Again-and Again (and Again . . .)

Th e sooner you accept the fact that reading is a central part of your college
education, the sooner you can set about devising ways to n1ake the reading
easier and 1nore tin1e efficient.
In the Introduction, you saw hcn.v breaking large ,.vriting assign1nents
into s1naller chunks 1nakes then1 easier to complete. That's certainly the
case with read ing as well, with the need to prioritize being just as crucial.
As you decide on a reading schedule, ask yourself the following questions:

• How long and how d ifficult is the read ing? Is it a brief personal-opinion
piece or a dense article on international politics? Do I have any back-
ground knowledge of the subject n1atter?
• How long do I think it will realistically take to co1nplete the reading,
and when am I supposed to co1nplete it?
• How will I be assessed on the reading? A quiz? An exa1n? An essay?
• How soon after the reading is due 'Nill that assessrnent take place?
• What are the consequences of not doing the reading? Looking foolish in
class? Failing an i1n portant quiz? Failing the class itself?

For rnost college writing classes, the readings, at least initially, are fairly
short. Try to read assign1n ents of fewer than 10 pages at least twice, ideally
more. If you're a slow reader, that 111eans not waiting until the night before
an assign111ent is due.
Rereading a short assigrun ent the night before it is discussed has the
advantage of 111aking you look s1nart in class. Moreover, college professors
love to give reading quizzes, and these quizzes often focus on specifics that
you "vill have forgotten if the text is no longer fresh in your 111emory.
Before diving into an assigned reading, it's usually a good idea to preview,
or look over, the text. Here are so1ne useful questions to ask when preview-
ing a piece of writing:

• What is the tone of the title? Funny? Serious? Th reatening? Pleading?

• As you skim through the art icle, what ju111ps out at you? Are there any
visuals? Words in bold or colored fonts?
 A C AD EMI C READIN G 35

• Jot down the titles of any headings in the piece. W hat purpose do they
appear to serve?
• Reread the introduction and conclusion. What seerns to be the author's
1nain point?
• W hat, if anything, does the author ,~rant you do to do after reading the
piece?
• W here was the piece published? Is it difficult for a writer to be published
in that venue, or can anyone post anything?

Pre-reading strategies are irnportant, but you'll need to follow a preview

with a close reading, which means paying careful and sustained attention to
the text in front of you. I'll t alk about strategies for close reading throughout
the rest of this chapter, but one irnportant point to re1ne1nber is that it will
require you to slow down . You skim sornething because you ,.vant to get
through it quickly and identify the rnain points. You read sornething care-
fully because sorneone-usually your instructor-has told you it's worth
getting to know better. It's like the difference between chatting briefly with
son1eone online and going out on an actual date. There's a commitrnent
involved in close reading, even if, as in the case of a very short essay, it's
only a com1nit1n ent of 15 or 20 minutes.
Of course, if you're assigned a book-length \.vork of nonfiction or fiction,
you'll need 1nore concentration and more time, ,~rhich returns us to our
earlier discussion of the need to prioritize, to guard those rare ernpty slots
in your schedule, and to say no to passing ternptations. Entering a difficult
text is like entering the virtual world of a video garne whose rules you don't
imrnediately understand. You need to hang around for a while and figure
things out. Tle rnore challenging the n1aterial, the 1nore frequently you'll
need to retu rn to it, and the 1nore slowly you'll have to proceed.

Timesaver Tip: Assess the importance of each reading. You can

often tell how important a reading is frorn the syllabus and your
instructor's in-class comments. Give each reading assignrnent its
proper due: don't rnake the mistake of spending tons of tirn e on a piece that
is obviously of lirn ited irnportance, while skirn ming over sornething that
is crucial to the class.

Reading in a Productive Space

In the previous chapter, I talked about the benefits of writing in a quiet
place. 1he sarn e goes for reading, only n1ore so. When you're writing, your
brain is actively construct ing rneaning. It has to fu nction whether it wa nts
36 PAR T O N E : R E A D Y, S E T . . .

to or not, so it can often rnuscle its way through distractions. When you
read, though, it's easier to lose focus and let your Blind drift from the text.
Students know that finding a quiet place isn't as easy as teachers think.
As noted in the introduction, mini1nizing distractions is key. If you can't
escape the din of a noisy living environment, there are always earplugs.
Or 1naybe you prefer to rnuflle the chaos with ear buds and so1ne soothing
instrumental music. And don't forget proper lighting: you shouldn't have
to strain to see the words.
In the past, someone may have told you that the only way to study was
to cram for hours, but vve retain 1naterial best ,.vhen our 1ninds are fresh. If
you reach a point vvhere you're no longer assi1nilating the assigned 1naterial,
it's best to take a break, to stretch or get so1ne exercise.
Finally, when you reach a wall and feel as though you never want to look
at another chunp ofletters for the rest of your life, re1ne1nber that no Blatter
,.vhat you're reading-even if the subject is far from your normal areas of
interest-you're learning new information about the world, or new ways of
thinking about yourself. Isn't that one of the reasons you ca1ne to college
in the first place?

A Sa111ple Article
We've been discussing reading strategies without having an actual read-
ing to examine, so let's look at the sort of short piece that B1ight be assigned
early in a ,~1 riting class. The following editorial-"Should Two- and Four-
Year Degrees Be Free?"-appeared as a guest opinion column in the New
York Times on May 13, 2021. The authors are Stephen Adair, a sociology
professor at Central Connecticut State University, and Colena Sesanker, a
philosophy professor at Gate,.vay Comrnunity College in New l-Iaven, Con-
necticut. (Note: the paragraphs below are nu1nbered so that we can refer
back to the1n 1nore easily.)

Should Two- and Four-Year Degrees Be Free?

Stephen Adair and Colena Sesanker
[l ] The last 40 years have seen an ever-widening inco1ne gap
between those vvith college degrees and those without. Over that
interval, incoB1es have soared for those vvith advanced degrees and
declined for those with high-school diploB1as or less. As a result, the
route to econo1nic security for young people depends increasingly
on access to higher education. Yet it keeps getting 1nore expensive.
 A C AD EMI C READIN G 3 7

[2] Since the Great Recession, the public portion of the operat-
ing costs for state universities and colleges in Connecticut, where
we teach, has declined 20 percent; since the 1980s, it has declined by
nearly half. In the 1960s, tuition for a Connecticut state university was
$100 a year, which could be earned by working fewer than 100 hours
at mini1nun1 wage. Today, a student needs to \.vork nearly 1,000 hours
at the state 1ninin1t1111 of $12 an hour to pay the $11,462 required for
tuition at the least expensive state university in Connecticut.
[3] Our state is hardly unique in abdicating its responsibilities to
the next generation. By 2018, only four states had returned to pre-
recession funding levels at public two- and four-year institutions.
In Arizona the decline has been especially acute: 2018 per-student
higher-education funding was down 55.7 percent from 2008, and
average student tuition costs at four-year institutions increased by
91 percent. In Louisiana, these figures were 40.6 and 105.4 percent,
respectively.
[4] 1he Biden administration has proposed refonns to ease the
student-debt crisis. But a real solution nn1st upend a syste1n of cas-
cading inequities. Restoring the drea111 of higher education as an
equalizer requires a holistic solution that attacks all the sources of
the problen1: a lack of invest1nent in con1mon goods, growing tuition
and student debt and exploitative labor practices that undermine the
quality of education.
[5] The rise in tuition costs, co1nbined with the grcnving econ01nic
value of a college degree, fuels the crisis of student debt, which today
totals $1.7 trillion. To pay for a year of school, three-quarters of A1ner-
ican fa1nilies pay at least 24 percent of their average fa1nily income,
even after grants are distributed.
[6] As students pay 1nore, they often receive less. Nationwide,
nearly 75 percent of all faculty positions are off the tenure track, often
without benefits or long-tenn job prospects. Ironically, h1u1dreds of
thousands of so1ne of the n1ost educated people in the country now
shuttle to and from ca1npus, juggling gigs to try to eke out a living
while unable to give students the attention they deserve.
[7] While President Biden's A1nerican Fa1nilies Plan includes a
provision for free co1n1nunity college, this is an inco1nplete solution.
[8] The College for All Act of 2021, introduced by Senator Bernie
Sanders and Representative Pra1nila Jayapal, would address the crisis
in full. In addition to making co1n1nunity college tuition-free for all, it
would n1ake two- and four-year public colleges and n1inority-serving
38 PAR T O N E : R E A DY, S E T . . .

institutions free for poor and 1n iddle-class students and increase fund-
ing for progra1ns that target students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
[9] Nationally, in 2016, the net average price of college attendance
(the total cost n1inus all grants a\.varded) for students ccnn ing fro1n
the lo\.vest fa mily inco1n e quartile a1nounted to 94 percent of total
fa1n ily incon1e. Unsurprisingly, poorer sh1dents are less present at
higher levels of education nationwide. In Connecticut, students of
color are overrepresented at the introductory levels and increasingly
underrepresented at higher levels.
[10] We stan d to exacerbate racial and class divides if we create
a dead end for poorer students by cutting off funding at the associ-
ate level, stu nting their progress or requiring then1 to take on debt
to continue. By including both two- and four-year institutions and
by expanding Pell grants so they can be used to cover living and
nontuition expenses, the College for All Act ,vottld help bridge the
significant earning gap between those with some college education
and those \.vith bachelor's degrees.
[11] The measure would also address the labor precarity corrod-
ing learn ing conditions: It would require that at least 75 percent of
courses be taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty me1nbers and
help transition short-tenn and part-ti1n e faculty 1ne1nbers to those
positions.
[12] To fund these refonns, the bill proposes a tax on trades of
stocks, bonds and derivatives, to ra ise 1n ore than $600 billion over
the next decade.
[13] The College for All Act complements recent efforts in states
like California, Connecticut, Georgia and New York to boost t wo-
and four-year instih1tions. W hile these efforts are distinct, they all
seek to facilitate the 1n ovement beh,veen tvvo-year colleges and public
tu1iversities and i1nprove equity.
[14] In "TI1e Inequality Machine," Paul Tough de1nonstrates how
the fina ncing st ructure of higher education fails to level the playing
fi eld. Rather, it amplifies the inherited advantages and disadvantages
that were exacerbated during the Covid-19 pande1n ic. I-le docu1nents
what we have too often witnessed: Bright, able and gritty students
sitnply cannot overcome the financial and other obstacles that prevent
then1 fro1n co1n pleting their degrees.
[15] To the extent that higher education reinforces existing inequi-
ties, it contributes to the affliction it is supposed to ease. Solving this
 ACAD EMI C READING 39

problern \\rill expand opportunities for individuals, grow the middle

class, improve the skills of Arnerica's work force and strengthen de1noc-
racy. But this won't happen on its own; it needs a push. So let's push.

ANNOTATION
Earlier, we discussed the in1portance of slo,,ving do,vn when closely reading a
text. One of the best ways to slow down is to annotate, that is, to n1ake notes
or comments on your reading. Annotation requires you to stay focused and
actively engage with the text. Even in the digital age, for some students the
easiest way to annotate re1nains taking a pen or pencil to a printed page. If
you're reading a digital version of a text, find out what annotation tools are
available on the platfonn you're using.
However you encounter a reading, n1ake use of the following annotation
strategies:

• Try to identify the thesis, or 1nain point.

• Write short questions in the margins.
• Circle words you need to look up.
• Note passages where you disagree with the author.
• Note places where the sa1ne idea occurs more than once.
• Use arrows to connect important passages.
• Highlight or underline material that you think is significant. Note:
make sure you're selectively 1narking n1aterial. A paragraph covered in
fluorescent yellow has as little value as one with no highlighting at all.

There's nothing like practice, so before you look at the annotation in Fig-
ure 2.1, go back and try annotating the first three paragraphs of "Should
Two- and Four-Year Degrees Be Free?'' When you're finished , co1npare what
you've done with what's in the book. What does the textbook point out that
you wish you'd noticed? What did you see that I missed? (While you can
obviously skip ahead and read 1ny annotation, why not try it yourself first
to see how you do?)
 4 0 PAR T O N E : R E A DY, S E T . . .

[l] The last 40 years have seen an ever-widening income a

between those with college degrees and those without. Over that
inter va incomes have soared for those with advanced degrees and ih,~ f°'"~dcx
declined fur those with hi h -school di 1 ma e result, he will r,r-ol..b ~ ~I!
route to economic security for young people depends Increasingly +~e '.fa~v$ ~f
on access to higher education. Yet it keeps getting more ex ensive.
1. 10n, e pu ic portion of the operat-
W'ncA- 1S fh,~.? "'1°ng costs or st colleges in Connecticut, where
w~ .., <li~ ,t ""rpe.. ? we teach, has declined 20 percent; since the 1980s, it has declined ;r
L.s+s M,sficf
I by nearly half. In the 1960s, tuition for a Connecticut state uni- +., prove t1,e,<
veuity was S100 a year, which could be earned b wo · ~ p•1-rl"
than 100 hours at minimum wa e. oday, a student needs to work
near , ours at t estate minimum of $12 an hour to pay the
$11,462 required for tuition at the least e ensive state un ·versit '--::> 17-.,-\-'$ /
in Connecticut. .,. /,t.
3 ur state is hardly unique in abdicating its responsibilities to
the next generat ion. 13y 2018, only four states had ret urned to pre-
recess ion fund ing levels at public two- and fou r-year institut ions.
--(v,1c f'1or( In Arizona t he decline has been especially acute: 2018 per-student
~,h..\tS nrC higher-education fund ing was down 55.7 percent from 2008, and
vs«I '1f average studen t tu ition costs at four-year instit utions increased by
,:,i ,!.. ~<L •
9 1 percent. In Lou isiana, these figures were 40.6 and 105.4 percent.
respectively.

Figure 2 .1 Annotation of First Three Paragraphs

As an active reader, vvhat you think about the text is as in1portant as what
the author has written. Active reading is critical reading, which 1neans
refusing to take anything for granted. One benefit of critical reading is that
even when your assignn1ent is on the dull side, your engage1nent with it
doesn't have to be. Your pen or pencil should be flying as you engage with
the author as though the two of you ,.vere on a Zoo1n conference or sitting
in a coffee house having an ani1nated conversation.
Another mark of a strong reader is the tun,villingness to tolerate confu-
sion. If you don't know what so1nething 1neans, you n1ake every effort to find
out. You can't do that if you're a "hands-off" reader. If you don't understand a
piece, your conunentary on it vvill be inaccurate, hazy, and just plain boring.
If your vocabulary isn't as strong as you 1night wish, be sure to look up
any word that you can't confidently define. Back in the day, that tneant
keeping a dictionary nearby, but now you're just click or two away frotn a
definition on your phone or computer. That said, actually writing down or
typing the definition will help you retain it, and as you build your vocabu-
lary, your reading speed and co1nprehension will increase.
One sure-fire ,.vay to identify the words you don't know in a difficult read-
ing is to circle them as you go along. Don't worry about defining the words on
your first reading-just do the best you can to make sense of the piece. TI1en
look up each word, write down its definition, and take another shot at the
 A C AD EMI C READIN G 4 1

reading: you'll be surprised how 1nuch clearer it is the second time around.
S01n e students refrain fro1n writing in print books because they plan on
selling the books back to the bookstore after the class is over, but that's short-
sighted. The bookstore at my college esti1nates that the difference between
returning a textbook that's used and un1narked versus one that's used and
heavily annotated is about five dollars. In other vvords, your understanding
of the n1aterial, and therefore your grade in this class, can be significantly
i1nproved for the price of a decent veggie burger.

DOUBLE-ENTRY JOURNAL
Annotations, while necessary, can be 1nessy. If you'd like to write out
1nore substantial co1n1n entary that you 1night use later in your own essay,
consider creating a double-entry journal. Making a double-entry journal is
easy. Dravv a line dcnvn the 1niddle of a piece of paper. On the left side vvrite
"Stun n1ary," and on the right side put "Response." No,,v jot down each of
the essay's 1nain points on the left; this is basically the "vVhat It Said" side.
Then respond ,~rith co1n1nents and questions in the right-hand cohun n, the
"W hat I Think About It" side. Take a look at Figure 2.2, which contains
responses to two points n1ade by Adair and Sesanker:

Stun1nary Response

-Adair and Sesanker claim that
higher education contr ibutes to the
proble111s it's supposed to be solving.
-As a college student, I find this the
n1ost depressing point of the essay.
I'111 the first person in 111y fan1ily to
go to college, and n1y fan1ily has put
a lot of hope in n1e. However, Adair
and Sesanker's skepticisn1 abo ut col-
lege makes n1e wonder if 111y fa111ily
and I are being nai've.

-There is some hope in the article

-The authors state th at th e Col-
lege for All Act of2021 would
help poorer and underrepresented
students.
for students like 111e, which is a relief.
The College for All Act would make
it so Pell grants cou ld cover living
and nont uition expenses, which, for
111e at least, are the biggest costs dur-
ing the se111ester. I wonder, tho ugh ,
how likely it is for this Act to pass,
especially because it's so expensive
($600 billion) and the country is so
politically divided.

Figure 2.2 Double-Entry Journal

4 2 PAR T ONE: RE AD Y , S E T . . .

ANALYSIS

Rhetorical Analysis
What ,~re've just being doing-closely reading, co1n1nenting on, agreeing or
arguing with the text-1night be called rhetorical analysis: looking at how
an author, her text, and her audience interact with one another.
"Rhetoric" is a loaded word these days, but it doesn't have to equal "insin-
cerity." In the past, 1nastering rhetoric-the art of persuasive speaking and
writing-was considered a cornerstone of education, so much so that books
like this one, which describe ways for students to beco1ne better writers, are
often called "rhetorics." Think about it: we still know the na1nes of fan1o us
rhetoricians like Plato and Aristotle and Cicero, even if we haven't read
their work.
And rhetorical analysis is not as scary as it sounds. Son1e instructors
might argue it's just a fancy way of saying "close reading."
Here is a list of questions you 1night think of as follcnv-ups to the preview
questions. If you want to know why you find a writer's "vork persuasive or
unconvincing, the answer n1ay lie in your responses:

• vVho is the author?

• What is the author's thesis and overall argu1nent?
• vVhat assu1nptions is the author 1naking?
• What evidence does the author offer to support their clain1?
• vVho is the pri1nary audience for the piece?
• Who is the secondary audience?
• Is the author knowledgeable and even-handed in their discussion?

Another interest of conte1nporary rhetoricians is genre, which for our

purposes ca n be defined as "a category of writing." It could n1ean anything
from a poem or a play to a biog post or an advertisement. The 1nain thing
to re1ne1nber is that each genre of writing e1nploys its own "'idely acknowl-
edged set of forms and techn iques. Where a piece of writing appears is
i1nportant because different audiences have different expectations.
We don't, for instance, expect the san1e fonnality in a Facebook post
that we'd want to see in an editorial, like the one above, written for the
New York Times.
Still, as active, critical readers, we 1nay \.vell ask questions of Adair and
Sesanker, even though their article appears in the unofficial "paper of
record" for the United States. W hat 1nade these two Connecticut profes-
 ACAD EMI C READING 43

sors so i1n passioned about t heir subject that t hey sought out p ublication in
a n ational nevvs source to express their opinions? Do they have any career
or fi nan cial stake invested in the success of the College for All Act, or are
they si1n p ly writing with t he best interests of their students in n1ind? Are
there any points where they may be exaggerating the difficu lties t he average
college st udent faces in co1npleting a degree? Do they really think they can
change their readers' n1inds? Did they change yours?

Analyzing Visuals
We'll be looking 1n ore closely at how you n1ight use images in you r own
writing in Ch apters 7 and 10. For now, let's think about how visuals can be
a nalyzed in conjunction with their acco1n panying text. If you're assigned a
reading t hat includes photos or drawings or charts and graphs, you'll want
to ask yourself how they support, contradict, or complicate the written text.
"Should Two- an d Four-Year Degrees Be Free?'' contains no visuals,
but suppose the article had included tvvo photographs: on e of an obviously
wealthy yotu1g n1an at a college party having t he tin1e of his life, and an other
of a college-aged 1nan sweeping an e1npty warehouse wh ile h e glances at a
stack of textbooks that he clearly has no time to read.
The power of these visuals would be conveyed by implication: we read-
ers would likely infer t hat th e rich partier was one of t he lucky ones who
d idn't need to worry about tuition increases and stu dent debt, while the 1n an
sweeping was a victin1 of the "syste1n of cascading in equ ities" that would
likely p revent h im f ron1 co1npleting h is degree. We n1ight come to these
conclusions even if we asstun ed t hat t he i1nages had n o personal connection
to the authors or t heir essay whatsoever.
TI1at's something of a trick, obviously, and genre really mat ters here.
Vve're generally skeptical of t he i1nages used in advertising. We know t hat
just because we use a certain toothpaste or deodorant, we're not really going
to be overwhelmed with ad1nirers. However, we n1ay be less on our guard
when an i1nage appears i n an established newspaper, or in a textbook.
Let's t ake a brief detour fro m "Should Two- an d Four-Year Degrees
Be Free?'' and look at Figure 2.3, a ph otograph taken in 1920, to see how
a single i1n age 1n ight be used by a writer. TI1e photo was taken by Lewis
Wickes I-lines and bears the title of "Power l--Iouse Mechanic Working on
a Stean1 Pu1np." TI1e photograph shows a muscular 1nan in d ark pants and
a sleeveless T-shirt hunched over and gripping an en ormous wrench as he
tightens a bolt on a stea1n ptunp.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 “One is amazed at the destruction accomplished which was not visible
from the sea, and at the bravery of the Arab gunners in remaining at
their posts so long. The number and variety of their guns are
surprising and the stock of projectiles and ammunition is immense. If
they had had more men and been well commanded, the fleet would
have had a very warm reception. In one fort we counted several 18-
ton guns, 19-inch Armstrongs. In another four 9-inch and one 10-inch
Armstrong; in another two 15-inch smooth-bores ... besides 40-
pounder Armstrongs and any number of old 32-pounders.... One small
battery gave the ships a great deal of trouble ... it was effectually
silenced at last, every gun being knocked off the trainings. At Bab el
Meks some Armstrongs were knocked down, others were hit up with
muzzles in the air, and embedded in one gun we found shots from a
Gatling.”[48]
The present United States navy may be said to date from 1883. After
the close of the rebellion the American Government had no further
need of the majority of the war vessels built or improvised for that
struggle, and having sold some, neglected nearly all the remainder.
America and Spain almost came to blows over what was known as
the Virginius affair, and the great republic prepared to do its best on
“the mobilisation in southern waters of a fleet which consisted in
great part of antiquated and rotting ships.”[49] The United States also
sadly missed the possession of an efficient navy when serious
differences arose with a powerful European state over the right
interpretation and application of the Monroe Doctrine to the Panama
Canal and the control thereof. Both these events, supported by the
Ten Years War in Cuba and the unconcealed American sympathy for
the Cubans, prepared the country for the acceptance of the dictum
that a more modern navy was necessary, and this was emphasised
when it was announced during the administration of President
Rutherford B. Hayes that the navy of any European power was
superior to that of the United States, and that even Chili, with the
Almirante Cochrane and the Huascar, would be able to bombard
San Francisco and that the United States Government had not the
means to prevent them.
In order to appreciate the enormous progress which the United
States have made as a naval power in the past thirty years one must
turn to the American Navy List for 1879, and compare it with the
present equipment in the matter of ships and personnel, which
places the United States in the position of being the second naval
power of the world—second, indeed, only to Great Britain, and with
resources for the production of warships of the latest design and the
highest fighting capacity scarcely if at all inferior to those of the
United Kingdom itself. In 1879 there—
“Were five steam vessels classed as first-rates, which had been built
twenty-five years before and were then obsolete and practically
useless as men-of-war; twenty-seven second-rates, of which three lay
on the stocks, rotten and worthless, seven were in ordinary unfit for
repair, and only nine were actually in condition for sea duty; twenty-
nine third-rate steam vessels, of which fifteen only were available for
naval purposes; six fourth-rate steam vessels, none of which was of
account as a warship; twenty-two sailing vessels, but five of which
could even navigate the sea; twenty-four ironclads, fourteen of which
were ready for effective service; and two torpedo vessels, one of
which was described as rather heavy for a torpedo vessel, not working
so handily as is desirable for that purpose, and the other, known as
the Alarm, was in the experimental stage.... In the entire navy there
was not a single high-power, long-range rifled gun.”
Of the bravery of the American sailors of whatever rank there has
never been any question, but the methods of selecting them seem to
have been as peculiar as the British methods of corruption in the old
days, when it was possible for an infant in arms to be on the pay roll
of a British ship when he had never so much as seen the sea, to say
nothing of never having been on board the vessel of which he was
nominally a midshipman.
The following racy account,[50] which illustrates the American system
of the past better than any lengthy description could do, of the
examination of Midshipman Joseph Tatnall, a relative of the famous
American officer of “Blood is thicker than water” fame, will be read
with interest in this connection:—
Commodore: Mr. Tatnall, what would be your course, supposing you
were off a lee shore, the wind blowing a gale, both anchors and your
rudder gone, all your canvas carried away, and your ship scudding
rapidly towards the breakers?
 Tatnall: I cannot conceive, sir, that such a combination of disasters
could possibly befall a ship in one voyage.
Commodore: Tut, tut, young gentleman; we must have your opinion
supposing such a case to have actually occurred.
Tatnall: Well, sir—sails all carried away, do you say, sir?
Commodore: Aye, all—every rag.
Tatnall: Anchor gone, too, sir?
Commodore: Aye; not an uncommon case.
Tatnall: No rudder, either?
Commodore: Aye, rudder unshipped. (Tatnall drops his head
despondently in deep thought.) Come, sir, come; bear a hand about it!
What would you do?
Tatnall (at last and desperate): Well, I’d let the infernal tub go to the
devil, where she ought to go.
Commodore (joyously): Right, sir; perfectly right! That will do, sir. The
clerk will note that Mr. Tatnall has passed.

A naval advisory board was appointed which, in 1881, recommended

that thirty-eight armoured cruisers should be built, of which eighteen
should be of steel and twenty of wood, besides several other
vessels. An influential minority of the board objected to steel lest it
should be imported instead of being manufactured in the United
States. But in 1882 a House of Representatives committee decided
upon steel, not only as the best but as the only proper material for
the construction of war vessels. The committee, cautious but
determined, recommended the building of two 15-knot cruisers, four
14-knot cruisers, and one steel ram. The advisory board desired five
rams, but one was tried as an experiment. This was the Katahdin,
and she was a failure and the experiment was never repeated.
Congress in 1883 decided on two cruisers, not six, of which one
should be between 5,000 and 6,000 tons displacement and have the
highest attainable speed, and the other of between 4,000 and 4,300
tons displacement; and both were to have full sail power and full
steam power. But as no money was voted the ships did not appear.
Another naval advisory board recommended the construction of a
4,000-ton vessel and three of about 2,500 tons, all of steel, and a
smaller iron despatch boat. Congress in March, 1883, adopted the
programme, eliminating only one of the smaller cruisers, and this
time voted an appropriation.

U.S. RAM “KATAHDIN.”

The Chicago was the largest of these vessels; the other three were
the Boston, Atlanta and Dolphin. They were built of American
materials, and were the first vessels of the modern American navy.
The Chicago, besides being a twin-screw vessel, had engines which
recalled the type installed in the famous Stevens battery. The
advocates of the old order adopted with alacrity the role of Job’s
comforters, and predicted with as much cheerfulness as the role
would allow, the absolute failure of the new vessels. The Chicago’s
designed displacement was 4,500 tons, her engines, gave her a sea-
speed of fourteen knots, and she was armed with four 8-inch, eight
6-inch, and two 5-inch breech-loading rifled guns. The Atlanta and
Boston, each of 3,000 tons displacement and speed of thirteen
knots, carried two 8-inch and six 6-inch guns. The Dolphin, of 1,500
tons and fifteen knots, the despatch boat, was given one 6-inch gun.
All four vessels had secondary batteries of smaller guns. The three
cruisers at their trials attained sixteen knots or over.
Europe, which had treated the American fleets with derision, began
to take a tolerant and amused interest in American naval
construction when it became known that the new navy had been
decided upon. The European powers only mustered eight 16-knot
vessels among them, and when three American ships of that speed
appeared, Europe became profoundly interested. These ships and
the Yorktown, built later, constituted the White Squadron which
visited Europe about 1891, and showed the Old World what the New
World could do.
The Charleston, the designs for which were purchased abroad, was
provided with machinery and boilers supposed to embody the best
features of the boilers and machinery of various foreign cruisers, but
they had to be altered considerably before she was considered to
meet American requirements. She was the first vessel of the new
navy to be employed on a warlike service. The supposed filibustering
steamer Itata, at the time of the Chilian insurrection in 1891, escaped
from the custody of the U.S. marshal at San Diego, and the
Charleston was successful in the mission of overtaking her, which
she did at Iquique, after steaming 6,000 miles. The Charleston was
wrecked off Luzon in 1900.
In 1886 the United States made another extraordinary advance by
authorising the construction of the second-class battleship Texas,
the armoured cruiser Maine, the protected cruiser Baltimore, the
dynamite cruiser Vesuvius, and the torpedo boat Cushing. The
Texas and the Maine were the first modern armoured cruising ships
constructed in the United States. They were decided upon as the
result of the knocking to pieces in half an hour of China’s wooden
fleet by the French in the Min River, in August, 1884.
The Cushing, besides being the first American steel torpedo boat,
was the first American warship driven by quadruple expansion
engines. She was named to commemorate the officer who
commanded the launch which rammed and broke a protecting boom,
and blew up the Albemarle in the Civil War. The Vesuvius should be
included rather in the category of freaks or comparative failures, for
though her three pneumatic dynamite guns of 10½-inch calibre,
designed by Lieut. Zalinski, could each hurl shells containing 200 lb.
of dynamite or other high explosive at least a mile, they were soon
outclassed by other artillery. These projectiles were thrown by
compressed air, and not by explosions of dynamite. The Vesuvius
was employed at the blockade of Santiago de Cuba in 1898, where
she frightened the Spaniards with her dynamite shells, but did very
little actual damage. Her three pneumatic guns projected abreast
through the forward part of the deck, some distance aft of the bow,
and sloped at an angle of about 45 degrees. The breech of each gun
was in the hold, and the supports of the weapons were so connected
with the ship itself as to be practically built into it. The guns were
therefore fixtures; their elevation was unalterable and when it was
desired to discharge them to right or left or to alter the range the
whole position of the ship had to be moved. The Texas and
Baltimore were also built on designs purchased abroad. With the
exception of three vessels acquired just before the war with Spain,
all the American ships are entirely the products of American naval
science. The first triple-screw warships were the Columbia—a very
handsome ship, sometimes called the Gem of the Ocean—and her
sister, the Minneapolis. Up to the attack upon the Spaniards in Cuba,
the United States had retained a number of monitors, but the
experiences of 1898 convinced the naval department that vessels of
that class were out of date and unsuitable for modern warfare.

THE U.S. DYNAMITE-GUN BOAT “VESUVIUS.”

 THE “MAINE” ENTERING HAVANA HARBOUR.
Although the American vessels were built in the United States the
compound armour for the turrets had to be imported at first, and it
was not for some years that American-made armour was available
for the navy. Four battleships were launched in the early ’nineties,
and with the Texas comprised the American battleship force in the
war with Spain in 1898. The Americans showed their inventiveness
in the matter of their warships, and not being content always to
follow the lead of other nations, and being convinced that they could
not make more or greater mistakes than some European naval
architects had perpetrated, produced some remarkable vessels.
They were the first to try the superposed turrets, or one turret placed
on top of another. The Kearsarge and Kentucky were thus equipped,
but the experiment did not give the results anticipated, and was not
repeated. But the Americans had shown that the guns of one turret
could fire over another turret, and some of the latest and most
powerful ships of the super-Dreadnought types have their turrets
arranged so that this may be done.
The Maine, really an armoured cruiser, but described as a second-
class battleship, was sent to Havana for political reasons in January,
1898, and was blown up at her moorings on the evening of the 15th
of the following month, two hundred and sixty-six lives being lost.
The explosion was attributed to the Spaniards, but this has been
questioned, as an examination of the wreck, completed in the
summer of 1911, was stated to have revealed that the cause of the
disaster was the explosion of the vessel’s magazines, but a later
examination is said to have shown that the explosion was external.
War between the two countries was now regarded as inevitable, and
both made preparations for the struggle, Spain in that lazy and
incompetent fashion which assured her defeat in advance, and the
United States with as much thoroughness and care as the time
allowed. The resources of the latter country were far superior to
those of her opponent, but Spain by no means made the best of
what she had. The American naval preparations were well conceived
and as well carried out. The most notable exploit in this work was the
remarkable voyage of the battleship Oregon from Bremerton,
Washington, to San Francisco, and thence at her utmost speed
round Cape Horn to Key West. It was the first time any steam
warship had essayed such a feat, and that an American ship should
have accomplished it was a feather in the American cap. Two or
three foreign-built warships were acquired, but the European powers
were friendly to Spain rather than to the United States in the war,
and the latter acquired ninety-seven merchant steamers to act as
auxiliaries to its fighting fleet, and distributed among them no fewer
than five hundred and seventy-six guns in order that they might take
part in the fighting if circumstances required.
In the Pacific the American preparations were no less extensive than
in the Atlantic. The first of the great naval battles of the war was that
of Manila Bay. Admiral Dewey’s flagship was the protected cruiser
Olympia, 5,800 tons displacement, launched at San Francisco in
1892, and having four 8-inch and ten 5-inch quick-firers, fourteen 6-
pounders and ten smaller guns. With her were the protected cruisers
Baltimore 4,600 tons; Raleigh, 3,217 tons; Boston, 3,000 tons; all
heavily armed for their size, and a couple of gunboats.
The Spanish naval force consisted of the steel cruiser Reina
Cristina, 3,520 tons, built at Ferrol in 1886, and carrying six 6·2-inch
Hontoria guns, two 2·7 inch, and three 2·2 inch quick-firers, and ten
smaller guns; a wooden cruiser, the Castilla, 3,342 tons, built at
Cadiz in 1881, and armed with four 5·9 inch Krupps, and sixteen
quick-firers of various sizes; two steel gunboats of English build and
1,045 tons, and some smaller Spanish-built gunboats and a number
of torpedo boats. The shore fortifications had also been
strengthened by the addition of a few heavy guns.
Though there was not a great deal of difference between the
Spanish and American fleets at Manila, according to a comparative
statement issued by the American navy department, the difference
was on the side of the Americans, but with the land forces as well
the advantage on paper lay with the Spaniards. The only instructions
to Admiral Dewey were to “capture or destroy” the Spanish fleet.
This, as it happened, was not a difficult task, for the Spanish vessels
were in a deplorable condition of inefficiency, and the best that the
Spanish admiral could do was to get his ships under the protection of
the forts and keep them there. Not finding the Spanish ships at Subig
Bay, the Americans entered Manila Bay to look for them, heedless of
the mines supposed to be strewn about the channel, but choosing a
dark night illumined only by the flashes of lightning from the thunder
clouds, as though the very elements were desirous of taking part in
the coming struggle and were flashing their signals preparatory to
the discharge of the sky’s artillery. The American ships showed no
light other than that at the stern of each vessel but the last, to enable
that behind to follow in line. The defenders sighted them and opened
fire, but the ships never paused, firing upon the batteries as they
passed. The Spanish admiral, who, conscious of the condition of his
ships, knew that his command was doomed before ever a shot had
been fired, estimated his available tonnage at 10,111 as against the
American 21,410 tons; his h.p. at 11,200, as against 49,290; his
guns at seventy-six, as against the American one hundred and sixty-
three; but he had a slight superiority in the number of men.
After day broke the Spaniards opened the battle, the batteries of
Cavité and Manila starting the firing and being supported by the
Spanish vessels. The Concord sent two shells at the Manila battery
by way of reply, but the rest of the ships steadily steamed towards
the Spanish ships, and it was not until the Olympia was within 5,600
yards of the ships that Dewey gave permission for the Americans to
fire.
“You may fire when you’re ready, Gridley,” Admiral Dewey said in his
imperturbable way. A second later, and one of the Olympia’s forward
guns had answered the Spanish challenge.
The American ships passed parallel to the Spaniards, and one after
another concentrated its fire upon the Reina Cristina, the best ship
the enemy possessed, and only fired upon the others when the
cruiser was out of range. The Spanish admiral essayed to attack the
Americans by advancing against them with his one good fighting
ship, thinking that possibly at closer quarters he might be able to
meet his opponents with a better chance of inflicting damage. For
bravery and audacity the feat ranks high in the annals of naval
combats. But the chance he hoped for was never allowed him. A
shell penetrated the Reina Cristina near the bows and, exploding,
set her on fire. Almost at the same time a heavy projectile crashed
into her stern and an 8-inch shell entered the hole thus made and
exploded, setting her on fire at that end also, and damaging her
engines. She retreated under as heavy a fire as a modern warship
could withstand and yet keep afloat. Of her crew of four hundred and
ninety-three men, but one hundred and sixty, of whom ninety were
wounded, answered to the roll call after the battle.
Three times the Americans passed up and down before the Spanish
ships, gradually decreasing the range to 2,600 yards. Ship after ship
was disabled. Some took refuge behind the Cavité arsenal and were
sunk by the Spaniards rather than be allowed to fall into the
Americans’ possession. One little iron gunboat, the Don Antonio de
Ulloa, whose commander disregarded the Spanish admiral’s orders
to sink his ship, with sublime audacity prepared to offer battle to the
whole American fleet. The Baltimore, Olympia and Raleigh opened
fire upon her. The odds were too great. She fought bravely for a few
minutes, but the guns of the assailing cruisers riddled her sides, and
her crew left as she listed and sank with her colours flying. The
American ships made short work of the shore batteries. The
Americans in the battle of Manila Bay had seven men wounded,
while the injury to the vessels was trivial. The Spaniards lost ten
ships and had three hundred and eighty-one men killed and the
wounded numbered hundreds more.
Determined to make no mistakes, the Americans took the Spanish
fleet in the Atlantic at its strength on paper, ignoring the rumours of
its neglect and inefficiency, and prepared to meet it accordingly.
Spain possessed five armoured cruisers and a battleship, which
were admitted by the Americans to be equal to America’s six best
ships, a few other vessels, and some torpedo boat destroyers. The
real state of the Spanish ships is best revealed by Admiral Cervera
himself. In one letter he wrote:—
“The Colon has not received her big guns; the Carlos V. has not
been delivered, and her 10-cm. artillery is not yet mounted; the
Pelayo is not ready for want of finishing her redoubt, and, I believe,
her secondary battery; the Victoria has no artillery, and of the
Numancia we had better not speak.”[51]
In another letter he complained of the absence of plans and of the
supplies he had asked for not being forthcoming. “The Colon has not
yet her big guns, and I asked for the bad ones if there were no
others. The 14-cm. ammunition, with the exception of about three
hundred shots, is bad. The defective guns of the Vizcaya and
Oquendo have not been changed. The cartridge cases of the Colon
cannot be recharged. We have not a single Bustamente torpedo....
The repairs of the servomotors of the Infanta Maria Teresa and the
Vizcaya were only made after they had left Spain.” And after his
defeat at Santiago, when asked where were certain large guns which
should have been on his ships, he answered that he supposed they
were in the pockets of certain officials in Spain.
 SPANISH BATTLESHIP “PELAYO.”
Photograph by Marius Bar, Toulon.
On May 19th, the Spanish fleet entered Santiago, after having
crawled across the Atlantic to Curaçao, much to the relief of the
Americans, who wondered where the fleet was and feared lest it
should attack New York or some other wealthy Atlantic port. Once
the fleet was inside, a strict blockade was maintained to see that it
did not get out unnoticed. But the venture had to be made sooner or
later.
“The fleet under my command offers the news, as a 4th of July
present, of the destruction of the whole of Admiral Cervera’s fleet.
Not one escaped.”
This was the message Admiral Sampson despatched on July 3rd to
the Secretary of the Navy at Washington.
The situation had become a question of days when the Spanish fleet
should find itself exposed to the fire of the American forces ashore.
While his ships, in spite of their condition, were yet able to offer fight,
Admiral Cervera decided on making a desperate sortie, or attempt to
escape. It was the forlornest of forlorn hopes at best, for he had
nowhere to flee to with any hope of reaching a place of safety, and
turn which way he would, the American ships, well cared for, within
easy reach of their base, with almost unlimited supplies, and eager
for battle, were waiting for him. The Admiral, in the Cristobal Colon,
led the way seaward through the narrow entrance to Santiago Bay,
and fled down the coast. The other ships followed as best they
could. The Americans sought to ram the Spaniards, but could not do
so because of the latter’s superior speed. The fleeing admiral’s ship
did succeed in getting away for the time being. The other ships as
they appeared were fiercely assailed by the American ships. The
Spaniards fought with that gallantry and reckless bravery which have
been a prized Spanish tradition for centuries, but their shooting was
so indifferent that few of the American ships were hit, some were not
touched at all, and only one Spanish shell got home effectively on an
American ship. The Americans, on their part, fired to hit, and hit they
did. The armour of the Spanish ships proved its value, and rang
under the blows like anvils under the strokes of mighty hammers,
and the ships shivered and heeled under the force of the impact.
The engagement began about half-past nine in the morning; by two
o’clock in the afternoon the last ship, the Cristobal Colon, was run
ashore sixty miles down the coast, and Admiral Cervera himself was
a prisoner. In the interval the Infanta Maria Teresa, the Oquendo,
and the Vizcaya were forced ashore and burnt, blown up, or
surrendered, within twenty miles of Santiago. The Furor and Pluton
were destroyed within four miles of the port. Cervera’s ship was
about two knots faster than the American ships which first assailed it,
but it could not hope to escape the other American vessels lying off
the coast, nor did it. In respect to fighting power, weight of metal,
armour protection, and condition for fighting, the Spanish ships were
hopelessly overmatched; and the Spanish guns, whatever may have
been their value on paper, were as inferior as the Spanish gunnery.
One knows not whether to wonder more at the state of mind of an
administration which could send so ill-equipped and neglected a fleet
to the seat of war, or at the extraordinary bravery of the crews who
went in a patriotic cause to what was little else than certain death.
The indifferent shooting which the Spaniards displayed in the
Santiago affair, from first to last, prompted Captain (afterwards
Admiral) Robley D. Evans, otherwise “Fighting Bob,” to declare that
they “couldn’t hit a d——d thing but the ocean” when they missed his
ship with unfailing regularity.

U.S. BATTLESHIP “TEXAS.”

 U.S. BATTLESHIP “IOWA.”
When the Cristobal Colon appeared, the Indiana headed close in
shore to get within short range. The Spaniard fired her 11-inch
Hontoria gun and missed. The American ship replied with her 13-
inch guns, and then discharged every weapon she could bring to
bear upon her ill-fated antagonist, one shell exploding on the
Spanish cruiser’s deck. The Iowa and Texas took up the attack upon
the Cristobal Colon; the Indiana joined with the Brooklyn and Texas
in smashing the Oquendo, which stranded on fire. The Vizcaya next
appeared to run the gauntlet, with two destroyers close behind her.
The destroyers tried to torpedo the Indiana, but the American ship’s
secondary battery soon accounted for them, one drifting ashore and
blowing up. The Vizcaya was set on fire by the American shells, but
was fought until she was no longer tenable before she was
surrendered. The Eulate was also surrendered. The Cristobal Colon
raced with the Brooklyn and Oregon for 3,000 yards, until she struck
the rocks bow-on and remained fast.
The destruction in such short spaces of time of the Spanish fleets in
the Pacific and then in the Atlantic, with such little injury to the
American side, demonstrated most unmistakably the importance and
power of the new American navy. A few years later the famous
cruise round the world was undertaken by an American fleet, and
enabled the powers of the Old World to inspect some of the ships,
and others of later date, which wrought such havoc. Yet such has
been the progress of naval construction that not one of the ships
which made the cruise is now included in the first rank of the
American fighting line.
After the Japanese had decided to adopt war vessels of the Western
types, they ordered a number of vessels of various kinds from
builders in the United Kingdom. Their first ironclad frigate was the
Foo-So, launched from the slip in Messrs. Samuda’s yard at Poplar,
from which the Thunderbolt, the first ironclad ever built for the British
Navy, took the water. Another coincidence was that both the
Thunderbolt and the Foo-So were launched with every armour-plate
upon them. The Foo-So had as her main deck battery, which was
protected by armour 8 inches thick, four Krupp’s long 23-cm. breech-
loading guns, each weighing 15¼ tons. On the upper deck were
placed two long 17-cm. Krupp guns of 5½ tons each, but these were
unprotected. The main deck battery projecting beyond the sides,
permitted of a greater training to the guns. She carried a powerful
ram, and her bowsprit, as was the custom with all vessels at that
time fitted with a ram and bowsprit, was made so that it could be
hauled inboard when a ramming attack was to be made. The ship
was belted on the water-line with 9-inch armour and the vital parts
were equally well protected. She was of 3,700 tons displacement,
and fitted with trunk engines of 3,500 h.p. which, with a steam
pressure of 60 lb., were calculated to give her a speed of fourteen
knots; her coal capacity was expected to enable her to cover 4,500
miles at moderate speed. The first warship on Western lines which
the Japanese built was a little barque-rigged vessel, the Seika,
launched in 1875, a model of which is now (1911) in the Museum at
the Royal Naval College at Greenwich.
The naval engagements in the Chino-Japanese war were not
remarkable for much in the way of fighting, but chiefly for a
pronounced objection by the Chinese officers as a whole to anything
of the sort. A few of them, Admiral Ting among the number, did their
best, but they were so hindered by their colleagues’ incompetence
and cowardice that they never had a chance of success. Guns that
had been neglected, and shells from which the powder had been
extracted and its place filled with charcoal, are not the best weapons
for warfare, and when to these are added coal that was not much
use and ships that were not in fighting condition, it will be seen that
the victory of the well-organised Japanese was a foregone
conclusion. One or two of the Chinese ships offered the best
resistance they could, but it was a hopeless resistance from the
start. The Battle of the Yalu was won by the Japanese before a shot
was fired. The few survivors of the Yalu fell victims at Wei-Hai-Wei.
The training which a cavalry officer received in the Chinese army
was not such as to fit him to command a fleet at sea, even of
Chinese ships, but the former cavalryman who became commander
of the Chinese fleet tried his utmost; his personal bravery was
unquestioned, and he had preferred death to dishonour when he
was found lifeless in the cabin of his beaten ship with a revolver by
his side and a bullet through his brain.
Disciplinarian he was not. It is recorded that like most Chinamen he
was an inveterate gambler, and that on one occasion when the fleet,
as usual, was doing nothing, he found the time heavy on his hands,
and when a visitor went on board the sentries were engaged in fan-
tan in a secluded corner of the deck, the officers who should have
been on duty were similarly engaged elsewhere, and the admiral
himself was acting banker in that charming game with one or two
other officers, and the sentry, who should have been on duty at the
door of the admiral’s cabin, joining whole-heartedly in the gamble.
Of China’s principal battleships, two fine vessels of 7,400 tons
displacement, one the Chen-Yuen, surrendered at Wei-Hai-Wei, and
having been repaired, was taken to Japan and added to the navy of
her captors, and the other was sunk by a Whitehead torpedo during
a night attack by torpedo boats at Wei-Hai-Wei. Similar fates befell a
couple of armoured cruisers, and of the six smaller cruisers which
completed China’s fleet at the Battle of the Yalu, five were sunk or
wrecked, and one surrendered. One was raised and added to the
Japanese navy. Some of the ships of which China was despoiled
distinguished themselves in the Japanese attack upon the Russians
at the Battle of Tsushima.
The Battle of Tsushima, which ended Russia’s naval pretensions in
the war between that country and Japan a few years ago, is the only
one in which modern ships and guns have been employed on both
sides in anything approximating to equal terms. After the Russian
squadron already in the Far East had suffered so severely at Port
Arthur and the few vessels at Vladivostok deemed it advisable to
stay there, Russia collected as many sea-going war vessels of all
shapes and sizes as she could muster, and sent them out in two
detachments from Europe in the hope that they would reach
Vladivostok, Japan permitting. The voyage was exciting enough at
the start when, through a bad attack of nerves, the Russians opened
fire upon and damaged one or two British trawlers in the North Sea
under the delusion that they were Japanese torpedo boats
advancing to attack them. Loud was the outcry in Great Britain and
great was the clamour that the British fleet should make short work
of the Russian ships before they did any more damage. But the
Government saved its powder and money and put its trust in the
Japanese, confident that the Mikado’s ships would do all that was
necessary if the imaginative Russians ever got that far. The Russian
ships were very slow, the best speed of which the fleet was capable
was nine knots, and as the Russians themselves estimated the
Japanese speed at sixteen knots, and this estimate was endorsed by
the naval experts, it was taken for granted that the Russian fleet was
going out to certain disaster.
THE RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP “TSAREVITCH” AFTER THE FIGHT OFF PORT
ARTHUR, AUGUST 10, 1905.
 EFFECTS OF JAPANESE SHELLS ON THE “GROMOBOI.”
The progress of this heterogeneous fleet was a matter of some
months, but at last it approached the Japanese coast, off which the
ships of the Mikado’s fleet were waiting. The Japanese vessels,
being of superior speed, were able to choose their own position for
the attack. No innovations in the way of tactics were attempted.
When the Japanese were ready they attacked, and they selected a
moment for doing so when the slow-moving Russian ships were
attempting to carry out an order of their admiral and were, in
consequence of the order being incompletely executed, unable to
offer a resistance to the suddenness of the attack. This very
suddenness, indeed, threw them into greater disorder, and rendered
them the more easily assailable by their relentless antagonists.