Getting Started with This Textbook
Welcome to ENGL 1020: Research & Argumentative Writing!
This is an open access, Creative Commons licensed textbook. Because this book functions differently than a print text, we encourage you to take a moment to familiarize yourself with the functionality. In developing this text, we focused on keeping it low cost and accessible, so choose the method of access – whether that means printing out a copy, or reading it on a digital device – that meets your needs most effectively.
The way to navigate this textbook on the Pressbooks platform is by using the “Content” drop-down menus on the left side of the screen. Also, you can “turn pages” by using the “Next” and “Previous” buttons on the bottom of your screen. The text is divided into sections that address Introduction to Research and Argumentative Writing, Research Processes, Working With Sources, Rhetoric & Argumentation, Remediation and Delivery, Reflection, and an Appendix that addresses citation and style concerns related to the research process.
Within each sections are chapters that we think you’ll find both useful and engaging to read. The readings in this text come from 1st Edition: A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in First-Year Writing, by Melanie Gagich and Emilie Zickel, and different peer-reviewed collections: Try This: Research Methods For Writers, by Jennifer Clary-Lemon, Derek Mueller, and Kate Pantelides; Writing Spaces, edited by Dana Driscoll, Mary K. Stewart, and Matthew Vetter; Writing Commons, created and edited by Joseph Moxley; the Bad Ideas About Writing Podcast, by Kyle Stedman; and Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe.
When the chapter derives from one of these peer-reviewed texts, we include an abstract at the top, a link to the original source, keywords, and author bio(s). If these components are not visible in the chapter, then it either derives from Gagich and Zickel’s 1st Edition: A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in First-Year Writing, the book that we cloned to create The Ask, or we’ve authored original text.
If you’d like a print version of this textbook, we invite you to download a PDF version (see front cover).
