I. AN APPROACH TO WRITING. 1. Introduction: Getting Started. 2. What Is a Composition? 3. Planning Your Essay: The Thesis. 4.

Planning Your Essay: Creating Ideas and Paragraphs. 5. Improving Your Paragraphs. 6. Essay Patterns. 7. Editing Your Writing. 8.

The Appearance of Your Paper. 9. The Double-Correction Method. II. THE SENTENCE. 10. Building a Sentence. 11.

How to Avoid Sentence Fragments. 12. How to Avoid Run-Ons and Comma Splices. 13. Sentence Style: Clarity, Coherence, and Grace. III. VERBS. 14.

Subject-Verb Agreement. 15. The Past Tense. 16. The Past Participle: When To Use It and When Not To. 17. Progressive Tenses: Present and Past. 18.

Tense Consistency. IV. DICTION: USING THE RIGHT WORD. 19. Using the Correct Part of Speech. 20. Articles: The, A, An. 21.

Confusing Words. 22. English Idioms for ESL Writers. V. SPECIAL GRAMMAR POINTERS. 23. Advice for ESL Writers. 24.

Word Endings. 25. Using Pronouns Correctly. 26. Avoiding Double Negatives. 27. Using Modifiers Correctly. VI.

MECHANICS. 28. Capitalization. 29. Spelling. 30. Punctuation. READER AND VOCABULARY BUILDER.

"The Treasure in the Orchard," Aesop. From Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. From Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare. From "Motherhood," Elizabeth Cady Stanton. From, "Civil Disobedience," Henry David Thoreau. "I''m Nobody! Who Are You?," Emily Dickinson. From "Spiritual Training," Mohandas K. Gandhi.

From Abraham Lincoln, Carl Sandburg. From The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. "Salvation" from The Big Sea, Langston Hughes. From Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth, Richard Wright. "Passports to Understanding," Maya Angelou. From "The World House," Martin Luther King, Jr. From The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank. From Angela''s Ashes, Frank McCourt.