The Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition

by Thomas Cooley

Book Overview

With 71 readings (half new to this edition), well-written writing instruction (including templates to help students get started), and new navigation features that make it very easy to use, The Norton Sampler is a rhetorically arranged reader that practices what it preaches about good writing.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393919463
• ISBN13: 9780393919462
• Release Date: February 2013
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 697 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Entertaining

I really enjoyed most of the essays in this book. It was a good samples and groups them according to the type of essay they are. I would love to even have it explain why some of those essays are the type they are as i had a hard time with some of them.

School Book

A collection of essays assembled by type and style of writing.The book instruvts how to write common essay types by presenting the reader with a few examples of each kind. The cool part is the commentary by the authors of some of the essays as to what they were thinking when they wrote them and how they went about the writing process.Good use for an Intro to Writing college level class.

The essay is alive and well written

Norton Readers have long been a staple of university literature and composition courses, which is no doubt the original purpose of this volume (hence the extended title, "Short Essays for Composition"). If you don't let this deter you, you will be rewarded with a collection of some of the best of American essays with a plus. This is not only a collection of well written essays spanning early and modern nonfiction, but you have the bonus of modern prose stylists such as Annie Dillard and Barry Lopez talking about the pieces that are included: how they get ideas, how they craft their work, why they write in nonfiction. A satisfying and interesting collection, well worth reading and passing along to others. Great for teachers and students interested in learning about nonfiction as well, as nonfiction as a genre is the organizing schema of this volume.