本書是一部全麵、係統、實用的英語寫作教材，適閤大學英語專業學生、非英語專業高年級學生以及其他希望提高英語寫作水平的學習者使用。

本書第一部分介紹作文的寫作過程；第二部分列舉瞭作文的九種寫作方法，即描寫、敘事、舉例、過程、因果、對比、定義、分類和論述；第三部分的目的是：以前兩部分為基礎，提高大學生的寫作能力，涉及大學階段專門題材的寫作；第四部分介紹遣詞造句的技巧；最後一部分是用於寫作練習的預讀材料。

和前幾版相比，該版進行瞭一些改進。首先，隨著因特網的普及，在資料的檢索方麵更加快捷和廣泛，這一版加強瞭這方麵的指導，並配備瞭一些網上學習材料。其次，本版增加瞭避免抄襲行為的內容，是學生能夠更規範地錶達自己的思想。第三，在第三章加強瞭對“論題”的指導。第四，全書共增加瞭五篇新的閱讀材料。

John Langan has taught reading and writing at Atlantic Cape Com-munity College near Atlantic City, New Jersey, for more than twenty-five years. The author of a popular series of college textbooks on both writing and reading, John enjoys the challenge of developing materials that teach skills in an especially clear and lively way. Before teaching, he earned advanced degrees in writing at Rutgers University and in reading at Rowan University. He also spent a year writing fiction that,he says, "is now at the back of a drawer waiting to be discovered and acclaimed posthumously." While in school, he supported himself by working as a truck driver, a machinist, a battery assembler, a hospital attendant, and an apple packer. John now lives with his wife, Judith Nadell, near Philadelphia. In addition to his wife and Philly sports teams, his passions include reading and turning on nonreaders to the pleasure and power of books. Through Townsend Press, his educational publishing company, he has developed the nonprofit "Townsend Library"--a collection of more than thirty new and classic stories that appeal to readers of any age.