Book excerpt: This book helps students succeed in composition by showing them: How to be effective students How to handle the most difficult challenges of academic writing How to approach the most common writing assignments. How to pass a timed writing test William Murdick has a Ph. D. in rhetoric and is the author of three other writing textbooks, The Portable Business Writer (Houghton Mifflin, 1999), and The Portable Technical Writer (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), and College Writing: A First Course - Writing and Reasoning (Jain, 2006). Note on the Second Edition: This expanded Second Edition includes full-chapter treatments of the five-paragraph theme and the cause-effect essay.