Book excerpt: Smarter Writing: A Student's Guide to College Composition and Research helps students gain the writing skills needed to produce college level summaries, critiques, analyses, syntheses, and documented research papers, and provides instruction in analysis, argument, research techniques, and critical thinking skills. Written to be accessible and student-friendly, and to minimize the anxiety many students feel when approaching college-level writing, the book features relatable examples and steers away from formal academic language. Students learn to write effective theses, introductions, bodies, and conclusions to the standard college essay. They become familiar with common rhetorical modes, and comfortable searching for source material and using the MLA format. Designed to enhance students' skills, to demonstrate effective techniques for organizing, researching and writing well, and perhaps most importantly, to boost students' confidence in their own abilities to manage their work and succeed in an academic environment, Smarter Writing is ideal for introductory composition courses. It is also an excellent text for writing courses for international students. Yelena Kajevic Bailey-Kirby earned her master's degree in English literary studies with an emphasis in classic modern writing at the University of London, Royal Holloway. She is a professor of English at the College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas, where her courses include English composition, developmental and creative writing, as well as world and contemporary literature. In addition to teaching, Professor Bailey-Kirby has served as a member of the college's composition, curriculum, assessment, library advisory, and writing center advisory committees. She is a member of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, the National Association of Developmental Education, National Council of Teachers of English, and the Modern Language Association.