Book excerpt: All the help students need to succeed Because so many first-year writing students lack the basic skills the course demands, reading specialist McWhorter gives them steady guidance through the challenges they face in academic work. Successful College Writing offers extensive instruction in active and critical reading, practical advice on study and college survival skills, step-by-step strategies for writing and research, detailed coverage of the nine rhetorical patterns of development, and 61 readings that provide strong rhetorical models, as well as an easy-to-use handbook in the complete edition. McWhorter’s unique visual approach to learning uses graphic organizers, revision flowcharts, and other visual tools to help students analyze texts and write their own essays. Her unique attention to varieties of learning styles also helps empower students, allowing them to identify their strengths and learning preferences. "Successful College Writing is not just about the mastery of academic discourse. It’s a leader in its genre because it helps students acquire valuable strategies for creating effective texts that are associated with expert professional communication in general." — Lilia Savova, Indiana University of Pennsylvania