Reflecting new development in the field of rhetoric and composition, this textbook's third edition incorporates major changes which propose to turn theory into practical advice. These additions in the third edition draw on a new theoretical understanding of how writers operate within a discourse community, on a new research-based view of the revision process, and on the pedagogy of translating such ideas into a structured sequence of assignments. Chapter 1 is an overview of the kinds of writing people do. It looks at examples of academic, professional, and personal writing and introduces two major concepts that run throughout the book--writing for the reader and hierarchical organization. From this point on, the book focuses on the writing process itself. Chapter 2 looks at familiar theories and models of the writing process. Chapter 4 shows how writers construct their own internal, mental representations of meaning. Most of the rest of the book (chapters 3, 5, 6, 7, and 9 through 12) is organized around a set of steps or major tasks the writer must handle: planning, generating ideas, and evaluating and editing prose. Chapter 8 discusses analyzing a problem and building a thesis. The book concludes with two case studies on research writing which cover the process of doing research and developing arguments when writing research papers, consulting reports, and proposals. (MG)