Dear Colleague:

Thank you for taking the time to consider Writing Matters! As I look back on a decade's worth of teaching, writing, and research I ask myself, “Becky, what have you been doing that makes you think it would be a good idea to write a composition handbook?” Since this seems like a question you also might ask, I'll answer. In Writing Matters, I draw on my teaching experience and my research to focus sustained attention on issues of responsibility, specifically the responsibilities writers have to their readers, to other writers, to their topic, and, most especially, to themselves. The result is a teaching and learning framework that unites research, rhetoric, documentation, grammar, and style into a cohesive whole, helping students find consistency in rules that might otherwise confound them. Students learn that responsible writers consider their readers not only by using conventions appropriate to the audience—an academic readership, for example, as opposed to readers of an informal blog—but also by writing clearly and providing readers with the information and interpretation they need to make sense of a topic. Students learn that responsible writers not only cite the work of other writers accurately but also treat those writers' ideas fairly. They learn that responsible writers provide reliable information about a topic at a depth that does the topic justice. Most importantly, they learn that responsible writers take their writing seriously and approach writing assignments as opportunities to learn about new topics and to expand their scope as writers. Students are more likely to write well when they think of themselves as writers rather than as error-makers. By explaining rules in the context of responsibility, I address composition students respectfully as mature and capable fellow participants in the research and writing process.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Moore Howard