, SOLUTION MANUAL FOR The Writer’s Harbrace Handbook 7th Edition
Glenn
Important Notes
The file includes the complete test bank, organized chapter by chapter.
A sample of selected pages has been provided for preview.
All available appendices and Excel files (if included in the original resources) are
provided.
We continuously update our files to ensure you receive the latest and most accurate
editions.
New editions are added regularly – stay connected for updates!
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,Answer Key for Exercises in
The Writer’s Harbrace Handbook,
Seventh Edition
Cheryl Glenn, Penn State University
Loretta S. Gray, Central Washington University
CHAPTER 1 READING, WRITING, AND THE RHETORICAL
SITUATION
Answers to the exercises in this chapter will vary.
CHAPTER 2 PLANNING AND DRAFTING ESSAYS
Answers to the exercises in this chapter will vary.
CHAPTER 3 REVISING AND EDITING ESSAYS
Answers to the exercises in this chapter will vary.
CHAPTER 4 MANAGING ACADEMIC WRITING
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 5 COMMUNICATING ONLINE
Answers to the exercises in this chapter will vary.
CHAPTER 6 MULTIMODAL COMPOSING
Answers to the exercises in this chapter will vary.
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 1
website, in whole or in part.
,CHAPTER 7 COMPOSING ARGUMENTS
EXERCISE 1 (P. 138)
1. Fact. This can be demonstrated relatively easily by referring to a list of presidents, such
as https://potus.com/presidential-facts/presidents-age-at-death/.
2. Opinion. To substantiate this opinion, a writer may include studies that show that college
graduates tend to make more money than nongraduates or are more likely to attain
positions that are desirable to them. However, since the word “guarantees” implies an
absolute condition that the writer may find difficult to prove to a skeptical audience, the
writer may also consider modifying the claim to suggest that college graduates are more
likely to get a good job than nongraduates. The word “guaranteed” is important in
making this statement an opinion. Students might be inclined to declare this statement a
fact and cite evidence suggesting that college graduates have more lifetime earning
potential than those without a college degree, such as the U.S. Census Bureau’s July
2002 report entitled “The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of
Work-Life Earnings”: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/
Census/library/publications/2002/demo/p23-210.pdf. This evidence, however, only
shows earning potential, not earning guarantees.
3. Fact. This statement uses the phrase “at the highest risk” to qualify the assertion. This fact
can be proven through reputable medical sources such as the National Library of Medicine:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856596/
4. Fact. This information can be verified through statistics compiled by organizations or
publications that cover the Super Bowl, such as Pro Football Reference:
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/super-bowl/.
5. Opinion. To substantiate this opinion, a writer would first need to cite relevant authorities
from the social sciences, cognitive sciences, or education who maintain that every
American student actually does possess the potential to learn how to write well. A writer
might also need to cite professionals across a range of jobs or a humanities scholar who
can articulate the reasons why writing well is important for students’ present and future
academic, civic, and professional life.
6. Fact. Online sources, such as Wikipedia, PBS.org, and Tourism Santa Fe, agree that
Santa Fe, New Mexico, was established as the capital of the territory in 1607, making it
the oldest capital in North America and the oldest European city west of the Mississippi.
7. Opinion. In substantiating this claim, a writer might cite studies that demonstrate the
benefits of yoga for health and include arguments from health care authorities about the
positive effects on the health of patients who regularly perform such exercise. However,
the author might also need to consider challenges to this claim, such as situations in
which practicing yoga might not, in fact, be good for one’s health.
8. Opinion. The United States is presently involved in a number of conflicts, but to support
this claim, the author would need to establish whether they are “major” invasions or
“direct” wars, which is open to debate.
9. Fact. The reliability of this statement can be demonstrated with a chemical equation (for
certain audiences) or by expert testimony.
10. Opinion. Lower Manhattan, site of the 9/11 terror attacks, has risen again with a taller-
than-ever World Trade Center and rehabilitated offices, shops, and the new Ground
Zero Memorial Museum. Physically, New York appears to have recovered fully. But
emotionally it has not, as armed police regularly monitor the city, especially around such
busy sites as Times Square, the Empire State Building, and arenas. New Yorkers and
tourists alike remain on high alert, given that New York City (like Brussels and many
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 2
website, in whole or in part.
, other cities) remains a potential site for terror attacks like the one in Paris. Such online
news sites as nytimes.com, USAToday.com, and many others report daily on New
York’s continued recovery and worries..
EXERCISE 2 (P. 141)
Answers may vary. Sample answer below.
Most of the claims in this particular excerpt seem to be absolute claims. For example, West
suggests that current society requires blacks to do “all” the work for “healthy race relations”
(sentence 3) and that “only” a specific class of Americans is involved in defining American identity
(sentence 4). His second statement seems to be slightly more moderate: although he suggests
that terms for discussion shape perception and response, he does not argue that these terms are
the only things that influence the discussion. In addition, the verb “shapes” seems to indicate a
more moderate claim than a stronger verb like “determines” would indicate. The first sentence
involves some implicit claims about “historic inequalities” and “longstanding cultural stereotypes”
that are substantiation claims: writers can point to specific evidence to demonstrate that these
inequalities and stereotypes do in fact exist. Although no specific sentence here makes an
evaluation claim, the negative way in which West describes the situation of race relationships
(particularly in sentence 3) suggests that the current situation is unethical and highly problematic.
The first sentence begins to set up the policy claim of the passage, as it clearly indicates that our
discussion of race relations needs to start with the problems of American culture. The rest of the
policy claim is more Implicit: West suggests that in order to consider the problems of American
culture, we need to also reconsider the language that we use to discuss race relations, because
the language itself is a large part of the problem.
EXERCISE 3 (P. 144)
Answers may vary. Sample answer below.
In this passage, Heather Holleman discusses the distracting effects of cellphones and their
contribution to feelings of isolation. She describes examples in which people have, and have
not, chosen to put away their phones while interacting with her. She expresses dismay at
people’s tendency to have their phones on hand at all times and prefers for devices to be put
out of sight during conversations to facilitate attentive communication (a). She concedes (c) that
some people do respect others in this way, and puts her own phone away and on silent when
she is in a conversation (b). The article raises the question, what other ways are we
unconsciously inattentive to the people around us (d)?
EXERCISE 4 (P. 153)
Answers may vary. Sample answer below.
Sample letter to the editor, Penn State Daily Collegian, October 26, 2005
Letter to the Editor
Columnist critiqued editing process well
I find the attempt to erase Bryan Peach’s column reprehensible and extremely unethical
(“Columnist’s Dismissal Not First Amendment Violation,” Oct. 24). Having read the column
(thanks to PDF files) I really don’t see what the big flap is.
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 3
website, in whole or in part.
, The practice of an editor vetting columns and articles is the definition of what an editor does.
Why was he fired for discussing it? And more importantly, why was it necessary to erase that
column?
Jeanette Hannah’s response to the now-phantom column answers neither question.
Whether she regrets allowing the column to be published or not is irrelevant. What was so
dangerous about the column? Peach simply stated sometimes it is difficult to write a column the
editor wants to see as opposed to the column he wants to write.
Famous columnists ranging from Tony Kornheiser to Charles Krauthammer have
complained in print about the same thing, and last time I checked both still had jobs.
Journalists and readers should question the ethics of someone who attempts to cover what
she considers a judgment error by deleting a column far more closely than a columnist whose
only crime seems to be recommending that readers use more than one source to form an
opinion.
Perhaps Peach should have written about celebrity couples or gaucho pants instead of
offering a glimpse inside the world of a newspaper columnist.
Tom DuSold
Class of 2004
Sample student response:
The author of this editorial clearly lays out the purpose of his letter to the editor in the
opening lines, where he questions the ethics of attempting to erase the online archived columns
of a Daily Collegian columnist who was recently fired for publicly discussing certain editorial
practices. Since he published this in the Collegian itself, it seems safe to say that his audience
included other students, but more particularly Collegian staff members and supervisors who are
the target of his ethical critique. In this particular letter, the author uses primarily logical appeals,
raising a series of logical question about the actions pursued in the incident and pointing to
examples of well-known columnists who have engaged in similar practices without endangering
their position. In addition, he maintains a relatively neutral tone—although he questions
Hannah’s action, he doesn’t directly attack her; instead, he chooses a more subtle route, asking
questions about her actions and suggesting (without naming names) that we question the ethics
of “someone” in her position more than the columnist who was fired. The closing irony of the last
paragraph is a nice touch—it suggests that trivial topics are the only safe topics for Collegian
journalists and, by extension, suggests that the Collegian editors think such banal topics are the
only topics their student audience wants to hear about.
EXERCISE 5 (P. 161)
Answers may vary. Sample answers below.
NB: Some of these statements may exhibit more than one type of faulty reasoning; this key
is not exhaustive, so if students provide different answers from those given here, teachers
will need to consider each case on its own merit.
1. This first statement is an illustration of an either/or fallacy, since the author presents no
alternatives to these two choices. I might accept this statement if the author could prove
that no other option in this instance is feasible. An acceptable revision of this statement
might be: “Unless we begin to find alternative ways of delivering college courses, we
must either build more classrooms or admit fewer new students.”
2. Both a non sequitur and a false cause (post hoc, ergo propter hoc) fallacy, this
statement could be reworked to read: “The more people of all cultural-ethnic groups who
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 4
website, in whole or in part.
, believe that black lives matter, the fewer people who will hold on to racist attitudes.” Just
because we join the movement, as the original sentence reads, doesn’t mean that we
are influential enough to make such a dramatic change.
3. This statement illustrates several different kinds of faulty reasoning. For one thing, it
oversimplifies a relatively complex issue (the gender wage gap) by limiting it to a single
cause. The author may need to provide more potential causes for the wage gap. In
addition, this statement begs the question: Is income correlated to education? To prove
this, the author would need to demonstrate that men’s incomes (as well as women’s) are
definitely a result of educational attainment (and not other factors). Finally, some readers
might see this statement as a kind of red herring: it obscures what some might see as
the real issue, by placing the responsibility for the wage gap on women, rather than
examining the social structures that produce this gap (and men, conveniently, play no
role in this setup of the wage gap). The writer might revise the statement to read: “There
are several possible causes of the wage gap between men and women. One possibility
that needs to be examined more fully in discussions of salary inequity is the role that an
advanced degree plays.”
4. Another false cause sentence (post hoc, ergo propter hoc), the current sentence asserts
that people don’t have jobs because they are receiving COVID-19 benefits, as though
these benefits are the reason for a high unemployment rate. The sentence could be
reworked to read: “If COVID-19 benefit recipients had more opportunities for full-time
employment, chances are many of them could go off the benefits.”
5. This statement seems to have multiple lines of faulty reasoning. First of all, it exemplifies
a false cause argument: just because two things (like increased TV viewing and an
increasing rate of childhood obesity) happen at the same time does not mean that they
are related. In order for readers to accept this argument, the author needs to
demonstrate a connection between television viewing and childhood obesity. This
statement is also an oversimplification: if television viewing is correlated with obesity,
there may still be other factors contributing to children’s severe weight gain. The author
needs to demonstrate that television viewing is the primary cause for children’s
significant weight gain. Finally, this statement is a bit of a non sequitur: it implies that if
children simply stop watching television they would no longer be facing significant weight
gain, and that argument doesn’t necessarily follow. An alternate argument might read as
follows: “The nation might help children begin to fight obesity by encouraging them to
watch less television and spend more time engaging in physical activity.”
EXERCISE 6 (P. 168)
Answers may vary. Sample answer below.
In his essay, author Billy Lucas reveals a high degree of scepticism about the safety of youth
tackle football. He opens with an example: a description of a young boy in the hospital being
treated for a concussion sustained during a game. The boy is part of a television series that
Lucas says “glorifies” youth football, and he describes the parents as “visibly shaken.” These
descriptive choices show that Lucas is sympathetic to the boy and his family, and that he is
motivated to find a way to make the game safer.
Lucas then demonstrates logic by presenting statistics and research to illustrate the dangers
and points out obvious risks that have not yet been fully defined. Because football is such a
popular sport, Lucas says, the best course of action is to protect players by considering options
like flag football until they are fully grown and can understand the risks for themselves. These
suggestions could stem from a personal experience with concussion or other injuries, either by
the author himself, or perhaps a friend.
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 5
website, in whole or in part.
,CHAPTER 8 PLANNING RESEARCH
Situate Yourself: Research (p. 169)
Answers will vary.
EXERCISE 1 (P. 175)
Answers will vary. Sample answers below.
1. How is the rise of for-profit colleges and universities affecting the nature of college
education in more traditional settings? How has the increasing cost of a college
education affected students during and after their time in school?
2. How does a divorce affect a teenager’s self-concept and development of friendships?
What motivates people who have been married over twenty years to consider divorce?
What are the consequences for public health of adding fluoride to the local water
supply?
3. How will schools address the increasing prevalence of AI tools, and how is it affecting
students’ education? How will learning outcomes change in a world where AI is just
another tool people can use?
4. What motivates people who have pioneered the field of extreme sports? How has the
rise of extreme sports affected youth participation in more “traditional” sports such as
baseball, basketball, softball, and soccer?
5. What do the terms “positive” and “negative” mean in relation to the concept of “body
image”? How do U.S. media (e.g., films, television, magazines) compare to other
countries in terms of the body images they project for men and women?
6. How does student use of electronic social networking services affect their offline
relationships in college? How and why are businesses using social networking services?
CHAPTER 9 FINDING APPROPRIATE SOURCES
EXERCISE 1 (P. 185)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
EXERCISE 2 (P. 186)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
EXERCISE 3 (P. 187)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
EXERCISE 4 (P. 192)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 6
website, in whole or in part.
,CHAPTER 10 EVALUATING PRINT AND ONLINE SOURCES
EXERCISE 1 (P. 201)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
CHAPTER 11 USING SOURCES CRITICALLY AND RESPONSIBLY
EXERCISE 1 (P. 214)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
EXERCISE 2 (P. 221)
1. Problematic—no author’s name
2. CORRECT
3. Problematic—inaccurate paraphrase
4. Problematic—paraphrase is too close to original
5. CORRECT
6. CORRECT
Situate Yourself: Disciplines and Documentation Styles (p. 223)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
CHAPTER 12 WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
EXERCISE 1 (P. 239)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
EXERCISE 2 (P. 247)
Answers will vary. Sample answer below.
In terms of the personal and political values that Kristin Ford brings to her interpretation of the
text, most students will emphasize her commitment to gender equality, a value communicated in
part through Ford’s use of words with negative connotations to describe various aspects of
gender discrimination, such as “men’s patronizing treatment of and abusive power over women”
(250), “husbands could impose their rules on women” (251), “to simply, almost flippantly,
dismiss the protesting pleas of mentally ill women” (252), and “showing just how oblivious
men . . . were to the struggles of women” (253). Also, while some students might try to describe
Ford’s theoretical approach to the literary text as a psychoanalytic one, given that the literary
text itself focuses on nineteenth-century psychiatric approaches to women and mental illness,
most students will analyze Ford’s paper as a feminist theoretical approach to literary theory.
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 7
website, in whole or in part.
, CHAPTER 13 MLA DOCUMENTATION
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 14 WRITING IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 15 APA DOCUMENTATION
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 16 WRITING IN THE HUMANITIES
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 17 CMS DOCUMENTATION
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 18 WRITING IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 19 CSE DOCUMENTATION
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 20 WRITING IN BUSINESS
There are no exercises in this chapter.
Situate Yourself: Grammar (p. 473)
Answers will vary. The following are possibilities.
During the winter season in northern climes, snowflakes do not only fall from the sky. They are
knitted into sweaters, drawn onto cards, and hung as decorations. However, what most people think
of as a snowflake, according to Kenneth Libbrecht, is really a snow crystal. The difference between
the two is that snowflake has a general meaning while snow crystal is specific—similar to the
relationship between flower and tulip. Snowflakes may consist of a single snow crystal or multiple
snow crystals. It is the individual snow crystal that fascinates. Growing six main branches and then
sidebranches, the snow crystal takes form. The numbers of sidebranches vary, resulting in some
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 8
website, in whole or in part.
Glenn
Important Notes
The file includes the complete test bank, organized chapter by chapter.
A sample of selected pages has been provided for preview.
All available appendices and Excel files (if included in the original resources) are
provided.
We continuously update our files to ensure you receive the latest and most accurate
editions.
New editions are added regularly – stay connected for updates!
✅ Why Buy From Us?
📚 Complete & organized chapter-by-chapter – no missing content, no guessing.
⚡ Instant digital delivery – get your file the moment you pay, no waiting.
📅 Always up to date – we track new editions so you always get the latest version.
💬 Friendly support – real humans ready to help, anytime you need us.
🔒 Safe & secure – thousands of satisfied students trust us every semester.
🛡️Our Guarantees
💰 Money-Back Guarantee: Not satisfied? We offer a full refund – no questions asked.
🔄 Wrong File? No Problem: Contact us and we will replace it immediately with the
correct version, free of charge.
⏰ 24/7 Support: We are always here – reach out anytime and expect a fast response.
Contact Email:
,Answer Key for Exercises in
The Writer’s Harbrace Handbook,
Seventh Edition
Cheryl Glenn, Penn State University
Loretta S. Gray, Central Washington University
CHAPTER 1 READING, WRITING, AND THE RHETORICAL
SITUATION
Answers to the exercises in this chapter will vary.
CHAPTER 2 PLANNING AND DRAFTING ESSAYS
Answers to the exercises in this chapter will vary.
CHAPTER 3 REVISING AND EDITING ESSAYS
Answers to the exercises in this chapter will vary.
CHAPTER 4 MANAGING ACADEMIC WRITING
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 5 COMMUNICATING ONLINE
Answers to the exercises in this chapter will vary.
CHAPTER 6 MULTIMODAL COMPOSING
Answers to the exercises in this chapter will vary.
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 1
website, in whole or in part.
,CHAPTER 7 COMPOSING ARGUMENTS
EXERCISE 1 (P. 138)
1. Fact. This can be demonstrated relatively easily by referring to a list of presidents, such
as https://potus.com/presidential-facts/presidents-age-at-death/.
2. Opinion. To substantiate this opinion, a writer may include studies that show that college
graduates tend to make more money than nongraduates or are more likely to attain
positions that are desirable to them. However, since the word “guarantees” implies an
absolute condition that the writer may find difficult to prove to a skeptical audience, the
writer may also consider modifying the claim to suggest that college graduates are more
likely to get a good job than nongraduates. The word “guaranteed” is important in
making this statement an opinion. Students might be inclined to declare this statement a
fact and cite evidence suggesting that college graduates have more lifetime earning
potential than those without a college degree, such as the U.S. Census Bureau’s July
2002 report entitled “The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of
Work-Life Earnings”: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/
Census/library/publications/2002/demo/p23-210.pdf. This evidence, however, only
shows earning potential, not earning guarantees.
3. Fact. This statement uses the phrase “at the highest risk” to qualify the assertion. This fact
can be proven through reputable medical sources such as the National Library of Medicine:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856596/
4. Fact. This information can be verified through statistics compiled by organizations or
publications that cover the Super Bowl, such as Pro Football Reference:
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/super-bowl/.
5. Opinion. To substantiate this opinion, a writer would first need to cite relevant authorities
from the social sciences, cognitive sciences, or education who maintain that every
American student actually does possess the potential to learn how to write well. A writer
might also need to cite professionals across a range of jobs or a humanities scholar who
can articulate the reasons why writing well is important for students’ present and future
academic, civic, and professional life.
6. Fact. Online sources, such as Wikipedia, PBS.org, and Tourism Santa Fe, agree that
Santa Fe, New Mexico, was established as the capital of the territory in 1607, making it
the oldest capital in North America and the oldest European city west of the Mississippi.
7. Opinion. In substantiating this claim, a writer might cite studies that demonstrate the
benefits of yoga for health and include arguments from health care authorities about the
positive effects on the health of patients who regularly perform such exercise. However,
the author might also need to consider challenges to this claim, such as situations in
which practicing yoga might not, in fact, be good for one’s health.
8. Opinion. The United States is presently involved in a number of conflicts, but to support
this claim, the author would need to establish whether they are “major” invasions or
“direct” wars, which is open to debate.
9. Fact. The reliability of this statement can be demonstrated with a chemical equation (for
certain audiences) or by expert testimony.
10. Opinion. Lower Manhattan, site of the 9/11 terror attacks, has risen again with a taller-
than-ever World Trade Center and rehabilitated offices, shops, and the new Ground
Zero Memorial Museum. Physically, New York appears to have recovered fully. But
emotionally it has not, as armed police regularly monitor the city, especially around such
busy sites as Times Square, the Empire State Building, and arenas. New Yorkers and
tourists alike remain on high alert, given that New York City (like Brussels and many
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 2
website, in whole or in part.
, other cities) remains a potential site for terror attacks like the one in Paris. Such online
news sites as nytimes.com, USAToday.com, and many others report daily on New
York’s continued recovery and worries..
EXERCISE 2 (P. 141)
Answers may vary. Sample answer below.
Most of the claims in this particular excerpt seem to be absolute claims. For example, West
suggests that current society requires blacks to do “all” the work for “healthy race relations”
(sentence 3) and that “only” a specific class of Americans is involved in defining American identity
(sentence 4). His second statement seems to be slightly more moderate: although he suggests
that terms for discussion shape perception and response, he does not argue that these terms are
the only things that influence the discussion. In addition, the verb “shapes” seems to indicate a
more moderate claim than a stronger verb like “determines” would indicate. The first sentence
involves some implicit claims about “historic inequalities” and “longstanding cultural stereotypes”
that are substantiation claims: writers can point to specific evidence to demonstrate that these
inequalities and stereotypes do in fact exist. Although no specific sentence here makes an
evaluation claim, the negative way in which West describes the situation of race relationships
(particularly in sentence 3) suggests that the current situation is unethical and highly problematic.
The first sentence begins to set up the policy claim of the passage, as it clearly indicates that our
discussion of race relations needs to start with the problems of American culture. The rest of the
policy claim is more Implicit: West suggests that in order to consider the problems of American
culture, we need to also reconsider the language that we use to discuss race relations, because
the language itself is a large part of the problem.
EXERCISE 3 (P. 144)
Answers may vary. Sample answer below.
In this passage, Heather Holleman discusses the distracting effects of cellphones and their
contribution to feelings of isolation. She describes examples in which people have, and have
not, chosen to put away their phones while interacting with her. She expresses dismay at
people’s tendency to have their phones on hand at all times and prefers for devices to be put
out of sight during conversations to facilitate attentive communication (a). She concedes (c) that
some people do respect others in this way, and puts her own phone away and on silent when
she is in a conversation (b). The article raises the question, what other ways are we
unconsciously inattentive to the people around us (d)?
EXERCISE 4 (P. 153)
Answers may vary. Sample answer below.
Sample letter to the editor, Penn State Daily Collegian, October 26, 2005
Letter to the Editor
Columnist critiqued editing process well
I find the attempt to erase Bryan Peach’s column reprehensible and extremely unethical
(“Columnist’s Dismissal Not First Amendment Violation,” Oct. 24). Having read the column
(thanks to PDF files) I really don’t see what the big flap is.
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 3
website, in whole or in part.
, The practice of an editor vetting columns and articles is the definition of what an editor does.
Why was he fired for discussing it? And more importantly, why was it necessary to erase that
column?
Jeanette Hannah’s response to the now-phantom column answers neither question.
Whether she regrets allowing the column to be published or not is irrelevant. What was so
dangerous about the column? Peach simply stated sometimes it is difficult to write a column the
editor wants to see as opposed to the column he wants to write.
Famous columnists ranging from Tony Kornheiser to Charles Krauthammer have
complained in print about the same thing, and last time I checked both still had jobs.
Journalists and readers should question the ethics of someone who attempts to cover what
she considers a judgment error by deleting a column far more closely than a columnist whose
only crime seems to be recommending that readers use more than one source to form an
opinion.
Perhaps Peach should have written about celebrity couples or gaucho pants instead of
offering a glimpse inside the world of a newspaper columnist.
Tom DuSold
Class of 2004
Sample student response:
The author of this editorial clearly lays out the purpose of his letter to the editor in the
opening lines, where he questions the ethics of attempting to erase the online archived columns
of a Daily Collegian columnist who was recently fired for publicly discussing certain editorial
practices. Since he published this in the Collegian itself, it seems safe to say that his audience
included other students, but more particularly Collegian staff members and supervisors who are
the target of his ethical critique. In this particular letter, the author uses primarily logical appeals,
raising a series of logical question about the actions pursued in the incident and pointing to
examples of well-known columnists who have engaged in similar practices without endangering
their position. In addition, he maintains a relatively neutral tone—although he questions
Hannah’s action, he doesn’t directly attack her; instead, he chooses a more subtle route, asking
questions about her actions and suggesting (without naming names) that we question the ethics
of “someone” in her position more than the columnist who was fired. The closing irony of the last
paragraph is a nice touch—it suggests that trivial topics are the only safe topics for Collegian
journalists and, by extension, suggests that the Collegian editors think such banal topics are the
only topics their student audience wants to hear about.
EXERCISE 5 (P. 161)
Answers may vary. Sample answers below.
NB: Some of these statements may exhibit more than one type of faulty reasoning; this key
is not exhaustive, so if students provide different answers from those given here, teachers
will need to consider each case on its own merit.
1. This first statement is an illustration of an either/or fallacy, since the author presents no
alternatives to these two choices. I might accept this statement if the author could prove
that no other option in this instance is feasible. An acceptable revision of this statement
might be: “Unless we begin to find alternative ways of delivering college courses, we
must either build more classrooms or admit fewer new students.”
2. Both a non sequitur and a false cause (post hoc, ergo propter hoc) fallacy, this
statement could be reworked to read: “The more people of all cultural-ethnic groups who
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website, in whole or in part.
, believe that black lives matter, the fewer people who will hold on to racist attitudes.” Just
because we join the movement, as the original sentence reads, doesn’t mean that we
are influential enough to make such a dramatic change.
3. This statement illustrates several different kinds of faulty reasoning. For one thing, it
oversimplifies a relatively complex issue (the gender wage gap) by limiting it to a single
cause. The author may need to provide more potential causes for the wage gap. In
addition, this statement begs the question: Is income correlated to education? To prove
this, the author would need to demonstrate that men’s incomes (as well as women’s) are
definitely a result of educational attainment (and not other factors). Finally, some readers
might see this statement as a kind of red herring: it obscures what some might see as
the real issue, by placing the responsibility for the wage gap on women, rather than
examining the social structures that produce this gap (and men, conveniently, play no
role in this setup of the wage gap). The writer might revise the statement to read: “There
are several possible causes of the wage gap between men and women. One possibility
that needs to be examined more fully in discussions of salary inequity is the role that an
advanced degree plays.”
4. Another false cause sentence (post hoc, ergo propter hoc), the current sentence asserts
that people don’t have jobs because they are receiving COVID-19 benefits, as though
these benefits are the reason for a high unemployment rate. The sentence could be
reworked to read: “If COVID-19 benefit recipients had more opportunities for full-time
employment, chances are many of them could go off the benefits.”
5. This statement seems to have multiple lines of faulty reasoning. First of all, it exemplifies
a false cause argument: just because two things (like increased TV viewing and an
increasing rate of childhood obesity) happen at the same time does not mean that they
are related. In order for readers to accept this argument, the author needs to
demonstrate a connection between television viewing and childhood obesity. This
statement is also an oversimplification: if television viewing is correlated with obesity,
there may still be other factors contributing to children’s severe weight gain. The author
needs to demonstrate that television viewing is the primary cause for children’s
significant weight gain. Finally, this statement is a bit of a non sequitur: it implies that if
children simply stop watching television they would no longer be facing significant weight
gain, and that argument doesn’t necessarily follow. An alternate argument might read as
follows: “The nation might help children begin to fight obesity by encouraging them to
watch less television and spend more time engaging in physical activity.”
EXERCISE 6 (P. 168)
Answers may vary. Sample answer below.
In his essay, author Billy Lucas reveals a high degree of scepticism about the safety of youth
tackle football. He opens with an example: a description of a young boy in the hospital being
treated for a concussion sustained during a game. The boy is part of a television series that
Lucas says “glorifies” youth football, and he describes the parents as “visibly shaken.” These
descriptive choices show that Lucas is sympathetic to the boy and his family, and that he is
motivated to find a way to make the game safer.
Lucas then demonstrates logic by presenting statistics and research to illustrate the dangers
and points out obvious risks that have not yet been fully defined. Because football is such a
popular sport, Lucas says, the best course of action is to protect players by considering options
like flag football until they are fully grown and can understand the risks for themselves. These
suggestions could stem from a personal experience with concussion or other injuries, either by
the author himself, or perhaps a friend.
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 5
website, in whole or in part.
,CHAPTER 8 PLANNING RESEARCH
Situate Yourself: Research (p. 169)
Answers will vary.
EXERCISE 1 (P. 175)
Answers will vary. Sample answers below.
1. How is the rise of for-profit colleges and universities affecting the nature of college
education in more traditional settings? How has the increasing cost of a college
education affected students during and after their time in school?
2. How does a divorce affect a teenager’s self-concept and development of friendships?
What motivates people who have been married over twenty years to consider divorce?
What are the consequences for public health of adding fluoride to the local water
supply?
3. How will schools address the increasing prevalence of AI tools, and how is it affecting
students’ education? How will learning outcomes change in a world where AI is just
another tool people can use?
4. What motivates people who have pioneered the field of extreme sports? How has the
rise of extreme sports affected youth participation in more “traditional” sports such as
baseball, basketball, softball, and soccer?
5. What do the terms “positive” and “negative” mean in relation to the concept of “body
image”? How do U.S. media (e.g., films, television, magazines) compare to other
countries in terms of the body images they project for men and women?
6. How does student use of electronic social networking services affect their offline
relationships in college? How and why are businesses using social networking services?
CHAPTER 9 FINDING APPROPRIATE SOURCES
EXERCISE 1 (P. 185)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
EXERCISE 2 (P. 186)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
EXERCISE 3 (P. 187)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
EXERCISE 4 (P. 192)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
© 2025 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied, or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 6
website, in whole or in part.
,CHAPTER 10 EVALUATING PRINT AND ONLINE SOURCES
EXERCISE 1 (P. 201)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
CHAPTER 11 USING SOURCES CRITICALLY AND RESPONSIBLY
EXERCISE 1 (P. 214)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
EXERCISE 2 (P. 221)
1. Problematic—no author’s name
2. CORRECT
3. Problematic—inaccurate paraphrase
4. Problematic—paraphrase is too close to original
5. CORRECT
6. CORRECT
Situate Yourself: Disciplines and Documentation Styles (p. 223)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
CHAPTER 12 WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
EXERCISE 1 (P. 239)
Answers to this exercise will vary.
EXERCISE 2 (P. 247)
Answers will vary. Sample answer below.
In terms of the personal and political values that Kristin Ford brings to her interpretation of the
text, most students will emphasize her commitment to gender equality, a value communicated in
part through Ford’s use of words with negative connotations to describe various aspects of
gender discrimination, such as “men’s patronizing treatment of and abusive power over women”
(250), “husbands could impose their rules on women” (251), “to simply, almost flippantly,
dismiss the protesting pleas of mentally ill women” (252), and “showing just how oblivious
men . . . were to the struggles of women” (253). Also, while some students might try to describe
Ford’s theoretical approach to the literary text as a psychoanalytic one, given that the literary
text itself focuses on nineteenth-century psychiatric approaches to women and mental illness,
most students will analyze Ford’s paper as a feminist theoretical approach to literary theory.
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website, in whole or in part.
, CHAPTER 13 MLA DOCUMENTATION
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 14 WRITING IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 15 APA DOCUMENTATION
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 16 WRITING IN THE HUMANITIES
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 17 CMS DOCUMENTATION
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 18 WRITING IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 19 CSE DOCUMENTATION
There are no exercises in this chapter.
CHAPTER 20 WRITING IN BUSINESS
There are no exercises in this chapter.
Situate Yourself: Grammar (p. 473)
Answers will vary. The following are possibilities.
During the winter season in northern climes, snowflakes do not only fall from the sky. They are
knitted into sweaters, drawn onto cards, and hung as decorations. However, what most people think
of as a snowflake, according to Kenneth Libbrecht, is really a snow crystal. The difference between
the two is that snowflake has a general meaning while snow crystal is specific—similar to the
relationship between flower and tulip. Snowflakes may consist of a single snow crystal or multiple
snow crystals. It is the individual snow crystal that fascinates. Growing six main branches and then
sidebranches, the snow crystal takes form. The numbers of sidebranches vary, resulting in some
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website, in whole or in part.
