About This Anthology

This collection represents the voices of your peers, the over 2,000 students who enroll each academic year in Utah State University’s second-year composition course, English 2010, Intermediate Writing: Research Writing in a Persuasive Mode. These writers learned that writing is a process, and they worked diligently to arrive at the final products you will read here. Their writing processes involved drafts, revisions, and careful edits.

The students published in this book were enrolled in the same class that you now attend. They started where you started. They learned, as you will, to seek help from their peers, instructors, and other resources to achieve success in their writing.

This writing class encourages each of you to develop an appreciation for the power of words, research, creation, and persuasion. The publication of this anthology makes that a tangible reality. These essays sometimes are personal, sometimes advocate for change, and sometimes include research—but they each have power in their words. We invite you to join their conversations and hope that they will inspire, challenge, and motivate you to produce your best writing.