Guide to Research and Writing
Welcome!
The New College Guide provides a framework for inquiry-based courses in which students follow their own interests while gaining experience as critical readers, writers, and researchers. The lessons, exercises, and assignments that follow provide opportunities for developing academic skills as well as the habits of lifelong learning.
Student Overview
Welcome to your New College Writing Program!
Our writing courses might not be what you expect. We will proceed with our coursework grounded by the idea that research and writing are powerful social tools central to your work in the university, but far beyond that, indispensable for addressing the most pressing of problems and the most promising opportunities that emerge locally, nationally, and globally. A course typically begins with choosing a direction for inquiry, that is, a rigorous, research-based investigation of an issue or situation of unique interest to you. Rather than approach such issues by generalizing, thinking and writing only in broad strokes, students will dig deep, developing a sharply focused research question to serve as a guiding star for the semester.
Faculty Overview
Greetings, colleagues!
We hope you agree that writing instruction is among the most important responsibilities taken on by college and university faculty. Perhaps, like us, you tell your students at the beginning of the semester that their first-year composition courses are crucial to their success at Arizona State University. Our approach to this important task draws its inspiration and much of its method from the work many of you are already doing, and have done for years. So in addition to welcoming you, we wholeheartedly thank you.