Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings

About John BeanJohn RamageJune Johnson

About our authors John Ramage received his BA in philosophy from Whitman College and his PhD in English from Washington State University. He served for over 30 years on the faculties of Montana State University and Arizona State University. In addition to his teaching duties which included both graduate and undergraduate courses in writing and rhetoric literary theory and modern literature Dr. Ramage served as a writing program administrator overseeing writing across the curriculum and composition programs and writing centers. At Arizona State university he was the founding executive director of the university's Division of Undergraduate Academic Services responsible for academic support services campus-wide. In addition to The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing Dr. Ramage was the coauthor of the textbooks Form and Surprise in Composition and Writing Arguments currently in its 9th edition. He was also the lead author for Argument in Composition and the sole author of Rhetoric: A User's Guide and Twentieth Century American Success Rhetoric: How to Construct a Suitable Self. He is currently writing a book about political rhetoric. John C. Bean is an emeritus professor of English at Seattle University where he held the title of Consulting Professor of Writing and Assessment. He has an undergraduate degree from Stanford (1965) and a PhD from the University of Washington (1972). He is the author of an internationally used book on writing across the curriculum Engaging Ideas: The Professors Guide to Writing Critical Thinking and Active Learning in the Classroom 2nd Edition (Jossey-Bass 2011). He is also the coauthor of The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing as well as 2 other influential composition textbooks Writing Arguments and Reading Rhetorically. He has published numerous articles on writing and writing-across-the-curriculum as well as on literary subjects including Shakespeare and Spenser. His current research interests focus on pedagogical strategies for teaching undergraduate research including quantitative literacy disciplinary methods of inquiry and argument and the problem of transfer of learning as students move through and across a curriculum. A concomitant research interest is the development of institutional assessment strategies that promote productive faculty conversations about teaching and learning. In 2001 he presented a keynote address at the first annual conference of the European Association of Teachers of Academic Writing at the University of Groningen. He has delivered lectures and conducted workshops on writing-across-the-curriculum throughout the United States and Canada as well as for universities in Germany Bangladesh Ghana and Zambia. In 2010 his article Messy Problems and Lay Audiences: Teaching Critical Thinking within the Finance Curriculum (coauthored with colleagues from finance and economics) won the 2009 McGraw-Hill Magna Publications Award for the years best scholarly work on teaching and learning. June Johnson is an associate professor of English Director of Writing Studies and Writing Consultant to the University Core at Seattle University. She has a BA in English and an MA in Education from Stanford and an MA in English from Mills College. After chairing the English department of a preparatory school in Los Angeles and working as a development editor in educational publishing she earned her PhD from the University of Washington. At Seattle University she supervises the teaching of first-year academic writing seminars as well as teaches these courses and advanced argument and composition theory in the Writing Studies minor. Her research areas include global studies reflective writing first-year composition writing transfer argumentation and Rogerian communication subjects on which she conducts workshops at Seattle University and at institutions around the country. She has published articles in American Studies on womens writing about the West in the 19th century. She is the coauthor (with John Bean) of The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing a text known for its foundation in writing-across-the-curriculum pedagogy and its useful introduction to academic writing and coauthor (also with John Bean) of Writing Arguments. She also authored Global Issues Local Arguments 3rd Edition (Pearson 2014) an argument reader and rhetoric with a civic literacy focus that provides a cross-curricular introduction to global problems.