Strategies for College Writing teaches students to write effective paragraphs and college essays and how to respond in writing to academic readings. The text also provides a review of sentence, grammar, and punctuation skills.

The book starts with detailed attention to the writing process at an appropriate pace for developing writers. Emphasis is placed on the importance of the controlling idea, information gathering from both personal experience and other sources, paragraph and essay structure, arranging and connecting ideas, and revision. Part Two covers rhetorical patterns of development; each chapter teaches both paragraph and essay strategies for each rhetorical mode. The sentence/grammar material is self-contained in Part Three for flexibility; both for students and instructors who may want to focus on particular topics. Sentence construction, appropriate punctuation, and avoiding common usage errors are covered extensively. Part Four, Critical Reading Strategies, focuses on the reading process and its relationship to the writing process. Effective strategies for summarizing, outlining, annotating, and reviewing are covered in this section. The book concludes with a collection of readings on American Culture.