Includes a glossary and an author index.

"Now in its Fourth Edition, this highly successful reader blends first-rate Canadian writing with work by well-known writers from around the world. The diverse topics and themes featured in Canadian Content engage students while providing examples of how various rhetorical strategies can be used effectively. Canadian Content's practical, non-nonsense approach will help students to become better writers, both at school and in the workplace." (Book Cover)

CONTENTS (BY UNIT)

Introduction
1. How to Read with Understanding
2. How to Write to Be Understood
3. Writing the Documented Essay

Unit One: NARRATION AND DESCRIPTION: EXPLAINING IN TERMS OF TIME AND SPACE
Introduction
Model Essay: "A Cultural Exchange"
Rachel Manley, "Edith"
Lorne Rubinstein, "Passion Play"
David Fennario, "Black Rock"
Carol Geddes, "Growing Up Native"
Basil Johnston, "Bush League Business"
Michael Ignatieff, "Deficits"
David Mamet, "The Rake"

Unit Two: EXAMPLE: EXPLAINING WITH WORD PICTURES Introduction Model Essay: "A Manner of Speaking" Larry Orenstein, "Odd Enders" Pat Capponi, "Dispatches from the Poverty Line" Ann Hodgman, "No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch" Merrily Weisbord, "Being at Home" Wade Davis, "The End of the Wild" Eva Hoffman, "Lost in Translation"

Unit Three: PROCESS ANALYSIS: EXPLAINING "HOW" Introduction Model Essay: "Metamorphosis" Peter Gzowski, "And the Best Damn Stew-Maker too" R. G. Des Dixon, "Martha: One Pillowcase Short of a Pair" Paul Quarrington, "Home Ice" Judy Stoffman, "The Way of All Flesh: The Worm is at Work in Us All" Jessica Mitford, "Behinf the Formaldehyde Curtain"

Unit Four: CLASSIFICATION AND DIVISION: EXPLAINING KINDS AND PARTS Introduction Model Essay: "Listen Up" Eva Tihanyi, "Caught in the Net" Dennis Dermody, "Sit Down and Shut Up or Don't Sit by Me" David Bodanis, "Toothpaste" Judy Brady, "Why I Want a Wife" Bertrand Russel, "What I Have Lived For" Martin Luther King, Jr., "The Dimensions of a Complete Life"

Unit Five: COMPARISON AND CONTRAST: EXPLAINING SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES Introduction Model Essay: "She Said, He Said" George Carlin, "Baseball and Football" Ron Marken, "Saskatoon or Regina? How to Choose?" Antanas Sileika, "The View from Italy: Puritans 'R Us?" Thomas Hurka, "Should Morality Be a Struggle? Ancient vs. Modern Ideas anout Ethics" Austin Clarke, "A Stranger in a Strange Land"

Unit Six: Cause and Effect: Explaining "Why" Introduction Model Essay: "the Trouble with Readers" Stephen King, "Why We Crave Horror Movies" Brent Staples, "Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space" Laurence Steinberg, "Bound to Bicker" Anwar F. Accawi, "The Telephone" John Dixon, "Saving the Songs of Innocence Helena Cronin, "The Evolution of Evolution"

Unit Seven: Definition: Explaining "What"
Introduction
Model Essay: "Talking Pidgin"
Margaret Visser, "Blush, Cringe, Fidget"
Neil Bissoondath, "I'm Not Racist But..."
Cullen Murphy, "Feelin' Groovy" "Laughing Matters"
Susan Sontag, "Beauty"
Lewis Thomas, "Altruism"

Unit Eight: Argument and Persuasion: Appealing to Reason and Emotion
Introduction
Model Essay: "Why Write?"
"The Myth of Canadian Diversity"
Gregory A. Kliever, "Faking My Way through School"
Donna Laframboise, "Roll Back the Red Carpet for the Boys"
Lee Ballinger, "Rock and Rap Have Never Been Better"
Jane Rule, "The Harvest, the Kill"
Hal Niedzviecki, "Stupid Jobs Are Good to Relax With"
Mario Vargas Llosa, "With Pens Drawn"

Unit Nine: Further Reading
Ralph Allen, "Clifford Sifton's Medicine Show"
Margaret Atwood, "Pornography"
Pierre Berton, "Wheels: The Car as a Cultural Driving Force"
Di Brandt, "Dancing Naked"
Denise Chong, "Her Story, His Story"
George Galt, "Night Pictures of Peru"
Don Gayton, "Watching the Grass Grow"
Maggie Helwig, "Hunger"
David Macfarlane, "Music for Music's Sake"
Laura Robinson, "An Athlete's Lament"
Carol Shields, "The Case for Curling Up with a Book"

Linking Essays and Ideas: More Topics for Writing

Glossary: List of Useful Terms

Author Index