The Curious Writer by Bruce Ballenger is an assignment-oriented, all-in-one rhetoric-reader-handbook that stresses the connections between personal and academic writing.

Offering a unique, entertaining, and personal author voice, The Curious Writer, Third Edition is sure to grab student’s interest and motivate them to write. Also distinctive is The Curious Writer’s emphasis on inquiry as both a driving force behind the writing process and a method of discovery and learning. The book operates on the principle that writers who begin with questions, rather than answers, achieve better results in their work. It treats research, revision, and critical reading skills (of both texts and visuals) as organic components of every writing process. Each of the eight writing assignment chapters offers integrated coverage of these three key activities and also provides special attention to the Web as a resource for invention and research.