Thinking on the Page by Sara Miró

Thinking on the Page. A College Student’s Guide to Effective Writing

by Gwen Hyman and Martha Schulman

Here's an informational text that might be of interest to teachers with students who need practical help with their academic writing. This book serves to guide high school and first year college students through the difficulties and anxieties derived from writing tasks –more specifically, essays– in college-level composition. Unlike many textbooks and college professors, this book doesn’t simply assume that students have had previous academic writing experiences at this level. Instead, it builds up from the very beginning of the composition process, giving the readers a solid foundation to enhance their confidence and eliminate their stress, guiding them through every step of the essay writing process and, consequently, helping them produce more effective texts.

There are many strengths to Thinking on the Page. First, the authors use a very familiar tone, speaking directly to the reader as if they were the teachers in a classroom, and they refrain from using complex jargon or sentences. Second, the book doesn’t limit itself by only going over the rules and techniques for writing effectively. Instead, the authors present students with the reasons why writing at college level is hard, and offer concise and well-developed solutions to overcome the difficulties encountered. Later on the book, after having provided the grounds for the process of writing itself, they offer guidance to developing style, self-assessment and effective writing.

Another positive feature is the design it presents, lighthearted in style but solid in structure, in great concordance with the target audience. The book is divided into clear, well-divided chapters and sections. The text is presented in short paragraphs, and it makes smart use of different fonts, colours and text sizes, giving the overall text a similar look to that of an instructions manual. The authors provide numerous diagrams and visual aids to better illustrate ideas, concepts and procedures. They also include boxes with bits of advice, and practicing activities that will provide a safe ground for the reader to put the concepts into practice, if needed. All of this makes the reading of this book much more fluid and inviting, making it easier to navigate through, and allowing the young adult readers to quickly scan through the pages and identify which parts are of more interest to them. This way, the reader can choose how much time he or she wants to spend in each section.

The outline of this book is consistent and clear. After a brief introduction to the topic of writing at College level, the authors explain the importance of reading before writing. From how to read, highlight and summarize a text, to how to use visual aids to help students put their ideas on  paper, it then goes on to analyze what an essay is, what purpose it serves and what are the steps to follow. This analysis is very extensive, and provides excellent tools to support the writers during the drafting and editing processes. However, some students might find that there is too much analysis of certain parts, making that piece of reading a little overwhelming. The positive note is that, as mentioned above, the structure and organization of the book make it easy to skip parts which are less relevant to the readers and to focus on the information that will really help them.

Overall, Thinking on the Page is a valuable example of a useful self-study guide; even though this book is intended to be an individual read, it can also be a great tool for teachers in charge of preparing students for the academic world, or those who are simply teaching general writing lessons. The authors’ ultimate intention is to provide tools and techniques, not only for students and teachers of English composition, but for anyone who is looking to improve their critical and analytical skills, and to become better writers, no matter the field or the purpose.