Instructors choose to assign The Norton Field Guide to Writing more than any other rhetoric because it supports a variety of teaching contexts and approaches—from genres to rhetorical strategies, co-requisite to dual enrolled, online to in-person, one semester to two—in a user-friendly design that makes it easy to navigate in any format. 

Core edition

The briefest option, this is the rhetoric-only version (which covers Academic Literacies, Rhetorical Situations, Genres, Fields, Processes, Strategies, Research, and Media/Design) and includes 28 readings. 

with handbook

This version includes all of the rhetoric chapters and the 28 readings from the core version along with an additional handbook part covering sentences, language, and punctuation/mechanics.

with readings

This version includes all of the rhetoric chapters from the core version along with an additional anthology of readings (for 76 readings total).

with readings and handbook

The most popular option,  this version includes all of the parts for the rhetoric, anthology of readings, and the handbook.

Richard Bullock

is emeritus professor of English at Wright State University, where he directed the writing programs for 28 years, designed the university's writing across the curriculum program and Introduction to College Writing Workshop, and was awarded the Trustees' Award for Faculty Excellence, Wright State's highest honor. In addition to The Norton Field Guide to Writing, he is a coauthor of The Little Seagull Handbook.

Deborah Bertsch

is Professor of English at Columbus State Community College, where she’s also served as writing center coordinator and dual enrollment lead faculty. A past chair of the Two-Year College English Association-Midwest, Bertsch has won a Diana Hacker Outstanding Program award from NCTE, a Campus Technology Impact Award from Campus Technology Magazine, and a Distinguished Full Professor Award from her college.

Maureen Daly Goggin

is Professor emerita of English and former associate chair of the English Department at Arizona State University, where she taught and has taught several years at the University of Graz in Austria. She has directed several of the writing programs and the Ph.D. program in Rhetoric, Composition, and Linguistics and received the ASU Alumni Association Faculty Teaching Award. She is the author and editor of over a dozen scholarly books, including Authoring a Discipline: Scholarly Journals and the Post-World War II Emergence of Rhetoric and Composition (2000) and Women’s Ways of Making (2021) with Shirley Rose. 

"This book has almost anything a writing instructor needs to teach a first-year writing course. The concise chapters and annotated student examples are incredibly helpful."

Amber Harrison Mabus

Holmes Community College

“The book is very accessible to first-year students, and they find the explanations helpful.”