This book introduces readers and writers to the techniques of discourse analysis, genre theory, and primary (including ethnographic) and secondary research. It also engages learners in extensive practice and a sequence of increasingly complex and comprehensive "Writer's Profiles," ending with a researched literature review and argument. Two casebooks offer illustrative and thematically-linked readings from a wide variety of public and professional sources. The bonk contains a broad-based sampling of academic writing, and professional and public genres--journal essays, fact sheets, newsletters, Web sites, and proposals. For individuals taking stock of their acquired personal skills and those required of professionals in the writing careers to which they aspire.