Keep it in Contexts
Maya Angelou. Dave Barry. Eric Minton.

That’s good company I’m keeping. The people I just listed are three of the writers included in a college textbook published in December, Rhetorical Contexts: Readings for Writers by Suzanne Strobeck Webb and Lou Ann Thompson (Longman Publishers, New York).

Webb and Thompson use a series of published articles and essays for examples on writing techniques and effectiveness.

The first example in the book is “Thrills and Chills,” an article on the designers of roller coasters and haunted houses I wrote on assignment for Psychology Today in 1999. The article leads off Webb’s and Thompson’s chapter on “Reporting and Recording,” and they particularly point to my use of quotations from different individuals and my using “elements of humor.”

The book includes a wide range of essayists, from Ronald Reagan to Hillary Clinton, from Malcolm X to Mike Royko. One of my own journalism heroes is included, John Hockenberry. His article “An American in Albania” comes right after mine. In total, the book features 54 examples from 53 writers. The one author who is exemplified twice in the book is, um, me.

Actually, the article “Scaring Up Business” was a companion piece to my “Thrills and Chills” article in that Psychology Today issue, but Webb and Thompson place it in a separate chapter, “Explaining and Interpreting.” In introducing the second article they acknowledge its singular status as the book’s only double entry from a single writer. “How can one author write two such different essays on the same topic?” they ask the student reader in their introduction.

The Reference Shelf: The Car and Its Future
Edited by Kaitlen Jay Exum and Lynn M. Messina
(H.H. Wilson, New York)

"The Lowdown on Hybrids"
By Eric Minton
GEICO Direct, Fall 2003
"The Car and Its Future considers automobiles and automotive technologies from a variety of angles. . .Eric Minton provides 'The Lowdown on Hybrids,' detailing the most recent crop of hybrid cars—vehicles that combine internal combustion gas engines and electric motors to produce low emissions and high mileage per gallon."

Kim Flachman
(Pearson/Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J., 2005)

"Thrills and Chills"
By Eric Minton
Psychology Today, May 1999
Chapter 13: Comparing and Contrasting. "In the essay 'Thrills and Chills'. . .Minton's main idea is that the experience of roller coasters and haunted houses plays in a similar manner on people's deepest fears. . . Minton relies heavily on description and examples. . . You can look at almost any body paragraph in Minton's essay and find an example with vivid description. When he finally gets down to the common elements that make both of these subjects appeal to people who like to be scared, Minton makes his details more and more specific. . .These specific examples draw the readers into the essay."