Morey, Sean. The Digital Writer. Fountainhead Press, 2017, Southlake, Texas.

Overview: The Digital Writer is a great textbook for classes that forefront multimodality and digital projects. It covers all of the important topics for a first-year writing course in a way that is relevant, contemporary, and focused on types of audience or genre. While not ideal for courses that only focus on paper versions of writing, TDW offers two formats (print and digital) and many prompts, critical questions, vocabulary words, and examples.

Pros:

• Online components integrated with both print and digital editions
• Publisher committed to environmental consciousness
• Focuses on writing through a digital lens but uses traditional vocabulary, lesson plans, and rhet/comp history
• Includes critical thinking questions, ideal for quick-writes in class
• Easy-to-read prose, with many full-color images and explanatory captions
• Tables and graphics to help explain topics
• Formatted well and easy on the eyes; text is a good size
• Includes a picture of Stephen Colbert

Cons:

• Heavy focus on digital projects and discourse (only a con for professors who prefer traditional types of writing courses)
• Not much room for annotations; pages are highly glossy
• Relies on the five rhetorical canons – not ideal for professors who do not like to teach these/do not want a rhetoric-heavy course
• Chapters may not necessarily go in the best order for a writing course
• Fairly expensive (~$89.00)

Features:

• Chapters that include traditional writing & rhetoric units: Rhetoric, Argument, Analysis, Audience, Research, Genre/Mode, Revision, Delivery, as well as Image & Video
• Sample essays
• Graphics, images, & QR codes
• Full index
• Lists of key terms for each chapter
• A section on how to format bibliographies – up to date (includes MLA 8^th edition)
• Online components (hyperlinks)