Welcome to the open digital textbook for Writing 250:  Advanced Composition! Writing 250 at The University of Mississippi is designed to introduce students to academic research and writing in their disciplines. Specifically, students conduct secondary research throughout the semester to explore the scholarship published in their fields on topics of their choosing, as well as conduct primary research to gain experience with study design and data analysis. The ultimate goal of the course, then, is to replicate for students the processes that researchers go through as they progress from novices to experts in their fields, developing the research, summary, analysis, and synthesis skills necessary to become effective scholars.

In our textbook you will find information about such topics as the concept of discourse communities; strategies for developing and narrowing your research focus; guidance on how to locate, evaluate, and integrate sources; and fundamentals of research design. Although this content is necessary for students in Writing 250 to learn, it is also applicable to students enrolled in other courses at our institution as well as beyond The University of Mississippi. The majority of the material in our textbook is static, although we do include some activities and multimodal content such as quizzes and videos, respectively.

We hope that by reading this textbook, you will develop the foundation you need to more knowledgeably and confidently engage in academic research and writing.