The St. Martin's Guide to Writing

Rating:
Summary: Useful for writing papers
Review: A lot of the examples in this book can be quite boring. If you don't know a lot of about editing, this is a good book to read through a couple of the examples. I use it for as a reference guide when I'm writing my Works Cited page. I often get confused on the difference for scholarly journals, web articles, and the various ways to list books.

Rating:
Summary: Basic
Review: Basic in its approach to writing, this book may be useful for high school English classes but is totally unsuitable for college students. Although it contains some worthwhile fiction, most of the non-fiction pieces are not very challenging for college readers. The text is extremely prescriptive, and leads students to write formulaic papers rather than original and creative college level essays.

Rating:
Summary: Could be worse, but could be more thought-provoking
Review: I agree that the included articles could be better. They are dry & I find that they don't encourage a lot of discussion without prompting. They seem like "safe" choices designed not for thought but sheer modelling. What I DO really like is the prewriting activities included at the end of each chapter. My students always appreciate all of the writing they have done by the time the draft is due, though I have added to the exercises to make the more in-depth and individualized. Not the ideal Comp 1 book, but certainly not the worst I've used.