An exploration of the most important themes in researching and teaching the use of the English language in academic writing.  The contributors are all influential scholars in the area of academic literacy, working in Britain, western Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States. *  The social and cultural context of academic writing * Differences between academic and non-academic text * The analysis of particular text types * Variation of style, structure and usage within and across disciplines * Applications of theory in the teaching of writing. 

Set in the 1950's in New York City, CHAINS AROUND THE GRASS is a portrait of a Jewish-American family that glows with affection, tenderness, and courage when tragedy changes the lives of all who are left behind.  A passionately personal and heartfelt book, based heavily on autobiographical material, this is the book Ms. Ragen says that she became an author to write. 

Sara is barely six years old when her beloved father unexpectedly vanishes from her life.  Her mother, Ruth, a dreamy and reluctant housewife, is now left with three small children to bring up, and the knowledge that she will somehow have to pick up the pieces, if she is to survive and fend for the family.  But Sara takes up a vigil at the window of their dismal apartment, refusing to accept that her father won't be coming back. 

"She thought of herself as a lighthouse keeper, a watchman on guard, a sailor on the topmost rigging, scouting for land.  It was her duty to be there when the magic moment happened as it surely must, for no other explanation made any sense. 

She scouted the men passing by, searching for those of a certain height, a certain weight, a certain walk... She followed each with hope until he turned right instead of left or left instead of right, or drew close enough to prove too tall or too short, too thin or two heavy.  And each disappointment chipped away at her hope, reducing it, but never actually killing it.  Like a plant cut to the ground, the roots sent up foolish new growth that twined around the facts, embellishing them, giving them something akin to beauty." 

To this bittersweet and moving tale of childhood and the loss of innocence, the author brings the added intensity of a personal memoir.  This is Naomi Ragen at her best, her writing charged with a searing, emotional truth as she unravels a tale of childhood, betrayal and the unending resilience of family love. 

Living in terror-torn Jerusalem, Elise Margulies constantly fears for the safety of her loved ones.  Confined to bedrest during a difficult pregnancy, she happily awaits the return of her husband and little girl from a ballet recital, only to find that her worst fears have finally been realized.  All seems lost until a phone call to her grandmother in America unexpectedly revives a decades-old oath, creating a force that transends time and place, to rescue her loved ones.  Over the course of five terror- and hope-filled days, the ties that bind two generations forge a potent alliance against contemporary evil. 

When Catherine da Costa, a wealthy Manhattan matron, learns she has only a short time to live, she realizes that the family tree will die unless she transfers its legacy to her granddaughters.  But Suzanne and Francesca, beautiful young women caught up in trendy causes and ambitious careers, have no interest in the past.  Catherine almost despairs until one night she is visited by the family matriarch, an indomitable Renaissance businesswoman named Hannah Mendes. 

The ghost of Hannah Mendes encourages Catherine to use every trick in the book -- bribery, guilt and the threat of disinheritance -- to coerce her granddaughters to journey across Europe and acquaint themselves with their roots.  While the sisters honor their grandmother's request out of loyalty, they believe their quest is futile -- until it starts to produce ancient manuscript pages from Hannah's fascinating memoir, and brings new love into their lives. 

The pampered daughter of a wealthy Hasidic businessman, Batsheva Ha-Levi grows up in the affluent suburbs of Los Angeles.  But everything changes when she turns eighteen and finds that her loving father has made a secret vow which will shatter her life, forcing her to marry a man she hardly knows and sending her to the exotic, golden city of Jerusalem.  On her wedding day, she enters a strange and foreign world steeped in tradition and surrounded by myth.  Shackled by ancient rules, she soon understands that to survive she will have no choice but to fight for her freedom, to reconcile her own need to live in the modern world with her ancestral obligations, and to choose between the three men who vie for her body, her soul, and her love. 

Now a classic listed among the one hundred most important Jewish books of all time*, Jephte's Daughter is bestselling author Naomi Ragen's beloved first novel.  With poignancy and insight, it takes readers on a groundbreaking and unforgettable journey inside the hidden world of women in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. 

Tamar Finegold is twenty-one years old, the happy, beautiful bride of a rising young Rabbi in one of Brooklyn's insulated, ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities.  Having married the man of her dreams and taken her place as a wifeand hopefully soon-to-be motherin her community, Tamar feels as though the world is at her feet.  But her secure, predictable existence is brought to an abrupt end when she is raped by an intruder.  Fearing the unbearable stigma and threat to her marriage that could result from telling the truth, Tamar makes a fateful decision that changes her life forever.  Her feeling that she did the only thing she could under the circumstances explodes when years later a shocking, undreamed of turn of events finally forces her to confront her past, once and for all

With more than half a million copies of her novels sold, Naomi Ragen has connected with the hearts of readers as well as reviewers who have met her work with unanimous praise.  In The Saturday Wife, Ragen utilizes her fluid writing style--rich with charm and detail--to break new ground as she harnesses satire to expose a world filled with contradiction. Beautiful, blonde, materialistc Delilah Levy steps into a life she could have never imagined when in a moment of panic she decides to marry a sincere Rabbinical student.  But the reality of becoming a paragon of virtue for a demanding and hypocritical congregation leads sexy Delilah into a vortex of shocking choices which spiral out of control into a catastrophe which is as sadly believeable as it is wildly amusing. Told with immense warmth, fascinating insight, and wicked humor, The Saturday Wife depicts the pitched and often losing battle of all of us as we struggle to hold on to our faith and our values amid the often delicious temptations of the modern world. 

In 1950s Brooklyn, sisters Rose and Pearl Weiss grow up in a loving but strict ultra-Orthodox family, never dreaming of defying their parents or their communitys unbending and intrusive demands.  Then, a chance meeting with a young French immigrant turns Roses world upside down, its once bearable strictures suddenly tightening like a noose around her neck.  In rebellion, she begins to live a secret life a life that shocks her parents when it is discovered.  With nowhere else to turn, and an overwhelming desire to be reconciled with those she loves, Rose tries to bow to her parents demands that she agree to an arranged marriage.  But pushed to the edge, she commits an act so unforgivable, it will exile her forever from her innocent young sister, her family, and all she has ever known. 

Forty years later, pious Pearls sheltered young daughter Rivka suddenly discovers the ugly truth about her Aunt Rose, the outcast, who has moved on to become a renowned photographer.  Inspired, but nave and reckless, Rivka sets off on a dangerous adventure that will stir up the ghosts of the past, and alter the future in unimaginable ways for all involved. 

Powerful, page-turning and deeply moving, Naomi Ragen's The Sisters Weiss is an unforgettable examination of loyalty and betrayal; the differences that can tear a family apart and the invisible bonds that tie them together. 

Beautiful, fragile Dina Reich, a young woman in Jerusalems ultra-Orthodox haredi enclave, stands accused of the communitys most unforgivable sin: adultery.  Raised with her sisters to be an obedient daughter and a dutiful wife, Dina secretly yearned for the knowledge, romance, and excitement that she knew her circumscribed life would never satisfy.  When her first romance is tragically thwarted, she willingly enters into an arranged marriage with a loving but painfully quiet man.  Dinas deeply repressed passions become impossible to ignore, finding a dangerous outlet in a sudden and intense obsession with a married man, with terrible consequences.  Exiled to New York City, Dina meets Joan, a modern secular woman who challenges all she knows of the world and herself. 

Set against the exotic backdrop of Jerusalems glistening white stones and ancient rituals, Sotah is a contemporary story of the struggle to reconcile tradition with freedom, and faith with love. 

When life is at its best, the unimaginable can shatter everything you think you know&

Abigail Samuels has no reason to feel anything but joy on the morning her life falls apart.  The epitome of the successful Jewish American woman, she is married to a well-known and respected accountant and is in the middle of planning her daughter Kaylas wedding.  Kayla, too, wakes up that morning with the world in the palm of her hand.  Having lived the charmed life of a well-loved child from a happy family, she is a bright, pretty Harvard law student who has never really questioned the path she found herself on. 

With a shocking suddenness, all that is smashed to pieces in ways they could never have dreamed.  When a heartbroken Kayla runs away to a desert commune run by a charismatic mystic, Abigail rushes to save her, only to find that there is nothing more whole than a broken heart. 

Naomi Ragen's first play, which premiered in July 2002 at Habima National Theater in Tel Aviv.  It is based on a true story: a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) woman, wife of a rabbi, mother of 12, leaves her home and stays with a friend.  The community's "modesty squad" tries in vain to force her to go back.  Her friend is physically attacked, her arm and leg broken.  The rabbi's wife is punished: she is cut off from her children, against her will.