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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Chapter 10, "From the Inside Out," which writer does Foster credit with originating the essay?

2. In Chapter 10, "From the Inside Out," why does Foster not capitalize the name of bell hooks?

3. In Chapter 14, "The Universe of Ideas/Ideas of the Universe," what are two reasons Foster points to for disbelief in science?

4. In Chapter 12, "Life from the Inside," what advantage does Foster say elapsed time gives to historical accounts?

5. In Chapter 9, "Living the News," what does Foster say is the main difference between New Journalism and immersive journalism?

Short Essay Questions

1. In Chapter 15, "Reading Internet Sources," what does Foster say is problematic about the internet and web?

2. Which of the three writers that Foster discusses in Chapter 13, "On the Stump," does Foster find to be least reliable, and which does he find to be most reliable? Why is this?

3. In Chapter 14, "The Universe of Ideas/Ideas of the Universe," what qualities does Foster say a genuine expert will have?

4. In Chapter 10, "From the Inside Out," what does Foster list as the three criteria of Ezra Pound's criticism?

5. In Chapter 15, "Reading Internet Sources," what does Foster propose as a solution to inaccuracies on the web?

6. In "Interrogating the Text," what does Foster say the purpose of interrogating text is?

7. In Chapter 13, "On the Stump," what criticism does Foster level at Fox News?

8. In Chapter 13, "On the Stump," what are the three categories that Foster says outsider exposés fall into, and why does he say that they are more reliable than insider's writings?

9. Explain why, in Chapter 11, "Life from the Inside," Foster says that the narrators of nonfiction can be just as unreliable as the narrators of fiction.

10. In Chapter 11, "Life from the Inside," what does Foster say is the difference between autobiography and memoir?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Chapter 2, "The Ecology of the Nonfiction Biosphere," Foster proposes that newspapers write the "first draft" of history, magazines write the "second draft," and history books write the "final draft." Argue for or against this claim--or accept it with qualifications.

Essay Topic 2

In Chapter 9, "Living the News," Foster discusses the work of Joan Didion. Write an essay in which you describe his tone in this discussion of Didion and then analyze how he creates this tone.

Essay Topic 3

Does Foster follow his own advice and "rules" in this book, or does he say one thing and do another? For instance, in Chapter 1, "The Structure of Nonfiction Information," Foster says the first job of the writer, on page one, is to get the reader to be interested enough to read page two. When you got to the end of page one, how interested were you in reading page two? Does this mean that Foster followed his own advice, or not? Consider the rest of the book in this way. Use specific textual evidence to evaluate whether How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor lives up to the standards that Foster sets for other authors.

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