Rhonda Holt Atkinson is originally from Arkansas. She taught first-year students at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge for 20 years, at Central Missouri State University (CMSU) for about 7 years, and is now a professor of education at Valencia Community College in Orlando, Florida. In addition to this textbook, she has written many other college textbooks in reading and study skills with Debbie Guice Longman and worked on a variety of other writing projects, such as workplace learning in industrial construction trades, ESL health curricula for low-literate adults, after-school programs on museums in Louisiana for middle school students, and curriculum evaluation projects for the U.S. Army and Northrop Grumman.