The Macmillan College Handbook has been designed to serve not only as an accessible and comprehensive reference guide but also as an effective teaching text. It may be used as a rhetoric or guide to writing essays, paragraphs, and sentences. The thorough discussion of writing, revising, and editing the whole essay in the early chapters and the discussion of the persuasive and documented essay in the later chapters keep the focus throughout on the writer's chief concern—the essay itself. As a grammar and as a correction guide, the handbook gives a thorough account of the traditional parts of speech, the parts of the sentence and their arrangement, and the rules and current conventions of punctuation in standard written English in the United States. The chapters on the sentence do more than state rules and give examples: they discuss why sentences are effective and ineffective and give a full explanation of how to build or correct sentences. For the student who needs a quick reference only, checklists at the end of each chapter review the key points and often repeat examples. These checklists serve as a handbook in miniature.

Another purpose of The Macmillan College Handbook is to widen the student's repertory of writing styles and inventive skills. To achieve this, the book teaches by example, illustrating the styles of standard written English through abundant examples of sentences and paragraphs from contemporary writers in various fields. Later chapters contain complete essays by several contemporary writers, including George F. Will and Carl Sagan. The writing of essays is demonstrated at various stages of composition; examples are the multiple drafts of the sample personal essay in Chapters 3-4 and the sample documented essay in Chapter 39. Some of the student writing has been produced in individual and collaborative exercises conducted in the classroom and the library.