Assistance is provided to those who aspire to publish practical articles in professional journals related to education of persons with disabilities. Topics discussed include general writing suggestions; eight components of practical writing, such as audience appeal, length of the paper, format, graphics, and multiple uses of research; and the role…

Researchers and educators sometimes need to be reminded of the broad range of factors which have a crucial impact on how writers write. This paper offers a personal checklist of six factors which have been shown to be important, yet which are easy to forget in in heat of research because of the tendency to become immersed in a particular agenda…

When using outside sources in their writing, students must learn to balance efficiency with effectiveness. In other words, they must express themselves clearly and quickly, providing readers with enough explicit information to create a causal chain based on reasonable inferences. Yet they must guard against being overly explicit, boring their…

This paper highlights the salient, and sometimes invisible, features of the standard format for reporting special education research and provides guidelines for novice writers. The paper offers general considerations about planning and writing for publication, discusses components of the research report, and reviews the editorial process and…

The six chapters in the book comment upon writing and writing instruction. The first chapter describes the major research of the past 15 years and the ways it has altered how teachers regard the teaching of writing. The chapter compares the American research tradition, with its emphasis on system, sequence, and order, and the British tradition,…

Presents results of a study in which subjects produced narratives with the help of a computer. Discusses control processes, correction of wrong choices, and coherence of narrative. Concludes that expert functioning is the result of the acquisition of the narrative structure and the processes involved and is highly related to metacognitive…

Arguing that discourse coherence can provide a window on the writing processes that produce it, this paper describes developmental differences observed in children's writing and proposes a procedural model to account for those differences. The first section of the paper points out that a developmental model of the writing process should specify…

This review of the educational research literature considers issues and problems relating to use of microcomputers with word processing software to help reluctant basic writers revise and edit their writing. Studies cited expound the advantages and disadvantages of using microcomputers and word processing at all educational levels. (MBR)

Designed for teachers and researchers interested in the study of the composing process, this guide introduces a method of analysis that can be applied to data from a range of different cases. Specifically, the guide offers a simple, direct coding scheme for describing the movements occurring during composing that involves four procedures: teaching…

This volume consists of nine conference papers and journal articles concerned with microcomputer applications in the teaching of writing. After a general introduction entitled "Computer-Assisted Composition Instruction: The State of the Art," by Robert Shostak, four papers are devoted to how computers may help with the writing process. In…

Presents a study of the acquisition and development of information coordination ability. Examines students' composition of texts comparing two cultural groups after reading either one text describing both or a separate text on each. Concludes that older students used more complex information integration levels, whereas all subjects performed…

Prepared by educators, theoreticians, and researchers, the papers in this collection address the connections and interdependencies between writing and cognition. The 24 papers deal with the following topics: (1) rhetoric and romanticism; (2) cognitive immaturity and remedial college writers; (3) current brain research and the composing process;…

This book contains 20 articles, from a wide variety of perspectives, designed to bridge the interests of researchers and teachers on the topic of current composition research. The following articles are included: "Studying the Writing Abilities of a University Freshman Class: Strategies from a Case Study" (Charles R. Cooper, with Roger…

In 1983-84, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) administered a 15-task writing assessment in grades 4, 8, and 11. The tasks involved informative, persuasive, and imaginative writing, and were evaluated at one of four levels of success: unsatisfactory; rudimentary or minimal performance; satisfactory; or detailed and controlled…

The proceedings of a conference designed to give researchers and educators the opportunity to discuss issues affecting public education, this report opens with a description of the Research and Development Exchange Coordinating Group's initial efforts to address teacher concerns in oral and written communication instruction. It then lists…