Background/Context: Many students in the United States need access to effective writing instruction, with some requiring intensive intervention. Results from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) in writing over the past 25 years revealed that most students in the U.S. have yet to attain a proficient level of written expression…

The increasingly widespread use of social software (e.g., Wikis, Google Docs) in second language (L2) settings has brought a renewed attention to collaborative writing. Although the current methodological approaches to examining collaborative writing are valuable to understand L2 students' interactional patterns or perceived experiences, they can…

Recent historical examinations of nonliterary, nontheoretical texts within their activity settings have aimed to identify the historically developed communicative and rhetorical resources currently available to writers and to reveal the dynamics of the formation, use, and evolution of those resources. These studies, in examining communal literate…

Describes two strategies chosen to guide the authors' writing research and presents four of these strategies in a process model of composition. (HOD)

Traces attitude shifts toward empirical research on writing since the 1960s, in light of changes in writing research, psychology, and rhetoric of science. Suggests postmodernist denunciations of scientific methods as immoral have Romanticist overtones. Finds critiques in technical communication suggest empirical methods should not be employed.…

This article critically explores the value of ethnography for enhancing context-sensitive approaches to the study of academic writing. Drawing on data from two longitudinal studies, student writing in the United Kingdom and professional academic writing in Hungary, Slovakia, Spain, and Portugal, the author illustrates the different contributions…

The three papers in this report set forth the research methodology and the theory used in one research project to identify the processes involved in writing. The first paper proposes a method, termed protocol analysis, for use in identifying the organization of writing processes. It defines protocol analysis as a means for examining the detailed…

The contributions made by Donald Graves to research on written composition are examined. Particular attention is given to his case studies of the writing processes of young children. The results of these studies and their implications for instruction are analyzed and discussed. (Author/FL)

Comments on the previous article (CS 730 577), pointing out areas of agreement and disagreement. (FL)

Warns that researchers should be wary of student writers' accounts of their writing processes. Suggests that reasonable, coherent, even captivating accounts are limited by problems of attendance, memory, and reporting and may not be based on recall but on other cognitive processes. (FL)

Reveals the lack of research on children's writing and suitable writing instruction in the last 25 years. Points out the inadequacies in the research that is being done and the need for better research methods that take writing context and environment into account. (HTH)

Summarizes the results of searches of two databases containing abstracts of doctoral dissertations in technical communication. Analyzes those studies, offers suggestions for future research, lists institutions conducting doctoral research, identifies researchers' methods, and summarizes the topics they examine. (SR)

Discusses problems in designing and interpreting research on the effects of topics used in essay exams, particularly minimum competency exams. Reviews current research on the effects of topics and their presentation. (HTH)

Discusses how English instruction has changed in recent decades, and questions whether the changes constitute a real "paradigm shift." Outlines the historical discussion regarding the changes as paradigm shift. Shows how paradigms have often come into sharp opposition through cultural exchanges. Advocates a constructivist paradigm. (HB)

Documents the increased interest about collaboration in technical communication, identifies and categorizes research topics, notes an increasing interest in balancing quantitative and qualitative approaches, and poses a continuum as a way of organizing and characterizing research about collaboration in technical communication. Situates the…