When the literature and the research results on sentence combining are analyzed, they seem to provide an expanded meaning of sentence combining and reasons for its effects on the writing of some students. Gains in syntactic maturity alone do not explain why sentence combining affects positively the writing of some students, nor does the fact that…

Explores findings from research on the psychology of reading that may confirm and enlarge upon both the importance of planning and the perceptions of plans in writing and reading. (RL)

Reports of research on using different patterns for connecting sentences. Shows the importance of applying insights from text linguistics to writing instruction. (RL)

Outlines how the current work in linguistics and psychology can be joined with rhetoric in the study of cohesion and suggests the ways in which this synthesis leads to both a literary and philosophical sense of form and a practical pedagogy for teachers. (MM)