Describes the changes basic writers made to an impromptu in-class essay when the essays were taken home and revised. Suggests that some basic writers have sophisticated revising skills, and that assessment which allows time for revision can give these students the opportunity to demonstrate their skills. (RAE)

A college freshman level sentence-combining treatment consisting of one paragraph rewriting exercise for 12 consecutive weeks resulted in significant gains in average words per clause and words per T-unit. (HOD)

Examines writers' options in organizing comparisons. Finds that chunking of content in a systematic way is a strong predictor of holistic quality ratings, and that higher rated papers tend to be written by students with higher verbal abilities and more extensive topic knowledge. Demonstrates the complexity of the choices writers must make in…

Grades in a college composition course were withheld over a 10-week term to determine how students would redirect their anxiety. (HOD)

Until experimenters can achieve some measure of control over access to information associated with their writing stimuli and outcome measures, research in composition will have a difficult time providing meaningful information on the unique effects on writing of such things as training programs, ethnicity, previous education, and sex. (HOD)

Shows that teachers' written responses to student writing are usually concerned with form and that two kinds of responses are most often used: (1) evaluation--usually of a general nature (a grade or "well written") and (2) instruction--usually focusing on specific language structures by correcting mechanical errors. (HOD)

Reflects on three major issues that confronted researchers conducting a comparative study of achievement in written composition as they attempt to measure performance in writing across many languages and cultures. Concludes that most assessments of writing simply measure perceived drafting quality, which is a highly subjective judgment. (MG)

Examines the differences in quality ratings that 20 teachers in each of three high school curricular areas gave samples of written argument by college freshmen and investigates the relationship between the three groups of quality ratings and eight syntactic and mechanics-of-writing variables. (FL)

Evaluates external and diagnostic validity of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf Writing Test. Supports its external validity but does not support the diagnostic validity of this and other writing tests of the same basic design. (SR)

Explores how writing instructors at "City University" grappled with crises of standardization in evaluation of students' portfolios. Details the two most severe experiences in multiple breakdowns in the project of standardization: crises of textual representation and crises of evaluative subjectivity. Examines conflicting interpretations…

Compares cohesive ties and chains in the good and poor essays of college freshmen. Results indicate that longer chains, greater variety of words, and greater maturity or word choice characterize good writing. (SRT)

Attitudinal data from questionnaires and student written products were used to investigate how students' attitudes relate to their performance on typical test writing tasks. (HOD)

Compares the traditional method of composition grading, marginal comments, with a more recent technique, comments on cassette tape. (HOD)

This study examined whether the use of complex headed nominal structures resulted in a higher qualitative rating of a passage than the use of simple headed nominal structures and whether the use of more mature vocabulary resulted in a higher qualitative rating of a passage than the use of simple vocabulary. (HOD)

A 1979 analysis of student expository writing showed that holistic quality scores awarded by teacher-raters were influenced to a greater extent by essay length and freedom from spelling errors. A replication of that investigation using a sample of students' narrative writing produced the same findings. (HOD)