Examines the number of relative clauses and percentages of subordinate clauses in two sets of research reports from "Physical Review." Finds a slight decrease in percentages of relative clauses from the first set (1893-1901) to the second (1980). Finds striking differences in patterns of what relative clauses modify. Suggests a stylistic…

Reports on a study that used two approaches to examine how words are used to create meaning in written discourse in order to illuminate the differences among a group of essays written by 12 developing writers. (HTH)

Describes a cloze test designed to measure writing flexibility, then examines its effectiveness in distinguishing experienced college-level writers from the inexperienced ones. Concludes that the measure is effective and that responsiveness to style features is a significant component of experienced writing. (FL)

A study examined what a third grader might understand about composing a common genre like the narrative, given the degree of variance among approaches and experience. Data were collected from different school sites over a period of several years. These sites shared common geographical areas: three schools were located in the Sonoran desert shared…

Examines differences among five assignments written by both Hong Kong and United States business communication students, focusing on reader orientation, writing objective, organization, grammar, syntax, usage, and format. Finds distinct differences between students of the different cultures using the same language and performing similar…

Examines the lexis of two university students and identifies their styles and competence levels. (DF)

As a step toward developing appropriate instructional techniques to help learning disabled college students, mechanical errors were compared in the expository essays and controlled stimulus passages (rewrites) of 15 learning disabled, 15 normal, and 15 basic writers at the college level. Analysis of both types of writing samples showed that…

To examine the differences and the unique qualities of third grade writers in relation to their uses of language and their perception of the world, a selection of writings from 20 third grade students was analyzed for language ability as measured by words per T-unit. Then, two students from the higher and two from the lower end of the scale were…

Using data consisting of descriptive and expressive-narrative essays written in 1969 and 1979 by black 17-year-old students in the stratified probability sample from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a study investigated which language patterns differentiated the NAEP essays written by black students in 1969 from those…