Surveys and critiques what has been written about style checkers and text-editing capabilities of the computer to assist in revising technical writing. Finds the literature inconclusive largely because it is anecdotal and methodologically flawed. Suggests a new research agenda and focus. (KEH)

This article reviews research on the use of computer technologies to help individuals with mild educational disabilities write more effectively, including word processing and the use of word processing in teaching revision and facilitating collaboration, transcription tools, and the limited research on hypermedia or multimedia to support writing.…

In recent research on the computer there is an optimistic outlook, i.e., the promise of this new tool in fostering learning and literacy. But an examination of 33 studies (experimental, case, and ethnographic) also indicates deficiencies in computers and writing research. Two drawbacks seem to be the lack of rigor in both quantitative and…