People need to critically comprehend information across multiple sources that express contradictory viewpoints to make decisions on relevant everyday-life issues and participate in the democratic discourse. However, the processing of multiple documents depends on readers' prior beliefs. The present study investigated the moderating effect of…

In first-year writing (FYW), instructors want students to understand how reading texts in particular ways affects how and what they learn and, in turn, how and what they might communicate to their own readers. Because students tend to come to FYW predisposed to notice more visual aspects (e.g., headings, bulleted lists) than verbal aspects (e.g.,…

Discusses the use of writing assignments to improve the capacity of literature students to read and analyze assigned texts in the foreign language. The approach provides a higher level of motivation for self-correction that will enable students to overcome, rather than formalize, their errors. (Author/JL)