Offers a heuristic for writers to appraise the relative value of information in texts as an aid to revising. Uses the example of noun strings versus prepositional phrases. (SR)

Describes a sequence of four studies that explored how people composed sentences while writing expository essays. Among the findings were that the sentence composition process was often guided by a writing plan, and the most frequent changes accomplished by revision of parts were word choice, aspect of meaning, and grammatical structure. (HOD)

Discusses the problems of deciding whether to use, not use, or revise noun compounds. Presents guidelines that ask writers to weigh the familiarity, efficiency, and stylistic efficacy of the compound against alternatives for particular audiences. (MS)

Noting that medical consent forms traditionally have been so full of medical and legal jargon that they have been impossible for even the educated layperson to understand, this paper presents a model for revising medical consent forms to make them more comprehensible. After describing the model, the paper explains each step involved in using it,…

Many influential style guides endorse the stylistic prescription that writers, particularly technical writers, should revise noun compounds into phrasal or clausal paraphrases. While the prescription is well-intentioned, it fails to take into account that a reader's comprehension of compounds, whether long or short, is a complex process dependent…