A principal components analysis was conducted to determine whether the measures of essays made by the computer could be grouped into factors. Six factors (fluency, spelling, diction, sentence structure, punctuation, and paragraphing) were identified. (Author)

The two essays in this booklet reflect the spirit and ideas of Francis Christensen, specifically his exhortations to composition teachers, illustrated by his own practice, to approach the teaching of writing inductively, to look always to the writing of professionals for models, and to behave as scholars. The first essay, on sentence modelling,…

A crucial concept in Francis Christensen's principles of writing involves the "addition," which may be construed as any grammatical unit that is not a main clause. Obviously the effect of rhetorical writing derives mainly from the number of additions as well as from their placement and function within the single sentence. By means of…

Outlines how the current work in linguistics and psychology can be joined with rhetoric in the study of cohesion and suggests the ways in which this synthesis leads to both a literary and philosophical sense of form and a practical pedagogy for teachers. (MM)

The experimental program in remedial composition described in this interim report was designed on the assumption that students could best learn to write minimally acceptable compositions by imitating paragraph and essay models which have been divided into a series of incremental steps. The objectives of the program were to develop a heuristic…