Discusses the need for a Chinese business-communication textbook that is limited to and defined as communication in foreign trade and that eliminates trite expressions and out-of-date style and formats in the business writing of Chinese engaged in international business. (DF)

Reports, from personal textbook publishing experience, that composition teachers do not want the results of research in their textbooks; they want what's familiar to them. (JL)

Research based text materials will probably never dominate the textbook market. To begin with, translating theory and research into practice is a chancy business. There are also creative problems such as the inherent oversimplification involved in textbook writing. Every textbook writer who has been a classroom teacher will acknowledge that such…

Describes the collaborative process (involving authors, product managers, reviewers, students, and publication department) of the development of a first-year composition textbook that works to integrate word processing with the teaching of writing. Notes factors contributing to successful collaboration. (SR)

Publishers of high school composition textbooks gather information about the "book market" through outside statistical analyses or case studies and through their own interviews and polls. Recently, such studies and interviews have revealed significant differences in classroom practices. Consequently, publishers are faced with such…

Rhetoric textbooks continue to proliferate while writing teachers continue to grow more skeptical of their usefulness. The key question educators need to answer is whether all available composition textbooks are ineffective in the sense of being based on false notions about the composing process, or whether they are "intrinsically" ineffective.…