The relationship between working memory capacity and writing ability was examined via a linguistic analysis of student essays. Undergraduate students (n = 108) wrote timed, prompt-based essays and completed a battery of cognitive assessments. The surface- and discourse-level linguistic features of students' essays were then analyzed using natural…

This study reports about a yearlong study of the initiation of novice grant writers to the activity system of National Institutes of Health grant applications. It investigates the use of cognitive apprenticeship within writing classrooms and that of social apprenticeship in laboratories, programs, departments, and universities, which introduced…

The mental activities of reading and responding to literature and the difficulties that occur as students try to produce written accounts of what they have gained are explored, as are the demands made on the student's language when putting into words what s/he has gained through a study of literature. (Author/KC)

Four twelfth-grade students of "distinct" personality types participated in a study of relationships between composing processes and use of cognitive strategies, of relationships between personality type and cognitive functioning, and of the effects of these interrelationships on composing. Personality profiles were drawn based on responses to the…

Word processors have been shown to favor a local perspective over a global perspective on the text during writing. Recently, advanced outline processors or "idea processors" have appeared that allow the writer to represent and handle structural aspects of a text so that the writer may compose the text within an outline and experiment with…

Written syntactic complexity is considered in relation to the four modes of discourse (argumentation, exposition, narration, and description). In a study of 153 children at three ability ranges within each of three grade levels (three, four, and five), syntactic complexity was found to differ significantly across the modes. The range of syntactic…

A study examined the use of background information by native and non-native English-speaking university students in explaining, summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, and copying information from a reading text. Thirty students in composition courses (10 native speakers and 20 non-native speakers, 10 each from a remedial and a standard class) wrote…

Investigates target language variability between speaking and writing in the second language acquisition of non-native English speakers. Results reveal that as narrators advance in English proficiency, they develop more abstract content and reported style in speech and writing and that speech and writing become more interactive. (28 references)…

Following a discussion of the differences between oral and written speech, this paper examines the act of reading written speech and the role that contextual information plays in reading comprehension. It notes the interaction that occurs between reader and text, points out the way in which written language makes demands upon readers'…