This essay explores "content," a word and concept now often associated with writing in fields including marketing, journalism, publishing, and technical communication. I present a definition of content appropriate to writing studies and explore a range of issues and practices that the content metaphor can bring to our professional,…

Using Mariolina Salvatori's "difficulty paper" assignment to explore student experiences when reading, this paper examines basic writing students' difficulties with reading in the composition classroom. The authors argue that examining difficulty can provide an entry point for understanding how students experience the (dis)connections…

Discusses how changes in the technology of text, specifically a shift in the medium of presentation from paper to screen, will invariably trigger changes in the shape of the text. Utilizes a text analytical approach to identify nine dimensions of the key differences between paper and on-screen text. (HB)

Examines composition research in the annotated bibliographies appearing from December 1984 to May 1989 in the journal "Research in the Teaching of English." Considers the question of what has been learned from this large corpus of research. Focuses on topics on which little research has been done and areas in which enough work has…