Describing the variables of composition, offering researchers a methodology with which to investigate how the variables interact in specific writing strategies, and suggesting how teachers might make use of the variables of revision to help students learn successful writing strategies appropriate to a business setting, this book reports a research…

A study analyzed the revision practices of 25 children in a third grade classroom, half of whom received LOGO instruction, to determine if the revision practices inherent in LOGO programing sponsor revision practices in the composing of autonomous texts of young children. It was hypothesized that the revision strategies in LOGO, both engendered…

Reports on a four-year study of the process of journal writing in an elementary school. Assesses student behavior as well as actual writing. (FL)

Explains how a year of observing two successful novelists write and revise on the computer provided a number of ideas that are encapsulated in the concept of a fluid text or the writer's conscious avoidance of a text that becomes static or fixed. (HOD)

To determine whether teacher intervention in the form of experimentally manipulated variables would significantly change the level of students' dispositional writing apprehension, a study evaluated the effects of two classroom interventions--one apprehension-producing (AP) and one apprehension-reducing (AR). Four situational variables were…

Case studies of the writing habits exhibited by anxious and nonanxious writers in workshops to reduce writing apprehension and in regular literature/composition classes have revealed how certain aspects of the composing processes of anxious writers differed from those of nonanxious writers. Some of the common problems were the lack of structured…

Describes a study that explored the collaborative writing processes of a group of business executives over the course of a year as they prepared a vital company document. Shows how context affected the writers' conceptions of their rhetorical situations and their writing behavior and how the rhetorical activities influenced the structure of the…

Illustrates dimensions of variation in how young children orchestrate or manage the writing process, using data collected from a five-month study of primary grade writers. Finds children's composing behaviors consistent with their apparent intentions and with their styles as symbolizers and socializers in their classroom. (SKC)

A case study about collaborative learning and collaborative writing examined what was taking place in classroom writing response groups. The study revealed how problematic college writing groups can be good for students. On the basis of observation and interviews with participants in three groups composed of undergraduates at a large state…

Focusing on purpose in the writing of college freshmen, a study examined the writing processes and how they related to the conceptions of purpose of four freshmen enrolled in a composition course at Indiana University. Discourse-based interviews were conducted before and after the students completed three tasks designed to vary their choice of…

Using J. Dewey's "reconstruction of experience" concept of revision, a study employed ethnographic methods to investigate the effects of computer assisted writing instruction on students' revising processes. Primary subjects, eight sixth-graders, completed a structured revision task on their compositions, with varying degrees of computer…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 30 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) writing performance and its relationship to the writing attitudes, topic knowledge, and writing goals of college freshmen; (2) representational semantics; (3)…

A study examined bilingual children's composing behaviors during classroom writing and their perceptions of writing. Students' descriptions of what occurred in their day-to-day environment were analyzed using ethnographic methods. The researcher observed five subjects--bilingual students in kindergarten through third grade--for 145 hours, and…