Prescriptive discourse, which favors certain variants over others, like "different from" vs. "different than," has usually been characterized in terms of correctness in spelling, punctuation, word meaning, or grammar. Yet usage guides in the 20th century have added numerous entries that focus more on style considerations than…

This study examines how the genre of input text influences Chinese young EFL learners' performance on continuation tasks. Participants were 30 students in Grade 9 and repeated-measures design was adopted to compare their performance on narrative and argumentative continuation tasks, in terms of writing quality, CAF indicators as well as alignment.…

This dissertation explores existing paraphrase pedagogies and the linguistic and rhetorical dimensions of expertly produced paraphrases in order to move both teachers and multilingual writers toward a balanced conception of acceptable academic paraphrase. Pedagogical treatments of paraphrase in a set of writing handbooks designed for students…

This paper presents a novel collaborative tool--AWESOME Dissertation Environment (ADE)--which facilitates student learning through semantic social scaffolding: a new approach to dissertation writing challenges. These challenges revolve around three issues: timing of support; collective intelligence, and sense making strategies in tension with the…

Describes a writing assignment in which a teacher asked students to prepare a one-page autobiography written in E-Prime, a form of English deleting all forms of the verb "to be." Presents student comments that suggest that the assignment was highly beneficial. (HB)

Discusses the prospect of the elimination of metaphors in writings done in E-Prime (a form of English that eliminates all forms of the verb "to be"). Considers the ontology and epistemology of language with respect to the implementation of E-Prime. Argues for the usefulness of E-Prime in writing instruction. (HB)

Discusses some of the characteristics of the English language and also some of the pitfalls. Provides a list of writers' tips that are geared toward improving various aspects of writing. (HB)

Recent research supports the theory that unskilled writers produce writing through the mediation of spoken language. That is, their writing contains inexplicit meanings, or semantic abbreviations, characteristic of conversations in which the listener is familiar with the situational and cultural contexts of the monologue. Two studies further…

Although the acts of reading literature and writing are closely linked, literature study and composition instruction remain distinct pursuits within college English departments. Style seems to be an interest that unifies the two pursuits. The most common view of style equates it with acceptable rhetorical and grammatical conventions. A second view…

Papers presented at the conference on applied linguistics include the following: "Speaking of Grammars: Is Big Beautiful?" (Jan Svartvik); "A Sociosemiotic View of the Grasp of Language at Reality: The Lexical Field 'Aesthetic Judgment'" (Wolfgang Kuhlwein); "Language as a Target and Instrument of the Educational Process…