This article traces the history of college writing and suggests a different way ahead. To show why we need this approach, the article historicizes the start of postsecondary English as a paradoxical one, committed to egalitarian ideals while privileging narrow and exclusive English usage. To offer an alternative approach, the article synthesizes…

From the invention of the alphabet to the explosion of the internet, Dominic Wyse takes us on a unique journey into the process of writing. Starting with seven extraordinary examples that serve as a backdrop to the themes explored, it pays particular attention to key developments in the history of language, including Aristotle's grammar through…

Increased attention to genre in writing studies has brought a proliferation of new terms and concepts for capturing the complexity of writers' knowledge about genres, including genre knowledge, genre awareness, recontextualization, conditional knowledge, and metacognition. Definitions of these concepts have at times conflicted, and their…

Distinguishes three constructions which begin with "it is" (extrapositive, cleft, and inferential). Examines their linguistic characteristics, notes differences in meaning and function between them and their expletiveless counterparts, and explores the uses made of them by writers of fiction and nonfiction. (MG)

Lexical access and retrieval are essential processes in fluent and efficient second language (L2) oral and written productive uses of language. In the case of L2 writing, attention to vocabulary is of paramount importance, although the retrieval of relevant lexis while composing in an L2 frequently entails different degrees of problem-solving…

Reports on a recent study of first grade writing efforts that confirms the importance of scribble in the writing process when it is an accepted language behavior in the classroom. (FL)

Examines the relationship among writer, context, and text (1) by exploring the notion of context-independence as it pertains to writers and texts, and (2) by placing the issue of context and composition within a wider framework of context and language use. (FL)

Notes research showing that narration and opinion writing are two different crafts and that children differentiate between the two when they write. (FL)

Claims that participants in computer-mediated "chat" (CMC) produce a kind of hybrid text. Stresses the importance of investigating the individual texts and writing practices of each participant in CMC studies to better understand what occurs when language users bring individual cognitive, social, and contextual factors with them to a…

To determine staging points reached in written narratives based on the personal experience of four secondary school students, researchers examined (1) the kinds of ordering or reordering that occur as the writer imaginatively recovers the events of the past; (2) whether the writer automatically assumes or takes for granted that a reader is already…

Participant-observer and case study research designs were used during the course of a 17-month-long study that sought (1) to determine the influence of sense of audience on the writing processes of eight adolescent boys and (2) to develop and explore effective research procedures that might provide insights into the writing processes and emphasize…

A study examined the relationship between students' linguistic insecurity (writing apprehension) and writing performance. College students in three remedial and two freshman composition classes were administered a test of linguistic insecurity that included pronunciation items and choices of hypercorrect, colloquial, and nonstandard versions of…

To find differences and similarities between spoken and written English, analyses were made of four specific kinds of language. Twenty adults, either graduate students or university professors, provided a sample of each of the following: conversations, lectures, informal letters, and academic papers. Conversations and lecture samples came from…

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…

Most of the 24 books reviewed in this annotated bibliography concern writing and are recent publications (1980-1985). Titles and authors are as follows: "Teacher" (Sylvia Ashton-Warner); "What Did I Write? Beginning Writing Behavior" (Marie M. Clay); "Composing: Writing as a Self-Creating Process" (William E. Coles);…