Draws on theories of situated learning in a study that compared novices learning written genres in two different institutional settings within similar disciplines: university students in public administration, and graduate student interns in government agencies. Concludes when students move from the university to the workplace, they have to learn…

Discusses how the notion of genre has recently been reconceived by theorists. Questions whether the explicit teaching of genre features and rules enhance the acquisition of such genres by students. Provides tentative responses to this question. Argues for more focused research of this question. (HB)

Responds to two critiques of her own article published in the same issue of the journal. (HB)

Reviews the importance of writing instruction and of research into the composing process. Considers their place in the curricula of Canadian postsecondary schools. (RL)

Reports on an exploratory study seeking to define broadly some indices of growth in writing. Notes that the comparison of last year high school and third year college students revealed a seeming lack of growth in rhetorical control but significant growth in the capacity to abstract to higher levels. (RL)

As a by-product of a study concerning how university level writers develop new genres of discourse, a study was undertaken to examine what factors or dimensions affect the composing process of university writers. Six undergraduate students at Carleton University in Ottawa participated, making available to researchers information about how they…

An exploratory study was conducted to define broadly some indices of student writing development. Student essays prepared by high school seniors and third-year university students outside the classroom were collected for analysis. The essays were drawn from four disciplines--English literature, history, geography, and biology--and represented the…

In order to investigate the effects of computer technology on the composing processes of students in grades 8 and 12, a study compared students' writing in two conditions (writing by pen and writing by word processor), specifically addressing the questions of whether computer use led to an increase in revision and/or an improvement in quality.…

Prepared as part of a project designed to provide an objectively measured indication of the quality of student writing in one school district, this paper presents analyses of the syntactic complexity of the argumentative and narrative writing of more than 500 seventh and eighth grade students and of the mechanical errors found in that writing.…

Prepared as part of a project designed to provide an objectively measured indication of the quality of student writing in one school district, this paper examines argumentative and narrative essays written by students at the fifth, eighth, and twelfth grade levels. The first section of the paper discusses the primary analysis of student writing…