Outlines several steps to follow to write exciting and lively news or feature stories. (SR)

Identifies six writing characteristics that separate the professional writer from the amateur. Describes a teaching approach in which students criticize and rewrite a report several times, not only learning the characteristics of a professional writer, but beginning to adopt them in their own writing. (SR)

Presents citations, descriptions, and critiques of two current volumes that focus on helping writers to develop better writing skills. (HB)

Discusses how to apply rules of cognitive theory to the writing of reference manuals to make them more user friendly. (SR)

Shares two examples of writing, both involving magic and incantation, used as models to help students add energy to their own writing. (MG)

Describes how one teacher/poet communicates to students the feeling of spontaneity and ease with language, a similar sense of poetry as activity, gesture, and flight, and the notion that both words and sounds carry poetic meaning while letting students know it is acceptable to explore on paper while creating poetry. (MG)

Provides a paragraph frame as an organizational guide for developing reports from nonfiction children's magazines. (MG)

Claims some technical professionals assigned to write reports or manuals interpret writing as a means of displaying data rather than as communication. Discusses specific weaknesses commonly found in such documents. Suggests that texts should convey precisely what is intended in a form readers will find acceptable. (NH)

Discusses briefly three reports (a meta-analysis, a project description, and a reformulation of the "quality" question) on the usefulness of word processors and telecommunications in improving student writing. (SR)

One approach to writing across the curriculum--microthemes--involves short writing assignments such as summary writing, thesis support, inductive reasoning, and quandary posing. Using microthemes in accounting can ease the burden for instructors trying to provide useful evaluative feedback to improve student writing. (SK)

Holistic scoring enables the evaluation of writing skills based on general impressions of content and style. An experiment in an accounting class shows how it can be applied successfully with a high degree of reliability. (SK)

Describes a simple writing process to help students become more effective writers in which students, by writing one sentence at a time on a single strip of paper, learn how to write a paragraph. (SR)

Argues that grammar instruction is important and should begin early. Lists rules for using the comma, colon, and semi-colon. Notes 10 tips for top-notch writing. Notes grammatical areas often troublesome to students. Includes a short quiz. (SR)

Discusses two intriguing ways of explaining error in student writing--the work of Michel Foucault and the work of Roland Barthes. Describes in-class activities and essay assignments that use these perspectives to help students to reach improved understanding of error in writing. (SR)

Explores whether instruction in writing style at the word and sentence level leads to improvements in the quality of students' writing in a business-communication class. Finds that informative memos written after instruction were of higher quality than those written before instruction, with students' styles changing for the better after…