This study attempted to answer three questions dealing with written communication: (1) Does the nature of the essay test penalize poor writers? (2) Can short-term, concentrated instruction measurably improve the communication ability of poor writers? (3) Is written communicative ability strongly related to knowledge of the English language? To…

One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by Mark Schorer, Maxwell Geismar, H. L. Mencken, Rebecca West, Sherwood Anderson, Constance Rourke, Robert Morss Lovett, Joseph Wood Krutch, Vernon L. Parrington, T. K. Whipple, Walter Lippmann, E. M. Forster, Ford Madox…

One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by Walter Sutton, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot, F. R. Leavis, Hugh Kenner, M. L. Rosenthal, Forrest Read, David W. Evans, W. M. Frohock, Harold H. Watts, Earl Miner, Murray Schafer, J. P.…

The essay in this text cover major areas of interest, development, and scholarship in the teaching of oral language. Selection was made on the basis of what would best illustrate the principle of integration among the language arts and provide the most instructive classroom application of that principle. The essays are presented in seven sections.…

Despite its title, this is not a book on rhetoric in any narrow sense, but rather concerns its general ambience and also some of its quite specific manifestations. The 13 studies that comprise the book move chronologically from the Renaissance up to the present time. Chapter 2 shows the continuity of verbal expression during the English…

Population problems in both the United States and throughout the world are summarized and analyzed, pictorially and narratively, in this special newspaper supplement to "The New York Times", April 30, 1972. Part I presents the U. S. problem, with the following contributions: excerpts from President Richard Nixon's message to Congress on…

Intended to inform administrators of vocational-technical education programs, and other interested persons, what the state of the art is in producing and using employment projections for educational planning purposes, this essay focuses on labor market concepts which should be used, but are now frequently abused, in the development and operation…

On the premise that if grading is the main cause of student cheating then course evaluations by students may lead to cheating by faculty members, the author compares the two types of cheating, listing comparable rationale and techniques. (JT)

Discusses the Document Based Question (DBQ) as a way of assessing critical thinking skills. Examines several weaknesses with this type of test item and offers suggestions for overcoming them. Advocates the method continue to be used. (JDH)

Explores the history of testing, motivations for testing, testing procedures, and the inevitable limitations of testing. Argues that writing program faculty and administrators must clarify and profess their values, decide what they want students to know and what sort of thinkers they should be, and develop tests reflecting those needs. (SR)

Notes that essay responses allow students to display the broadest range of cognitive skills. Considers ways of improving essay exams and claims that evaluating essay questions necessitates maintaining the author's anonymity, predetermining the method of awarding points, and scoring papers in a random order. (MM)

Research reported in this paper considered the construct validity of a trial essay administered in 1985-87 Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). The addition of the essay caused the non-science factor observed in previous MCAT research to be more strongly defined. (Author/LMO)

Two experiments were conducted to examine the possibility that varying college students' methods of encoding advance organizers would influence the memorability of the organizers and subsequent reading materials. Results indicated that students dealing with the semantic base of organizers had significantly greater memory for the organizers and…

A comparison of the actual final grade distribution with what the grade distributions would have been had only the true/false components or the short-answer components been used is presented. The responses to a course evaluation survey that asked students to compare the two types of questions are summarized. (MLW)

Describes a small study on student writing errors and generates three guidelines that university professors can follow to improve student writing: vary assignment types, utilize self- and peer grading, and make more use of essay exams. (CRH)