Discusses problems in a piece of technical writing which is very well written but has extra words and overly long sentences. (SR)

Points out that understanding the buyer's perspective is critical to developing effective marketing materials. Discusses how to determine the buying concerns that are relevant to customers and products and how to organize good marketing writing. (SR)

Lists and briefly describes a number of common misuses or misspellings of words. (SR)

Discusses the difference between a complex sentence and a compound sentence, and how they are used in technical writing and in Victorian fiction. (SR)

Suggestions to help elementary educators teach students to use adjectives sparingly yet effectively include presenting and discussing definitions of adjectives from grammar books, incorporating models of adjective use from literature, explaining redundant adjective use, avoiding grammar exercises that require rewriting to add adjectives, and…

Discusses the use of "there is" and "there are," and recommends notional agreement (agreement of a verb with its subject or of a pronoun with its antecedent in accordance with the notion of number rather than with the presence of an overt grammatical marker for that notion) as a useful approach to deciding which to use. (SR)

Offers suggestions to help technical writers get a start in marketing writing. Discusses thinking differently, making the transition, and good beginner projects. (SR)

Discusses the use of "and" and "or" in technical writing. Suggests that the strict meanings of "and" and "or" are called for in technical writing much more than in ordinary prose. (SR)

Discusses writing styles, techniques, and resources for marketing writing. (SR)

Discusses how teachers can build upon childrens' natural sense of story, identify good books to serve as models of story elements and structure, and highlight the worth of an author's or illustrator's techniques of story craft as models for improved student writing. (SR)

Outlines three criteria that justify using passive voice. Claims teaching sentence focus--keeping the topic of the sentence in the subject position--will accomplish the end of teaching the appropriate uses of active and passive voice (NH)

Argues that a good procedure for starting an essay is to define the topic's central concept, looking up the word in reference books and looking carefully at what it means to the student personally. (SR)

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent of reflection in academic essays. Forty essays, all previously deemed to be of merit quality, were analysed in terms of three elements of reflection--how the educational issue is conceptualized; what the issue means for practice; and how practice might be changed to resolve the problematic. Each…

Students, especially first-year students, often have not developed the organizational skills necessary to keep track of all of their papers, exams, and grades in the same way that instructors, through their gradebooks, can immediately recite any information about a student's performance in the course. About five years ago, the author created a…

This practical resource provides 40 research-based, classroom tested, and developmentally appropriate minilessons for kindergarten through grade 3--presented in the context of authentic writing experiences. Teachers can use these lessons to teach students how to: (1) Generate and organize ideas before writing, and then turn their prewriting ideas…