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)

Provides guidelines for resume writing. Discusses standard and optional categories of information and methods for organizing these categories. Discusses also how to secure and list references. (PRA)

Offers strategies to help educators get their book ideas, teaching tips, and feature articles into print. Teacher-authors and journal editors explain what to do before writing, how to start writing, how to send query letters, how to propose book ideas to a publisher, and how to submit manuscripts. (SM)

Describes a useful training format with which virtually any process or operation can be reduced to a series of logical, clearly presented steps, key points, and recommended safe procedures. (SR)

Dime novels, a form of American/Canadian subliterature that gained popularity from 1840 to 1910, entertained with fast-paced action, high adventure, and ethically uplifting stories emphasizing the triumph of good over evil. Students can approach North American history creatively and practically by locating, collecting, and organizing information…

Investigates whether two versions of a letter (one consistently applying the principles of you-attitude and positive emphasis at the sentence level, the other one violating these principles) requesting participation in a research project elicited the same response rate. Finds that, contrary to received wisdom, the letter violating these principles…

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

Suggests a nine-step summary writing strategy for use with secondary and college developmental readers and writers. (MG)

Describes the strategies used to encourage two friends--professed nonwriters--to write about the stories of their childhood days. The sequence of the process shows how a teacher can build confidence in beginning writers. (JOW)

Studies master's students in professional writing to discern value added by technical communicators. Shows that some expertise is brought to collaborative projects, while other types develop as a function of collaboration. Provides practicing communicators, students, and managers with ideas for documenting, developing, and enhancing this…

Explains how a teacher used tape--pieces hanging from her hair, her desk, and student desks--to help students remember some of the principles of writing represented in the acronym TAPE: topic, audience, purpose, and elaboration. (TB)

Provides pointers for incorporating the use of metaphors, alliteration, restating of the thesis, answering questions by reiteration of the thesis, and other ideas for writing an effective conclusion in high school and college papers. (PA)

The authors investigated ways of encouraging students to consider more counterarguments when writing argumentative texts. One hundred eighty-four undergraduates wrote essays on TV violence. In Experiment 1, students given specific goals generated more counterarguments and rebuttals than controls. In Experiment 2, some participants were provided…

In many classrooms, poetry is shoved to the neglected edge of language arts, out of the bright core of content that may (should) include grammar, vocabulary, and strong literature. If time permits, a class may read a few poems and discuss them from a so-called "interpretive" point of view. All of this takes place in the context of an apparent…

More empirical studies are needed that evaluate interventions to improve the academic functioning of students with Asperger syndrome (AS). The purpose of this exploratory study was to evaluate the use of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) writing instruction (Graham, Harris, MacArthur, & Schwartz, 1991) with an adolescent with AS. A…