Suggests that literate ability at the end of the 20th century may best be measured as a person's capacity to amalgamate new reading and writing practices in response to rapid social change. Reviews preliminary reflections on a study of 65 Americans who were asked to answer questions about their own literacy development. (TB)

Finds that subjects were less able to detect errors in self-generated essays than in unfamiliar other-generated essays but were better able to detect errors in familiar other-generated essays than in unfamiliar ones. Finds also that the disadvantage for proofreading self-generated text is a by-product of extreme familiarity. (RS)

Examines the frequency and discourse functions of 752 active transitive clauses in a 66,500-word corpus of 16 research articles in the physical sciences. Finds the overall rate of actives was only 34%, the choice of active voice was often dictated by the demands of information structure, and that the specific discourse functions of active clauses…

Discusses writing of United States Navy personnel to support the wide usefulness of the rhetorical concept of ethos. Shows how the concept is applied within a variety of naval contexts, from naval personnel evaluations to ship-repair reports. Discusses the Tailhook episode to show how lack of understanding of ethos can have adverse effects on the…

Explains and exemplifies terminal modifiers in the context of technical writing. Examines representative technical reports and finds that increased attention to terminal modifiers (especially the absolute, the summarizing appositive, and the nonparticipial adjective phrase) would significantly increase options for effective expression. (SR)

Presents technical communication as both discipline and profession. Explores the nature of research, discusses linking theory with practice, examines the gap between theory and practice, challenges conventional wisdom about the applicability of research, and offers suggestions for bridging the gap. (SR)

Investigates the effect of drawing method on the subsequent discriminability of hand-drawn characters. Finds that members of character pairs drawn using dissimilar stroke directions became more differentiated; subjects were better able to distinguish between members of differentiated character pairs; and subjects were better at distinguishing…

Asserts that traditional composition is only one pattern among many for creating and communicating knowledge and that different kinds of writing are specific to different fields. Argues that for people to communicate and understand one another in the world around them, they must have a clearer understanding of the various ways writing occurs. (PRA)

Finds that gender does not appear to influence people's approaches to creating visuals that represent factual data, except that females produced rounded shapes in much greater proportion than males, who produced more angular shapes. (SR)

Proposes that writers evaluate works in progress guided by their internal standards. Finds that writing samples from students whose judgments of good writing matched those of their readers were rated significantly higher than the writing of students whose judgments disagreed. (SR)

Finds that subjects rating their impressions of authors of bureaucratic and simple writing rated the author of the bureaucratic style higher in expertise but not significantly different from the author of the simple style in trustworthiness and open-mindedness. Shows that subjects consistently preferred the simple to the bureaucratic writing. (SR)

Reworks the concept of genre from rhetorical, dialectical, and dialogic perspectives. Redefines genre as a stabilized-for-now site of social and ideological action. Applies this definition (in a six-month ethnographic study) to a specific literary practice--medical record keeping--evolving in a specific context--a veterinary college. (SR)

Suggests that teachers or researchers ought to slow down, trust their intuitions, and keep solutions open longer as they approach and attempt to solve educational problems. Shares, through three studies and one poem, the similarity in the thinking and writing of research problems and the composing of a poem. (MG)

Addresses the argument that private writing is not really private. Explores the role of empirical evidence. Offers arguments that acknowledge private writing as different from public or social writing. Discusses methods of researching private writing. (CR)

Explores children's working knowledge of narrative, scientific, and poetic genres. Finds that children had significantly more experience with narrative genres than either scientific or poetic genres; and possessed more knowledge of text structure than micro-level features such as cohesion markers. Contributes to theorizing genre learning as a…