Writing researchers must be concerned with whether the instruments they are using are constructed as soundly as possible and, if so, whether they are performing the necessary analytic procedures to interpret the results correctly. To examine the logic in the construction of J. A. Daly and M. D. Miller's Writing Apprehension Test and the incomplete…

In a study designed as a pilot project to test a taxonomy of noun phrases (NPs) and indicate results to be expected from a larger subsequent survey, 13 essays from a basic writing class and 10 essays from an advanced composition class were analyzed for four NP types: (1) those requiring earlier text information for full interpretation, (2) those…

A study examined two questions: Do students include more information or present it more concisely and explicitly when speaking or writing? and, Does language show different thematic relationships (through syntax or diction) depending upon the mode? Twenty-four community college students viewed one of two brief films and responded orally or in…

A study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the intellectual maturity of college students and evidence of rhetorical maturity in their writing--specifically, why some students write better than others, since general language abilities cannot account for all the differences between good and poor writing. By focusing on college…

A study assessed the effects of the Mason program (a supplementary language arts program in which expository writing is introduced) on writing skills, such as writing mechanics, expression, and related thinking skills. These skills were measured by standardized tests and by actual writing performance. Subjects, approximately 400 second grade…

Research in secondary school composition instruction indicates that (1) emphasis on writing for the teacher-as-examiner is prevalent, (2) prewriting activities are limited, (3) there is little discussion of approaches to the topic or what information should be included, and (4) activities to help students while they are writing are almost…

Writing samples from 20 college students were examined for the quantitative and qualitative changes that occurred between their freshman and junior years. The writing samples were analyzed quantitatively for mean length of T-unit and subordinate clauses per T-unit and holistically for focus, organization, development, and coherence. These analyses…

Two studies were conducted to test Francis Christensen's theory of generative rhetoric, which maintains that students should be taught the types of sentences that they infrequently use, especially ones with nonrestrictive phrasal modifiers (participial phrases and appositives) as a way to approach invention. The first study examined the principles…

A content analysis was conducted of 17 technical writing textbooks published between 1911 and 1938 and of 3 texts published recently to determine if the early texts differ from the more recent ones in the way they define the purposes of technical writing and in their treatment of style and audience. Results showed that both sets of texts define…

Research into attitudes toward writing, still in its infancy, indicates that attitudes definitely influence growth in writing, that a writer's degree of apprehension toward writing can be measured, and that certain teaching strategies can lessen students' writing anxiety. Researchers have identified the following characteristics of writing…

A survey was undertaken to gather and record the perceptions that college writing program directors and teachers have of the goals of their writing programs, particularly freshman composition. Responses were returned by 134 writing program directors and 135 composition instructors from publicly or privately funded institutions, two-year colleges,…

A study examining the writing of adults who do not consider themselves professional writers but who must master a variety of types of writing in order to meet the day-to-day obligations of their jobs is described in this report. The introduction of the report offers an overview of the work and findings of the study, which was conducted at various…

A study was undertaken to determine whether participation in the Wisconsin Writing Project (WWP) could influence teacher behavior to such an extent that it affected student writing achievement. Subjects were fifth grade students in six classes taught by teachers who had attended WWP summer institutes and six classes taught by teachers who had not…

Twenty constructs about writing instruction were identified in a study during which 93 teachers responded to and free-sorted 80 statements about the teaching of writing. A latent partition analysis was applied in order to summarize the data and to make apparent the major similarities in all the teachers' categorizations. Some of the identified…

An exploratory study was designed to determine the amount and accuracy of symbol output that may occur in a fixed time when elementary school children are asked to copy from a page they have neither seen before nor will be given a chance to study. For two minutes, a total of 194 fourth, sixth, and eighth grade students copied an unfamiliar prose…