College students studied text about an imaginary solar system. Two cuing systems were manipulated to induce a single or double set of cues consistent with one or two sets of text propositions, or no target propositions were specified. Cuing systems guided construction and implementation of prose-processing decision criteria. (Author/RD)

This study concerns the role of structural properties of scientific prose: description of relations and explanation of mechanisms. The latter is isolated as a characteristics related to creative problem solving. (Author/GK)

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the influence of review on children's delayed retention of prose passages. Results indicated repetition of the original learning experience was the most effective review treatment. (Author/DB)

Results of a study involving approximately 500 sixth and seventh graders suggest that a two-column layout with traditional paragraphing denotation is more readable than a single-column layout, but that an extreme line length does not place an undue strain on the reader. (Examples of the two formats are included.) (GT)

Subjects read a passage and were questioned about the location or content of certain items in the passage. Performance was measured by monitoring response latencies and eye fixations. Apparently the locative information provides an index to the spatial distribution of sentences in the passage. (Author/RC)

Examines the accuracy of quoted speech in newspapers, focusing on what people can remember verbatim and how that information relates to language processing, comprehension, and the mental representation of prose. Finds that memory for meaning was better than memory for verbatim prose, though memory for both was high. (MM)

Argues that, in poetry where phonological patterning is dominant, some deviation from standard uses in the other linguistic systems (grammar, lexis) is inevitable. (Author/CK)

Study investigated the effects of retelling practice sessions on the prose comprehension of fourth grade proficient and less proficient readers. For four sessions, they read silently, rendered free recall, then retold if desired. Researcher assessments indicated such practice in retelling caused significant improvements in quantity and quality of…

Describes a simple eight-step technique for teaching poetry that introduces poetry from the standpoint of writing it and by changing prose to poetry. (SR)

Two experiments with 112 college students investigated how subjects might modulate their reading strategies as a function of how they expect to be tested. Test-expectancy subjects, regardless of the test expected, are more apt to identify and focus on important information than are subjects without a specific test expectancy. (SLD)

Five adult day-care clients (average age 66) read passages using Question Answering Reading (QAR) for 6 weeks; 5 read passages normally. QAR produced more social interaction and better comprehension and retention, both when the researcher and when a staff member served as group leader. (SK)

This paper investigates the use of multi-word sequences in two important university registers: classroom teaching and textbooks. Following Biber et al. (1999), we take a frequency driven approach to the identification of multi-word sequences, referred to as "lexical bundles". We compare the lexical bundles in classroom teaching and textbooks to…

This article examines the poetry, prose, and rap lyrics written by nine low-income, African American and Latino urban youths. The study is based on a 3-year research project using ethnographic methods including field observations, informal interviews, and collection of written artifacts. Part of a larger study of these youths' writing practices,…

"Is academic speech "more like" casual conversation or academic writing?" [Swales, J. (2001). "Metatalk in American academic talk. The cases of 'point' and 'thing'." "Journal of English Language," 29(1), p. 37]. Taking a corpus-based perspective to the analysis, this study compares the language of university classroom talk to academic prose and…

Over the years, substantial shifts in theory, belief, and practice have occurred in the teaching of language, specifically vocabulary, grammar, or their combination in lexicogrammatical features of a language as part of the writing class or curriculum (Paltridge, 2004; Reid, 1993, 2006). Much of the instruction in L2 writing for adult learners who…