Discusses a system in which English faculty evaluate writing proficiency examinations administered by an education department, including the problems engendered by such a system. (AEA)

Provides a checklist of stylistic elements to consider when writing simulation programs for use in computer assisted instruction. Subtopics include setting simulation parameters, questioning the user, displaying the results, and overall simulation organization. (JJD)

Discusses the second language production of adults when responding to the same stimuli (the SLOPE test) under two conditions: (1) unmonitored, when giving spontaneous oral responses and (2) monitored, when giving written responses without time limit constraints. (EKN)

Discusses an attempt to derive, use, and partially validate (for one area of language use) a theoretical approach to the design of language-use tests, also called "explicit direct testing." (EKN)

This study investigates the construct validity of profiles of high school students' (n=92) writing competence obtained from tasks designed to be parallel on all dimensions but discourse mode (expository or narrative) and response mode (direct or indirect). (Author/PN)

Outlines a writing-across-the-curriculum program for high schools. Discusses the role of content area teachers in such a program. (FL)

Suggests that direct and indirect measures of writing ability tend to tap similar skills. Concludes that educational decisions about competence in writing can be be made by using a combination of direct and indirect means. (FL)

Compares the traditional method of composition grading, marginal comments, with a more recent technique, comments on cassette tape. (HOD)

Argues that teachers and students would benefit from teachers' mastering of a variety of types of responses to writing, including personal and empathetic responses, in addition to the traditional advisory and evaluative responses. (RL)

Compares direct and indirect writing assessment strategies and contrasts them in terms of the relationship each has to specific classroom decision-making situations, the components of writing assessed, practical testing matters, characteristics of test exercises, test scoring procedures, and procedures for determining test quality. (HOD)

Using data from the SCRE Criterion Test composition papers, the author tests the hypothesis that the bulk of inter-marker unreliability is caused by inter-marker inconsistency--which is not correctable statistically. He suggests that a shift to "consensus" standards will realize greater improvements than statistical standardizing alone.…

Describes a teaching method that requires the business communications instructor to act as a supervisor in a "real" work situation would in evaluating student writing. (FL)

Applies three major points of American pragmatism to the development of technical writing assignments: (1) restricting the writing environment to the practical, workaday world, (2) emphasizing the complex contexts of purpose and audience, and (3) verifying the effectiveness of any piece of writing by its intentions. Offers criteria by which both…

This study examined whether the use of complex headed nominal structures resulted in a higher qualitative rating of a passage than the use of simple headed nominal structures and whether the use of more mature vocabulary resulted in a higher qualitative rating of a passage than the use of simple vocabulary. (HOD)

A 1979 analysis of student expository writing showed that holistic quality scores awarded by teacher-raters were influenced to a greater extent by essay length and freedom from spelling errors. A replication of that investigation using a sample of students' narrative writing produced the same findings. (HOD)