States that, although the passive voice may be overused in legal prose, legal writing guidebooks undervalue its uses. Introduces the passive voice and gives some possible reasons for its use. Outlines the many situations when the passive is more appropriate than the active voice. (PA)

Discusses William Zinsser, a former newspaperman and current essayist and teacher, who has spend decades encouraging people to write "warmly and clearly." Writing is a craft, a necessary skill for professional advancement, but not a mysterious form of artistry, he strongly believes. (EV)

Describes the importance of quality writing for effective school leadership. (PKP)

Describes a technique to create, administer, and monitor valid and reliable measures of basic students' writing skills. Shows how the test, requiring students to read a stimulus passage and prepare a written response, uses judgments of experienced language teachers to measure students' writing proficiency. Includes a sample exit-test prompt. (MM)

Discusses the use of e-mail and describes 13 mistakes to avoid, including inaccurate addresses, inappropriate subject lines, using conventional greetings, long messages, misspelled words, using special fonts, failing to delete unwanted messages, not answering promptly, sending a file when unnecessary, and using unnecessary jargon and technical…

Distinguishes two aspects concerning the production of shapes in handwriting--the spatial variability of letters and the geometric characteristics of letter shapes. Investigates adults' handwriting of a simple letter sequence under different conditions. Finds that alteration of geometric aspects of letters across changed circumstances does not…

Asks why technical writers are needed to "translate" the work of technologists into accessible communication. Examines the situation that creates the need for technical writers and argues for change so technologists can communicate for themselves. Bases the argument on Heidegger's philosophy of language. Argues that changing technology…

Contrasts robotic editing with human editing (discussing descriptive grammar, periodic sentences, theme-rheme concept, right-branching, zeugma, and Irish bulls). Maintains that, for any editing that requires thinking, humans are always superior. (SR)

Discusses two conflicts occurring during the first decade of the Royal Society (1660-70) that questioned the proper writing style for communicating scientific knowledge: the taxonomists' method versus the conjecturalist method. Suggests parallels are present in contemporary issues and presents implications for teaching, practice, and theory. (NH)

In a writing-intensive course, 54 nursing students wrote professional letters and a professional-issues paper. In precourse self-evaluations, 42% rated their writing skills poor/fair; afterward only 14% did. Helpful strategies included stylistic coaching, multiple drafts, and rapid positive feedback. (SK)

Argues that a workable definition of transitions must take into account not only the word's meaning but also the writer's intentions and the way a transition changes depending on placement and function. Explores a group of transition words related to the idea of summary. (TB)

Suggests a system for teaching punctuation, in which the independent clause is recognized as the fundamental building block of all language. Maintains that punctuation is not based on rules but on principles governing the relationship between one independent clause and the next. (TB)

For beginning college students, effective paraphrasing is the most difficult of the research-writing skills they must learn and demonstrate. Many students understand summarizing, and the frequent appearance of unwieldy block quotations in their essays suggests their preference for using a source's exact words. But the art of paraphrasing escapes…

In this paper, the author explains the simplification of a theory of punctuation for college-level instruction. He describes a systematization of the punctuation marks that has pedagogical possibilities. He concludes by stressing that the notion of a hierarchy of punctuation marks is not a difficult one for college students; after all, the…

Using a grounded theory approach to investigate the multidimensional reflections of two Reading Recovery teachers, this inquiry responds to calls for research on reflection and provides information for the field of education in understanding the nature of teachers' reflections and how they inform teaching practices. Reading Recovery is a…