An important factor the technical writer must keep in mind is the makeup of the intended audience. Students should be encouraged to identify as many specific characteristics as possible about an intended audience. It is also important that students comprehend the relationship between audience and use of stylistic elements. By also being sensitive…

Presented and discussed are samples of controlled rhetoric frames, similar in appearance to composition frames but dissimilar in that they require very few arbitrary choices. A few of the required choices are strictly grammatical ones, but a great number of boxes contain grammatically, stylistically, and semantically disparate words and phrases…

For the heterogeneous class, a self-paced writing course is most effective, as it prevents more able or better-prepared students from becoming bored and slower students from becoming frustrated, and it provides the instructor with additional time to spend on enrichment for some students and extra help for others. A self-paced course which has…

To understand the specific differences between technical writing and ordinary writing, it is helpful to consider five definitions cited by W. Earl Britton: (1) technical writing deals with subject matter in science, engineering, and business; (2) it demands a specialized vocabulary, particularly of adjectives and nouns; (3) it involves a tightly…

Forty freshmen at Dillard University (New Orleans, Louisiana) completed the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, an original criterion-referenced test of specific reading skills, and an in-class theme on an assigned topic. Results of the analysis of reading and writing skills established a high relationship between the two skill areas: the better writers…

Revision--the process of seeing what you've said to discover what you have to say--is the motivating force within most established writers. Since most writers need to revise over and over, teachers should not communicate revision to students as punishment. Many students are given only one opportunity to produce a writing project, but students…

The organic theory of writing as a process and as a coherent whole implies that writing evolves from a writer's involvement with the subject. Kenneth Burke's theory of logology, the study of words about words, is a theory of composing that has invention at the center and which a writer can apply from beginning to end as needed. Since a student…

A training program for technical writers, in which a specialized information focus is used to ask questions about a text in the process of writing and revising, is the subject of this paper. The unique aspects of technical writing are defined according to the process whereby readers extract information from text. Reader expectations are classified…

The validity of current standardized competency tests for writing is in doubt as is the need for such testing at all. Some tests, especially those requiring little writing, may not be testing what they purport to test (content validity). Instructional validity (testing what has actually been taught) raises the issue that what is being tested is…

In an exercise designed to make students aware of their tendencies to examine a persuasive message from a single perspective, students were given a "Saturday Review" letter urging opposition to a bill. They were then told it was a hoax. Next, they were asked to specify "believable" and "unbelievable" features of the…

The 20 articles in this publication, contributed by professional writers living in Connecticut, address the issue of what the schools can do to improve the writing of students at the elementary and high school levels. A wide range of advice and opinions is stated. Many suggestions for teachers are given, including the following: (1) encourage the…

This report discusses the writing sample which is part of the California High School Proficiency Examination. The test itself is described, methods of scoring are outlined, and specific examples of candidates' responses at various scoring levels are provided and discussed. (AA)

Teaching students the traditional terminology for sentences is unnecessary and provides them little or no help in improving their writing. This paper outlines the most common difficulties in students' sentences and describes a simplified working vocabulary for teaching students how to solve their sentence problems. The paper shows the methods and…

Based on the premise that students have a wealth of resources they can tap for their writing, this book presents a series of practical, student-centered strategies for use in high school and college composition classes. The exercises are grouped in four sets: the comfort zone (strategies for use in the early part of the composition course),…

The purpose of this book is to teach technical writing to social scientists. The authors argue that too few social scientists take enough care with words that are outside the technical vocabulary of the social sciences. Chapters discuss such topics as: the need for better social science writing, planning what is to be written, writing sentences…