Describes a study that investigated the literacy demands required by the task of text editing a manuscript on a computer terminal. (MKM)

Describes activities designed to show that poetry composition in the English as a Second Language classroom is a workable way of practicing writing skills and need be neither a boring activity nor disordered reverie. Students' poetry will be greeted not with silence but with discussion, argument, laughter, and wonder. Several poetic devices are…

Recently published books on scientific writing are reviewed. The authors of these books lament the poor quality of writing in scientific manuscripts and argue that many papers are unclear, verbose, and confusing. Several books are practical, how-to manuals; others emphasize the art more than the craft of writing. (Author/MLW)

A college technical writing class project on preparing an instruction manual for a toy race-car set not only showed that the students recognized their audience and used appropriate language, but also provided subject matter for other coursework. (RL)

Drawings and writings of two children produced for each year from age four to eight were presented to "experts" in the field of style to see if they could determine which student did each picture or paragraph, based on stylistic consistencies. Concludes that style is inherent in a child's first compositions. (HTH)

Describes a program in which upper-level content courses feature a workshop on the writing assignments required in the course. The workshops focus primarily on prewriting and revision techniques. (HTH)

Describes an advanced composition course that uses music as a topic universal to all the students. Discusses some of the assignments given in such a class, while exploring the connection between the languages of writing and of music. (HTH)

Presents writing exercises and approaches for teaching composition skills that law students will need. The focus is on critical analysis of previous law cases and the content as well as organization of compositions. (HTH)

Reports on research that raises questions about traditional teaching formats used in writing instruction. Notes the effects of reducing class size--even at the cost of reducing course length. Urges more study of the patterns and rates of growth of different student populations. (RL)

Suggests a conceptual basis for asserting a relationship between sentence combining and reading improvement. (RL)

Attributes the decline in student writing ability to the conflict between society's demand for standardization, caution, and escapism and a writer's need to be subjective, adventurous, and self-centered. (HOD)

Outlines a technical writing course in which the students collaborate in writing a technical writing handbook. The course includes traditional lectures as well as small and large group work on various aspects of writing the handbook. (TJ)

Examines three rhetorical techniques that Franklin D. Roosevelt used in his "First Inaugural Address" to announce and implement his New Deal. The various speech drafts examined reveal that he purposefully used military metaphor, the scapegoat, and the carrot-and-stick approach to accomplish certain persuasive goals. (JMF)

Reports on a variety of ways to use the college newspaper in a remedial writing class. (MKM)

Writing press releases can help make students aware of the importance of reader orientation, because the same case and the same facts can be used for different audiences with different results. (RL)