This essay presents a critical case study of how shifts in the style and genre of written communication both reflect and influence historical shifts in political consciousness and action. The field of study is the discourse of environmental advocacy. With increased public support for actions that would forestall environmental degradation, environmental politics has diversified. Formerly a resistance movement directed toward influencing large-scale governmental or industrial actions through the rhetoric of polemical dispute, environmentalism has evolved into several distinct approaches, including a globalist movement and a grass roots movement that share an interest in policy and procedure, the traditional topics of instrumental discourse. A new genre built upon this proactive attitude—the green how-to book—currently dominates the popular literature on environmental problem solving. Capitalizing on the document designs of technical communication, these manuals recommend courses of action ranging from fixing the Environmental Protection Agency to fixing the toilet; they are directed to audiences ranging from the President of the United States to the ordinary householder. They have in common an attempt to break the paralysis of fear associated with realizations about the scale of environmental damage. But—because the instrumental genre tends to obscure relations of agent, action, and effect—covert political agendas may pass unnoticed into the personalist politics of the new literature.

The almost exclusive reliance on evidence developed from documentary analyses, specifically analyses of textbooks, in composition historiography has resulted in an agonistic, heroes-and-villains image of the history of writing instruction, whereby modern composition scholars have defined themselves in terms of their opposition to what has come to be called “current-traditional rhetoric.” This article promotes the use of oral evidence in composition historiography to guard against overgeneralization and simplistic reduction of composition history to binary oppositions. Oral interviews also can serve as a way of collecting information that would otherwise be lost, of exploring the thoughts, motivations, feelings, and values of informants, and of giving voice to those marginalized politically, socially, and professionally. This article also defends oral data against positivistic attacks on its reliability as evidence and argues that the evidentiary value of any piece of historical data depends not on some abstract ranking of different kinds of evidence but on the historian's understanding of the rhetorical context informing the production of that data.

An interpretive strategy used in several recent studies of Gorgias involves attending to his style as a means of understanding his substantive ideas. This hermeneutic approach is not confined to studies of Gorgias, of course, for critics have frequently explored the ways in which a philosopher's manner of writinghis or her use of the aphorism, meditation, dialogue, philosophical poem, or remark, for example-may elucidate the content of his or her thinking. But the strategy has proved especially inviting for interpreting Gorgias for two reasons. First, the substance of Gorgias's thought is particularly elusive, not only because much of his writing is lost and his few extant texts are frequently fragmentary and corrupt, but because he leaves many key terms undefined and ambiguous, and he appears to make contradictory assertions and claims. In this context, a strategy of reading that purports to clarify and render coherent his enigmatic thought is understandably appealing. Second, the hermeneutic strategy is particularly inviting because Gorgias himself seems to have attached enormous importance to his style, one often associated with such figures of speech as antithesis, anadiplosis (repetition of words), homoeoteleuton (likeness of sound in final syllables of successive words or clauses) and parisosis (arrangement of words in nearly equal periods). Given Gorgias's attention to matters of style, it is not unreasonable to presume that they may offer a clue to understanding his enigmatic In this essay, I will examine two prominent schools of critics who employ this hermeneutic strategy, and who arrive at conflicting interpretations of Gorgias's overall philosophy. I then argue that each of these readings misconstrues the nature of Gorgias's writing, and I present an alternative reading of his style. I conclude by suggesting that given his stylistic practice, Gorgias may possess a different conception of philosophy than that presumed by many of his interpreters. Before examining these two schools of interpretation, it is useful to place them in respect to what may be termed the traditional construal of Gorgias's style and its implications about his putative For traditionally, most critics have seen Gorgias's style as poetic, and have viewed his apparent preoccupation with style as an indication that he not a serious philosopher at all, but rather a mere stylist, an orator who deploys poetic devices to embellish his speeches. This view is first suggested by Plato, who describes Gorgias's style as an elegant feast designed to please an audience rather than explore philosophical issues (Gorgias 447a). Aristotle echoes this portrayal of Gorgias as a poetic stylist lacking serious ideas, asserting that:

Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading Since 1880, Carl F. Kaestle, with Helen Damon-Moore, Lawrence C. Stedman, Katherine Tinsley, and William Vance Trollinger, Jr. Richard Arthur Courage Academic Literacies: The Public and Private Discourse of University Students, Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater Ronald A. Sudol Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing, Jay David Bolter David Kaufer, Chris Neuwirth, and Myron Tuman At the Point of Need: Teaching Basic and ESL Writers, Marie Wilson Nelson Vivian Zamel ESL in America: Myths and Possibilities, Sarah Benesch Nancy Duke S. Lay Grammar and the Teaching of Writing: Limits and Possibilities, Rei R. Noguchi Constance Weaver Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects, Martha Kolln Thomas J. Farrell Doing Grammar, Max Morenberg Paul Jude Beauvais Textbooks in Focus: Handbooks A Writer’s Handbook: Style and Grammar, James D. Lester New Concise Handbook, Hans P. Guth The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers, Maxine Hairston and John J. Ruszkiewicz Dennis Shramek Selected Essays of Edward P. J. Corbett, Robert J. Connors James L. Kinneavy Interviewing Practices for Technical Writers, Earl E. McDowell Alice I. Philbin

This article uses a computerized style checker—RightWriter® 4.0—to analyze 14 direct-mail letters used to market books to a middle-class female audience. This study outlines methods for correlating stylistic traits with sales success. For this product and audience, letter effectiveness is enhanced by lowering readability levels, as well as by limiting the use of negative words and modifiers. In addition, writers for this audience should avoid words that are too easy or too difficult. However, no correlations emerged between success and letter length, strength of style, sentence length, or percentage of prepositions.

Preview this article: Gender-Typical Style in Written Language, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/rte/26/1/researchintheteachingofenglish15447-1.gif

Preview this article: Recomposing as a Woman-An Essay in Different Voices, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/43/1/collegecompositionandcommunication8893-1.gif

Preview this article: On Blocking and Unblocking Sonja: A Case Study in Two Voices, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/43/1/collegecompositionandcommunication8895-1.gif

I learned to garden from my mother. Every year it was the same-Mom watched while Dad prepared the plot for vegetables. Dad wanted perfectly straight, even rows; he hammered in small stakes to mark the beginning and end of the row. Next he stretched a string between the stakes until it was taut. Then, guided by the string, he hoed the row. He measured off a foot or two between rows and then repeated the process of staking and stretching string. Mom waited until Dad had done all of his planting before she sowed flower seeds in the spaces he had left her on the borders of the garden and the edges of the yard. She loved flowers which could be relied on year after year and didn't mind where they were planted-red, orange poppies with black centers, tall sunflowers sharing the narrow space between our driveway and the neighbor's garage with daylillies at their shoulders and violets at their feet, feathery purple asters, scarlet irises, and rainbows of marigolds and zinnias. I remember her delight whenever she discovered that flowers she had planted in one space had somehow made their way to other spots about the yard or planted roots in neighbors' yards.

This article contains results from a literary analysis of fifty scientific papers selected from the top 100 most-cited papers appearing in the Science Citation Index for the period 1945–1988. Most papers are from the field of biochemistry and became citation superstars because their authors discovered a method or material that numerous others could use in their own research. The typical paper has two authors, two tables, six figures, and twenty-two references. It adheres to the conventional topical organization, with the topics distributed as follows: 2 percent abstract, 5 percent introduction, 25 percent methods and materials, 50 percent results, 10 percent discussion, 4 percent conclusion, and 4 percent reference list. Tables and figures occupy about 30 percent of the article. With respect to the writing style, the average sentence is somewhat long (24 words) but not unreasonably so, and the sentence structure is simple greater than half the time. Moreover, sentences tend to rely heavily on to be verbs (about 80% of sentences have at least one) and abstract nouns (0.66 per sentence). Explanations for the typical form and writing style in these papers are provided.

To help students enter a professional discourse community, teachers must assess how accurately they both understand the community's discourse practices. Our research investigated how job recruiters seeking to fill positions in mechanical engineering or marketing were influenced by the quality of writing in student résumés. The résumés varied in elaboration, sentence style, mechanics, and amount of relevant work experience. The recruiters rated the résumés to indicate their willingness to interview the students. We found that recruiters in the two fields—engineering and marketing—valued quite different writing features. When we subsequently asked students in business writing and technical writing classes to rate the same résumés, we found that they underestimated the importance of various writing features. Generally, however, students' ratings resembled those of the recruiters in their respective disciplines. This study documents how students can improve their résumés and provides insight into the variations of discourse practices in professional disciplines.

What Is English?, Peter Elbow Sheryl Finkle and Charles B. Harris The Right to Literacy, Andrea A. Lunsford, Helene Moglen, and James Slevin Marilyn M. Cooper Textual Carnivals: The Politics of Composition, Susan Miller David Bartholomae Rhetoric and Philosophy, Richard A. Cherwitz James Comas Rhetoric in American Colleges, 1850–1900, Albert R. Kitzhaber Sharon Crowle A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Twentieth-Century America, James J. Murphy Sue Carter Simmons Politics of Education: Essays from Radical Teacher, Susan Gushee O’Malley, Robert C. Rosen, and Leonard Vogt Myron C. Tuman Not Only English: Affirming America’s Multilingual Heritage, Harvey A. Daniels Perspectives on Official English, Karen L. Adams and Daniel T. Brink Alice M. Roy Textbooks in Focus: Cross-Cultural Readers Across Cultures: A Reader for Writers, Sheena Gillespie and Robert Singleton American Mosaic: Multicultural Readings in Context, Barbara Roche Rico and Sandra Mano Emerging Voices: A Cross-Cultural Reader, Janet Madden-Simpson and Sara M. Blake Intercultural Journeys Through Reading and Writing, Marilyn Smith Layton Writing About the World, Susan McLeod, Stacia Bates, Alan Hunt, John Jarvis, and Shelley Spear Nancy Shapiro Textbooks in Focus: Great Ideas Readers Current Issues and Enduring Questions: Methods and Models of Argument, Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau Theme and Variations: The Impact of Great Ideas, Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen The Course of Ideas, Jeanne Gunner and Ed FrankelA World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers, Leo A. Jacobus Great Ideas: Conversations Between Past and Present, Thomas Klein, Bruce Edwards, and Thomas Wymer Casts of Thought: Writing In and Against Tradition, George Otte and Linda J. Palumbo Eleanor M. Hoffman Teaching Writing that Works: A Group Approach to Practical English, Eric S. Rabkin and Macklin Smith Janis Forman Released into Language: Options for Teaching Creative Writing, Wendy Bishop Will Wells

Modes of collaboration are gendered in the sense that they define power relationships among members of a group. In this study, the authors define three collaborative modes: dialogic, asymmetrical, and hierarchical. Dialogic and asymmetrical modes are emancipating and characterized by flexibility, open-ended inquiry, and concern for the growth and development of the individuals involved. Hierarchical modes are oppressive and are characterized by rigidity and suppression of the voices of others in the group. Two collaborative writing groups in a chemical engineering design course exemplify these modes. The first, composed of two women and two men, was primarily dialogic, and the second, composed of two women and three men, exhibited characteristics of all three modes.

This study used on-line protocol analysis to contrast the effects on the writing process of knowledge taught in three instructional treatments: Models (declarative knowledge of form), General Procedures (declarative knowledge of form plus general procedural knowledge related to content plus procedural knowledge related to form), and Task-Specific Procedures (declarative knowledge of form plus task-specific procedural knowledge related to content plus procedural knowledge related to form). Pretest and posttest protocols from six students in each treatment measured treatment effects on the processes of students writing essays involving extended definition. Students in the Models treatment made weak improvements in relating the elements of definition and did not think critically about the concepts being defined. Students in the General Procedures treatment made gains in linking ideas according to particular task constraints and improved their critical thinking skills. Students in the Task-Specific Procedures integrated their ideas purposefully, thought critically about the concepts being defined, and appeared to establish a conversational voice to anticipate composing needs.

The study was conducted in a classroom that used a process approach to literacy. Ten case studies examined the ability of 6th grade Hispanic bilingual students to construct meaning in dialogue journals and literature logs in first and second language. Journals and literature logs were coded and analyzed for language code (L1/L2), topic, codeswitching, sensitivity to audience, writer’s voice, spelling, and grammatical structures. Findings indicate that students were more effective in constructing meaning in dialogue journals than in literature logs. Success in the journals revealed positive self-images while failure with literature logs evoked poor self-concepts. Findings also suggest that implementation of process approaches can pose its own set of instructional problems that need to be addressed, especially when effectiveness is judged in terms of the particular students involved. For example, although the students in this study were able to write in English before having complete control of the language, their development of complex ideas and the construction of meaning suffered considerably. The length and quality of the writing also degenerated when the topic was imposed, when students found no relevance in the literacy activity, and when they were not assisted in contextualizing writing tasks in their own terms. Overall, mere exposure to standard writing conventions did not improve the students’ use of them. The practice of implementing popular instructional programs without incorporating appropriate social, cultural, and linguistic adaptations appears to be ineffective with L2 learners.

As analysts of scientific writing begin to modify their stance against the passive voice and explore the complexities of its use, more research is needed on the rhetorical functions it serves in scientific writing. An analysis of twelve articles reporting experimental studies in speech-language pathology revealed consistently higher percentages of passive structures in the Method and Results sections, with relatively lower percentages in the Introduction and Discussion sections. These findings suggest that passive structures are more appropriate for expository purposes, in those sections where the author's rhetorical role is to describe procedures and present data. In contrast, active structures are more appropriate for argumentative purposes, in those sections where the author is criticizing previous research or advocating a new thesis.

Although the number of comprehensive studies that outline methods for incorporating collaborative writing into the professional writing classroom has increased, most studies discuss only one or two assignments throughout the term. This article describes an entire course focused on shared-document writing. Over a four-year period, students indicated that they valued the time allowed to coordinate groups and to understand and complete assignments. Structuring such a course necessitates assigning work that is related to a single topic and providing students with choices, including a voice in group formation and evaluation.

The verb in the title of James B. White's When Words Lose Their Meaning directs attention to one direction of change, decay. White takes for his emblem the passage from Thucydides from which derives his title, as defining a topic and suggesting a view of life that directs attention to the relation between language, on the one hand, and both the individual self and collective life on the (1961-62). That direction of change that is the focus of attention resembles the plot Alasdair MacIntyre recounts in After Virtue and elsewhere, in which virtues become vices, arts become skills, goods become commodities, and practices and norms lose their intelligibility.1 Neither White nor MacIntyre offers a narrative of the opposite direction of change, in which words and deeds gain, or regain, meaning. Because of this emphasis on decline, each is a conservative, although not necessarily politically conservative, since in each while the processes of corruption are detailed innovative and fructifying forces by contrast appear beyond explanation as heroic. The absence of stories in which meaning and community increase does not mean that each thinks that the world has moved away from a golden age and is going to the dogs, although I see each often misread in that way. It simply means that there is an intelligible plot to decline, but not to advances. Advances happen, but there is no pattern to them. It takes, in White's accounts, someone of the status of Thucydides or James Madison, beyond rational planning, to make words gain meaning, and Aquinas occupies a similar place in MacIntyre's story. The exemplary performances of great literary texts, including great legal literary texts, constitute White's account of how words gain their meaning. There is no overall narrative pattern or story in which these exempla live, while the story of decline has a plot, contains explanatory forces, and all the other rhetorical devices that make it appear more intelligible than the story of how words gain their meaning. We can learn how words gain meaning from exempla, although not necessarily learn to imitate them, and we can learn about decline and fall through generalizations and narratives. The patterns of decline make it possible to fight against those forces, while there are no programs for creativity. Exemplary and causal history are both reasonable ways of talking about and learning from the past, but their co-

This study investigatest he abilityo f 48 children at two grades (3, 5) and reading ability levels (good, poor) to write functionally appropriate expository texts. Their texts (96 in all) were examined for appropriateness and complexity of organization; cohesion, including cohesive harmony; and voice. They were also ranked holistically for quality of writing by adult readers. The data were submitted to descriptive and parametric statistics that examined grade and reading level effects and relationships. Results suggest that nearly all these children understood the function and audience for exposition. Reading level was found to be significantly more related than grade level to sophisticated use of cohesion, organization, and a preference for lexical rather than coreferential cohesion devices. Adult rating of writing quality correlated significantly with those texts using more cohesive harmony and complex organization

On-line computer conferences have been of increasing interest to teachers of composition who hope to provide alternative forums for student-centered, collaborative writing that involve all members of their classes in active learning. Some expect them to provide sites for discourse that are more egalitarian and less constrained by power differentials based on gender and status than are face-to-face discussions. These expectations, however, are largely unsupported by systematic research. The article describes an exploratory study of gender and power relationships on Megabyte University, one particular on-line conference. While the results of the study are not definitive, they do suggest that gender and power are present to some extent even in on-line conferences. During the two 20-day periods studied, men and high-profile members of the community dominated conference communication. Neither this conference domination nor the communication styles of participants were affected by giving participants the option of using pseudonyms.

This article analyzes “Timestyle” in order to identify the persona in the Nation and World sections of Time, a weekly newsmagazine. The sample for the study consisted of articles by 30 staff writers, articles that were randomly selected from Time' s 1988 issues. These articles were analyzed in six categories adapted from Walker Gibson's Style Machine: (a) word size and familiarity, (b) subject words and pronouns, (c) verbs, (d) modifiers, (e) sentence length and subordination, and (f) other effects of tone. The analysis suggests that Time' s narrative voice is a powerful one. The narrator has the power to put us at ease, engage our feelings, secure our trust, and divert our attention.

This article reviews the recent complex and somewhatc onfusing evidence on writing-to-learn and discusses why this lack of clarity exists. It then draws on the field of cognitive psychology to offer a way to reconceptualize how researchers might approach the study of the impact of writing on learning. This reconceptualization involves a modification in both how researchers select writing tasks and conditions in writing-to-learni nvestigationsa nd how they assess the possible knowledge changes due to writing. In the selection of writing tasks and conditions, it is suggested that researchers draw on theories of knowledge change to guide their selections. Four basic theoretical mechanisms potentially related to knowledge change due to writing are discussed. In the measurement of knowledge change, it is argued that writing may more likely influence structural than reproductive aspects of knowledge. Five methods for assessing structural changes in knowledge due to writing are considered.

One of the most effective communication links between corporate management and investors is the annual report. The letter to the shareholders in the report exemplifies the one-on-one communication attempt by chief executive officers and other high level executives with owners. This article examines thirty shareholder letters written by executives who are classified as highly successful based on their own annual salaries and/or the return to shareholders or company performance. The researchers found the letters written by these successful executives to fall within accepted readability levels. The letter writers adhere to convention in the use of numbers and the use of compound adjective. Section headings are not frequently used. The tone of the opening paragraph is usually equivocal or positive even though the first sentences frequently reflect a lack of “you attitude.” In general, the reports written by these successful executives conform to modern-day standards.

(1991). Reforms of style: St. Augustine and the seventeenth century. Rhetoric Society Quarterly: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 26-37.

Text transmitted electronically through computer-mediated communication networks is an increasingly available yet little documented form of written communication. This article examines the syntactic and stylistic features of an emergent phenomenon called Interactive Written Discourse (IWD) and finds that the concept of “register,” a language variety according to use, helps account for the syntactic reductions and omissions that characterize this historical juxtaposition of text format with real-time and interactive pressures. Similarities with another written register showing surface brevity, the note taking register, are explored. The study is an empirical examination of written communication from a single discourse community, on a single topic, with a single recipient, involving 23 experienced computer users making travel plans with the same travel advisor by exchanging messages through linked computers. The study shows rates of omissions of subject pronouns, copulas, and articles and suggests that IWD is a hybrid, showing features of both spoken and written language. In tracing variable use of conventions such as sentence initial lower case and parentheses, the study shows that norms are gradually emerging. This form of written communication demands study because, as capabilities expand, norms associated with this medium of communication may come to influence or even replace those of more traditional writing styles.

Preview this article: Difference and Continuity: The Voices of Mrs. Dalloway, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/53/1/collegeenglish9605-1.gif

This article surveys and critiques the literature on using style checkers and the text-editing capabilities of the computer to assist in revising technical writing. The literature on text-editing capabilities is inconclusive because it is largely anecdotal and methodologically flawed. The literature on style checkers is similarly inconclusive. To better assess the value of the computer, we need to examine the basic premise of the research on revising and word processing: that more revising leads to higher-quality writing. We need to be sure that our evaluative techniques for measuring writing improvement are valid; to focus our attention not only on computer novices but also on computer-experienced writers; to examine other factors that affect how writers use word processing and that in turn might affect writing quality; and to examine more carefully the differences among word processors and among the different style checkers to determine their effects on writing behavior and writing quality.

The authors recount their attempt to analyze a case study in terms of two conflicting rhetorics: a collectivist rhetoric that values most the contributions individuals make to an ongoing collective project and an individualist rhetoric that values most the original and autonomous voice. These two rhetorics conflict in the experience of one writer working concurrently in a literature seminar within a university English department and in the public relations office of a reproductive services agency. This conflict, centering on different rhetorical ethics, had less to do with competence than with commitment: the writer's commitment to the individualist ethics practiced in the writing she did in the literature seminar prevented her from valuing the writing she did at the agency that worked toward a collectivist end. The authors then examine how this analysis is problematized by alternative interpretations of this case that demonstrate that the collectivist rhetoric practiced by researchers and theorists of writing itself involves the interaction of conflicting individualist assertions. This analysis suggests that the most useful theoretical insights any case might provide into the question of how writing ought to be taught are embodied in the exchange of interpretations that case provokes and in the confrontation of diverse arguments that emerge from that exchange.

Preview this article: Beyond Literary Darwinism: Women's Voices and Critical Discourse, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/52/5/collegeenglish9638-1.gif

This article cautions technical writers to be aware of assumptions in their research and writing and suggests a pragmatic incentive for being aware of assumptions. Asserting that our weaknesses are merely our strengths turned inside out by altered circumstances, it compares the power of properly used assumptions with their weakness when improperly used. Its narrative style emphasizes its point with an extended dance metaphor and illustrative examples. “Inspired by the new assumptions, both parties join into a dance of every shifting awareness. Partners in this dance cue each other by tuning in on and accepting the other's assumptions. When the dance starts, communication flows and assumptions begin again. …”

Looking and Listening for My Voice Toby Fulwiler Signs and Numbers of the Times: Harper’s “Index” as an Essay Prompt Brenda Jo Brueggemann

Just before the roundtable began, in Seattle, my friend John Trimbur asked me something about foundationalism. When I asked did he mean Ford, Carnegie, or Rockefeller, John said, patiently, that I really ought to read more of the current literature on discourse communities. I responded, a bit defensively, that I had tried but couldn't get past the counter-hegemonic language. When Min Lu heard that, she raised her eyebrows, Pat Bizzell looked suspicious, Lil Brannon said Really? and Joe Harris wondered, no doubt, what I was doing on the panel in the first place. I explained that I really couldn't read some of that stuff any more than I could write or speak it, and if that meant the revolution would have to go on without me, that was OK. These words among friends were not, in any way, angry-and probably didn't even happen, though they seemed to.

Le style des publications scientifiques et techniques reflete la priorite accordee a la valeur scientifique sur la capacite de communication. Une enquete a ete realisee aupres de redacteurs en chef de periodiques techniques en agriculture et sciences biologiques pour analyser leurs demarches d'edition et leurs suggestions pour l'amelioration du style. Puis une analyse stylistiques des periodiques a ete effectuee

This study analyzed the persuasive essays of high school juniors and seniors to determine the specific rhetorical and linguistic features that contributed to raters' holistic judgments about the overall quality of the essays. Essays written by a random sample of an ethnically, socially, and economically diverse population of high school writers were analyzed using an array of rhetorical and linguistic measures: overall quality, use of a five-paragraph structure, coherence, three types of persuasive appeals, and sentence-level errors. The relationships between the variables and the holistic scores were examined using a correlation analysis. A forward stepwise regression analysis was also used to estimate the amount of variance contributed by each variable. Results indicate that use of logical appeals, five-paragraph structure, coherence, and number of words were strongly correlated with the overall quality ratings.

Empirical studies of gender-based language differences have provided con flicting, discreet conclusions that have little relevance for business- communications instruction. This paper presents informally collected obser vations of male and female students in undergraduate and graduate business- and technical-communication courses. Calling for future formal studies to verify its findings, this study concludes that people-intensive work experience modifies gender-based language differences in written business communica tions of undergraduate and graduate students. However, instruction in audi ence analysis, tone, content design, and style also modify these gender differences. If formally supported, these observations would help teachers argue for the value of business-communications instruction in helping stu dents develop varied and androgynous communication styles important for job-related communications.

From 1887 to 1904, Science and The Popular Science Monthly published a series of articles on the characteristics of composition, articles pointed out an uneasy alliance between scientific methodology and traditional rhetorical assumptions about the nature of writing. This turn-of-the-century dispute between Robert Moritz and Thomas Mendenhall shows how early researchers in rhetoric cast their inquiries in scientific terms to gain the legitimacy of scientific findings. Further, the little-known debate can be read as a precursor to the many debates followed over whether and how quantitative methods can resolve questions in rhetorical inquiry, and more fundamentally, what vision of language underwrites the assumptions of such methods. The debate I want to focus on began with Mendenhall, who first argued for his version of composition analysis in the March 1887 issue of Science.' In this article, as well as in his papers of 1901 and 1904, he seeks to prove his hypothesis (based on a remark by Augustus DeMorgan) each author has a of composition. The curve is based on the frequency with which an author uses words of different lengths, is, one-letter words, two-letter words, and so on. The number of words of each length, when tabulated and graphed, shows the characteristic curve of author. Mendenhall was a noted nineteenth century scientist who published in a wide variety of areas, including geology, geography and science education. He was a president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and served for a time as an editor of Science. Thus a scientific approach to composition was for him merely an extension of methods he used in his daily work. Indeed, he originated his theory based on an analogy to spectral analysis, a method of determining the elements of a given physical substance. Just as each element gives forth a group of waves of definite length, and appearing in certain definite proportions (Mendenhall 1887, 238), so each person's style is marked by numerical constants--the frequency of words of each length. This analogy with spectral analysis reveals not only Mendenhall's procedure but also his notion of the inevitability of style. The style of people, like of elements, is determined by their nature and not their mode of existence; is, their texts are determined by inevitable displays of their fixed personality and not their rhetorical choices. The merits of this approach, according to Mendenhall, are that it offers a means of investigating and displaying the mere mechanism of composition, and it is purely mechanical in its application. (Mendenhall 1887, 245). Mechanism makes impossible human failings of choice and error: by focusing on a meaningless aspect of composition, the researcher can avoid the effects of deliberate changes by the author; by using a mechanistic data gathering method,

Preview this article: Renaissance Voices Echoed: The Emergence of the Narrator in English Prose, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/52/1/collegeenglish9678-1.gif

Personal voice in writing is currently an all-too-subjectively understood notion. Different authors, Coles and Elbow, for example, have drawn appropriate attention to the voice phenomenon, but objective definitions and practical understanding are still lacking. One step toward understanding the workings of voice can be taken, however, by a linguistic analysis of structures that observably cause perception of a personal voice. Examining a limited set of data from professional writing reveals that one clear source of voice is appositive and parenthetical structures. These structures are produced “paragrammatically” by being inserted into a sentence, interrupting its normal flow, with the effect of creating a personal voice. They have a commentative function associated with a second-order “reflective mentality” and can be classified into at least three structural subtypes—displacements, equivalents, and interruptives—correlating with particular commentative functions. This analysis suggests, in general, that distinguishing between a second-order reflective mentality and a first-order factive mentality is central to the perception of voice. The intuitions of compositionists are important in uncovering discourse properties relevant to composition studies, and linguistic analysis is important for successful description of the phenomena and as a basis for pedagogical application.

While demand for business- and technical-writing courses at colleges and uni versities has increased, genuinely qualified teachers are not always available. This article describes an extended program for training graduate assistants to teach business and technical writing. The three-semester program includes a semester of apprenticeship teaching, followed by two semesters in which the graduate assistants teach their own classes. During the graduate assistants' first two semesters, they attend preparatory seminars on the teaching of pro fessional writing. The program emphasizes providing guidance and support for new teachers throughout their assistantship period, while encouraging the graduate assistants to develop their own teaching styles.

This article discusses the impact of possible sex-based differences in communication styles on the technical writer's job. Linguistic research proposes a male and female style of communication. While it is helpful to acknowledge possible differences in communication styles, technical writers must be concerned with the moral and legal implications of sex stereotyping. To explore these issues, the article discusses what it is technical writers do, and who they interact with on a daily basis. It then reviews linguistic research, and linguistic folklore. Finally, the article determines that technical writers can choose to use both male and female traits to acknowledge multiple audiences, and improve the quality of their documents.