Preview this article: Doin' Time in Freshman English, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/26/4/collegecompositionandcommunication17089-1.gif

Composition at the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has progressed in 20 years from hot type to author prepared camera-ready copy, to IBM Executive typing, to math by hanger keys, to multilevel mathematics on the cathode-ray tube (CRT). ASCE's technical journals have incorporated each of these nonfederally subsidized innovations to deliver better, faster, lower cost final products in 13 journals that include about 13 000 pages per year and indexing of 5 000 articles, papers, and discussions per year from staff-typed optical-character-recognition (OCR) material prepared by an editor, half-time, and an editorial assistants Civil Engineering magazine, the biennial membership directory, and annual committee personnel listings are also computer composed.

Preview this article: Folklore in the Freshman Writing Course, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/37/1/collegeenglish16933-1.gif

A REPORT in the New York Times of Thursday, November 7, 1974 (p. 43) that college textbooks are being simplified to meet the needs of poor readers; and the answers to some of the questions on the ADE Survey of Freshman English (ADE Bulletin, No. 43, November 1974, pp. 13-19) highlight the need for a careful investigation into the mysteries of college text selection. For those who teach in composition programs the quality of a textbook is an especially burning issue: one would think that whoever stresses the value of lucidity, of clear voice, of awareness of language and audience, would also exercise care in the choice of composition texts. But the news in that quarter is bleak, at least to my mind. The ADE Survey (sponsored in part by the Carnegie Commission) presents some shocking news about what is happening with freshman English texts, especially (but not exclusively) in community colleges. I should like here to look first at some specific composition textbooks with wide college audiences. I shall then try to move toward a general definition of effective classroom materials merely by suggesting questions we are forgetting to ask ourselves, but must ask if the textbook is not to vanish like the buffalo (it may already be too late-both the Survey and a letter to the Times of Monday, November 18, 1974 [p. 32] by teachers in CCNY's English department report that many college English instructors are abandoning textbooks altogether). The ADE Survey collected replies to a three-page questionnaire from 436 institutions in 49 states. Responding to a question on text choices for freshman composition, instructors most often indicated the Hodges and Whitten Harbrace College Handbook or the McCrimmon Writing with a Purpose as the basic book in the course. More than 100 institutions use the former; about 65, the latter. Among two-year units picking Harbrace were 21.6% of community colleges, 23.1% of public junior colleges, and 25% of private junior colleges. Selecting the McCrimmon text were 15.9% of community colleges and 30.8% of public junior colleges (percentages for four-year institutions are high for the two texts as well). Although I do not have many doubts as tothe effectiveness of these books for competent writers (I've used Harbrace with advanced students), both texts are ill-suited for open a..missions men and women. Aside from the high level of

W. Earl Britton's proposal to substitute technical writing for freshman English is not convincing. The proposal rests on questionable beliefs about the two courses. Freshman English is not neglecting to emphasize the development of communications skills, and technical writing cannot be broadened enough to replace freshman English without becoming a course in freshman English. Both courses have important roles to play in the university. Freshman English should continue to concern itself with general communications skills, and technical writing should continue to involve the application of these skills to special kinds of communication.

Preview this article: Perhaps Test Essays Can Reflect Significant Improvement in Freshman Composition, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/rte/9/2/researchintheteachingofenglish20052-1.gif

SOMiE OF THE PRINCIPLES of Eric Bemrne's theory of Transactional Analysis proven extremely useful to me in teaching English 101. The approach, which I call going backward to move forward, concentrates on three phases: writing for oneself, writing for the live audience of one's colleagues in class, and ultimately, writing for the real world through publication. The course begins with my asking students to close their eyes and to recall all the things former English teachers asked them to remember or to do when writing. Then they are asked to jot down as many of these directives as they can. Next each person is asked to write several of these on the blackboard, which was recently filled with the following: big words, think before you write, each paragraph with your main idea, follow outline forms, dot your 'i's,' don't use overworked metaphors, don't use 'when' or 'how' to start a sentence, never start a sentence with 'and,' never use 'in conclusion,' never end a sentence with a preposition, never use a double negative, never use 'never,' have an interest grabbing first sentence, never start a sentence with because, don't use the verb 'to be,' be more specific,

IN THE FALL OF 1973 I took a nationwide survey of four-year colleges and universities to uncover (1) what, if anything, had happened to the composition requirement and Freshman English during the last several years, (2) some facts about the extent and nature of the spread of exemptions from the requirement, and (3) related information about teaching staffs and loads in composition programs. The survey questionnaire, a 36-item instrument designed to yield data from item responses as well as information through cross-analysis of those responses, was sent to a random sample of 700 schools in all states and the District of Columbia. 491 completed questionnaires, 288 of them from private and 203 from state schools, were used in arriving at the final results. The results of most importance, at least to those in the profession who teach composition, can be generalized as follows: compared with 1967, fewer schools

Preview this article: Permission + Protection = Potency: A T.A. Approach to English 101, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/36/5/collegeenglish16986-1.gif

Preview this article: The Widow's Walk: An Alternative for English 101-Creative Communications, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/36/5/collegeenglish16985-1.gif

Replacing freshman English with technical writing seems logical because the freshman course stresses essays by uninformed students directed to well informed teachers, who encourage the inductive pattern and pay more attention to the writer than to the communication. Moreover, essays are rarely encountered after college. Technical writing, despite its misleading name, is applicable to all fields because it emphasizes efficiency, precision, and communicative effectiveness. The information flows from the knowledgeable to the uninformed, is normally arranged deductively, and focuses upon the reader. Intellectually and rhetorically demanding, it belongs in all professional training.

This paper discusses some of the main reasons for the weakness of much technical writing. It suggests that in teaching college-level students in science and engineering curricula the writing teacher should focus mainly on those weak areas, many of which are neglected in high school English courses or in traditional freshman English. If scientific and technical writers can be taught to make a rigorous intellectual analysis of their writing and can be steered away from simplistic and simple-minded formulas they will come to have enough respect for writing as an intellectual discipline that they can be motivated to bring about actual improvement in their written work.

Preview this article: The Effects of Two Methods of Compensatory Freshman English, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/rte/8/2/researchintheteachingofenglish20081-1.gif

Preview this article: Keats and English 1013, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/35/1/collegeenglish17732-1.gif

Expansion of typewriter composition and the shift from letter press to sheet-fed offset and web-offset printing are two major developments that are lowering costs and improving the efficiency of the overall publishing operation at the American Institute of Physics (AIP). In 1972, out of a total of 104 000 text pages published by AIP and its member societies, about 69 000 pages, or 66 percent, were typewriter composed. Typewriter composition of scientific articles was pioneered by S. A. Goudsmit, Editor-in-Chief of the American Physical Society, for Physical Review Letters. This weekly publication has been typewriter composed since 1958. Today, about 11 000 pages for Physical Review C and Physical Review D are typewriter composed at AIP's new publishing facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Another 8000 pages mainly for Applied Physics Letters and the Journal of Applied Physics are produced by our Publications Division Composition Section in New York City. A small fraction of the total is composed to AIP specifications by the authors themselves. Outside contractors handle the remaining typewriter composition including all of the Russian translation journals. The main justification for the switch from monotype to typewriter composition is the resulting savings of 20 to 30 percent in composition cost Depending upon the journal and the compositor used, these savings amount to as much as $10 per page. In addition, the close coupling of copy editing, composition, proofreading, and page makeup that is possible with an in-house typewriter composition operation has shortened publication time by as much as 2 weeks out of a total of 3 months. We will describe the AIP typewriter composition system from copy editing, through the composition of galleys, to page makeup and the production of final camera-ready copy for offset printing. Specially modified IBM Executive proportional-spacing electric typewriters, equipped with unique attachments, permit the use of a wide range of special characters and signs (italic, Greek, mathematical symbols, superscripts, etc.) needed to compose scientific articles.

This important and influential study is the first to cover the whole field of rhetoric and discourse theory, bringing together and analyzing such varied approaches as Aristotelian rhetoric, modern logic, linguistics, and literary theory. James Kinneavy explores the many and varied purposes of language, and relates these purposes to four discourse types: reference, persuasive, literary, and expressive. Each type is discussed in terms of its inherent logic, its characteristic patterns of organization, and its stylistic features, with abundant examples in support of Dr. Kinneavy's analysis. Readers are invited to sharpen their own perceptions through numerous, carefully planned end-of-chapter exercises, and through further reading in sources listed in chapter bibliographies. A Theory of Discourse is essential reading for scholars of rhetorical and discourse theory, and for teachers of writing and other communications skills. It can also serve as the core text in a course on rhetoric or the teaching of college writing.

Preview this article: Piaget, Problem-Solving, and Freshman Composition, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/24/1/collegecompositioncommunication17680-1.gif

Because innovation without evaluation is often fruitless, the creator of a communication-oriented community college freshman English course converted a segment of this course into an individualized program and solicited detailed student appraisals. The sequence begins with dictionary study, reviews the principles of subordination, continues with studies in semantics and communication, and ends with practice in improving skills in writing letters and reports. The specific unit, converted into an individualized learning package, uses film and tape and enables the student to evaluate his own communication skills and teaches him how to write a concrete communication objective. Students' evaluations conclude the article and explicit student endorsements and criticisms are quoted.

Preview this article: An Alternative Freshman English Program for Minority Students, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/23/5/collegecompositionandcommunication18164-1.gif

Many composition courses do not fit the specialized requirements of students engaged in professional programs. The author states a case for the publishing of special composition texts and the use of special audiovisual material. A third suggestion deals with the instructor using specific resource books to acquire the vocabulary of the profession itself.

Preview this article: A New Approach to Freshman Composition: A Trial of the Christensen Method, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/33/6/collegeenglish18336-1.gif

Preview this article: The Varieties of Freshman English, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/33/6/collegeenglish18342-1.gif

Preview this article: Freshman Composition: The 1970's, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/22/5/collegecompositionandcommunication19126-1.gif

I did my graduate work, composition was taught almost exclusively by slaves. With the exception of a few wives of important faculty and a small number of supervisory personnel, graduate teaching assistants instructed the 200odd sections of freshman composition offered each year. Southern Illinois University has thus opted for one of the two common solutions to the problem of college composition. It utilizes vaguely supervised graduate teaching assistants to instruct the staggering number of students who, each year, enroll in the freshman composition sequence. It goes almost without saying that the freshman composition sequence has virtually no repute within the English department. The Director of Composition is judged effective and the graduate teaching assistants are regarded as a good crop on the basis of the decibel level of student

People programming, the design and documentation of administrative systems for use as a management tool, has been on the rise for some time now, but not so the quality. That seems to remain at a low level. Not only do systems designers still take too much time to design, but the document that they finally do publish is barely communicative. Quality in this case is paradoxical: it is sorely needed, yet it cannot be measured. Grumman, however, solved the problem by taking the approach of building quality into the design effort, providing writing mechanics to do so. Neither the approach nor the mechanics were easy to specify. A philosophy to establish the basics and define the terms was first in order. The mechanics were developed from that philosophy. The results were more than anticipated because, in three years' use, the mechanics have not yet failed to cope with the many systems writing requirements.

Preview this article: An Inquiry: Peer Group Teaching in Freshman Writing, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/22/2/collegecompositionandcommunication19161-1.gif

Freshman composition is a large, expensive, undisciplined operation. The course is taught to students who have little to say by people who are more interested in analyzing literature. It should be replaced by a course designed for seniors. The author draws on his experience at the University of Michigan and describes at what stage composition is taught to engineering students.

IF ANY ONE DOUBTS that we are living in changing, even revolutionary, times, then I suggest that he read the latest cure for the woes of Freshman English, that most universally taught college course in the United States. As expressed by Louis Kampf, next president of the Modern Language Association, the new cure-all is a socialist revolution.1 And a socialist revolution which will compel English teachers to stop preventing the rise of lower class students by dubious grading systems. But the winds of change are not only blowing in the colleges. Fredson Bowers, speaking of graduate education at the Brown University Commencement (June 1, 1970), though not so sure as Louis Kampf about the coming revolution, conceded that Involvement with life, not isolation in the pursuit of knowledge, is the current watchword.2

Preview this article: Books: Handbooks, Subhandbooks, and Nonhandbooks: Texts for Freshman English, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/32/6/collegeenglish18863-1.gif

Preview this article: Greenbaum & Schmerl: Course X: A Left Field Guide to Freshman English, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/32/6/collegeenglish18865-1.gif