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357 articlesApril 2002
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Abstract
The article explores the purpose and methods of teaching the personal narrative in foreign language classrooms. Following a cross-cultural comparison of the history, purpose, and form of autobiography in first-language contexts in the United States and Japan; a review of the place of personal narrative in second- and foreign-language compo sition theory and practice; and the results from survey research involving 160 Japanese freshman students about high school writing instruction in English, a rationale and methodology for teaching personal narrative to Japanese college students of English is presented. The five-paragraph, thesis-driven personal essay presented in English as a second language/English as a foreign language textbooks is critiqued, with recommendations for a more organic form synthesizing story and essay, as in Barrington's concept of “scene, summary and musing.” The limitations of peer editing are discussed, and the bundan writing workshop is described as an effective alternative.
February 2002
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Abstract
Katherine Schultz reports on her longitudinal study of three students’ writing practices outside of school and argues for a focus on students’ writing practices both in and out of school to develop a more comprehensive understanding of students’ capabilities.
June 2001
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We develop a conceptual framework for exploring significant differences in how people from diverse cultural backgrounds and with diverse individual characteristics might perceive and use Web documents. This is the first stage of a large multistage empirical study of user satisfaction and effectiveness of various Web designs based on cultural and individual factors. We identify six cultural factors and six individual factors that could impact the effectiveness of Web documents. The six cultural factors include: power distance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, anxiety avoidance, long-term versus short-term orientation, and polychronic versus monochronic time orientation. The six individual factors include: demographics (age and gender), professional knowledge, information technology knowledge, flexibility, information processing abilities, and cultural knowledge. Based on the conceptual model proposed, we develop a number of testable, specific propositions on how Web document effectiveness could be impacted by the cultural and individual factors in various Web designs. In order to measure document effectiveness of each design, we identify components of Web document effectiveness as perceived usability, reliability, clarity, and comprehension that, in turn, influence readers' overall satisfaction with Web documents. Using the propositions presented, one can measure and analyze how cultural and individual factors influence users' satisfaction, which will assist researchers, educators, and communicators working with various Web designs.
July 2000
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Abstract
Advocates of brain-based learning have argued that instructional methods, to be successful, must be based on an understanding of how the brain processes information. In the past most descriptions of neurocognitive function were largely speculative, relying on theoretical constructions of how we believed the brain to work. Recent advances in functional imaging—Positron Emission Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging—have, however, opened the brain to empirical study. This article will consider the potential importance of brain study for composition instruction, briefly describe functional imaging techniques, and review the findings of recent brain-mapping studies investigating the neurocognitive systems involved in language function. In short, understanding how language systems are organized in the brain represents the first step in our attempts to create brain-compatible instructional methods in the composition classroom. Following a review of the recent literature, the article will consider the possible implications of this information for pedagogical practice.
April 2000
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This longitudinal study was conducted to identify trends in entry-level technology, interpersonal, and basic communication competencies and skills using entry-level classified newspaper advertisements from ten standard U.S. metropolitan statistical areas. Two competencies and one skill were selected from the “Workplace Know-How's” identified by the 1991 U.S. Department of Labor Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS). Specifically, ads including interpersonal competencies increased for the fourth consecutive year; ads including basic communication skills increased for the second consecutive year. Ads including technology competencies decreased slightly; however, the overall trend for technology remains strong. Therefore, the workplace continues seeking the competencies and skills advocated by the SCANS authors.
January 2000
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Abstract
RHETORICA 108 General Prologue and three serious tales. Much of the comedic and fantastic is left unexplored; indeed, he writes, "I hope others will extend the discussion...I have only initiated" (p. 212). Although Russell, at times, claims rather brashly to know what Chaucer thought or didn't think, what he read or didn't read without much qualification, the edginess of his prose provokes response. His work confidently negotiates contemporary Chaucerian scholarship, solidly convincing readers that the trivium can serve as an important lens through which we can read medieval literary texts. ANNE LASKAYA University of Oregon Lynne Magnusson, Shakespeare and Social Dialogue: Dramatic Language and Elizabethan Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), x + 221 pp. In Shakespeare and Social Dialogue, Lynne Magnusson accepts poststructural questioning of the unity and autonomy of the literary text and the independence of its "author" and characters but argues that this critique of formalism has unnecessarily dismissed close reading of language. She seeks to restore it by applying concepts from discourse analysis to a comparison of Renaissance correspondence and Shakespeare's dialogue. Her assumption that letters and plays come close to recording actual conversation seems a little naive, and I am not always sure whether her goal is to recover Elizabethan speech or to illuminate Shakespeare, but she largely achieves both. In place of the Aristotelian categories applied to Elizabethan letters by Frank Whigham, she builds on theories of Mikhail Bakhtin and Pierre Bourdieu, and especially the empirical research of cultural anthropologists Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson. Their model describes attempts to manage risk and save face in conversation through strategies of positive politeness (identifying participants) and negative politeness (dissociating them) that take into account their social Reviews 109 distance, their relative power, and the culture-specific ranking of impositions. As an historian of rhetoric skeptical of imposing our own theories on Renaissance texts, I am startled by how well this approach explains Elizabethan language. Magnusson's study has three parts. Part One demonstrates that gender as well as class influences social dialogue. In Henry VIII, Norfolk employs positive strategies to advise Buckingham; Katherine and Wolsey address King Henry with negative strategies of deference and indirection. The correspondence of Edmund Molyneux, Sidney family secretary, reveals the complexities of Elizabethan relationships. Philip and Robert Sidney command him, while he responds to Philip's criticisms primarily with negative strategies. Lady Mary Sidney tempers her authority over Edmund with positive strategies. Shakespeare's Sonnet 58 and others deferring to his patron are best understood in the context of these conventions. Part Two focuses on letter-writing manuals and administrative correspondence, applying its examples to Shakespeare's plays. Magnusson contrasts Desiderius Erasmus' reform of the horizontal, homosocial relations of scholars in De conscribendis epistolis with Angel Day's reproduction of Elizabethan social hierarchies in The English Secretary, which nevertheless facilitates upward mobility. William Fulwood's The Enimie of Idlenesse, a translation of a French treatise, could have unwittingly supplied hints for the linguistic pretensions of Love's Labour's Lost and A Midsummer Night's Dream. In the former play, the lords' linguistic excesses respond to imitation of their style by upstarts, while in the latter, Theseus appreciates his subjects' incompetence because bumbling shows deference. Elizabethan business depends on personal relationship: thus recommendations ignore job qualifications and requests for favors cement friendship. The Marchants Avizo of Bristol merchant John Browne advises the apprentice to seek aid from fellow merchants, adapting the courtly "pleasuring style" to the commerce. The Merchant of Venice shows the same patterns in the Christian community, but Shylock's speech challenges them, and in Timon of Athens they break down. In the personal letters by which Sir Henry Sidney, Sir William Cecil, and other courtiers administer 110 RHETORICA the Elizabethan regime, negative politeness to equals hints that the intended audience is the Queen, while expressions of "trouble taking" and regrets for "trouble-making" to superiors may excuse independent decisions. Positive strategies of identification present weighty requests as trivial. 1 Henry IV contrasts Hal's mastery of this social language and Hotspur's impatience with it. Part Three explores language as theme in three plays. Greenblatt's concept of self-fashioning cannot adequately explain...
September 1999
June 1999
April 1999
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Abstract
In the first section, the author addresses the most theoretical criticism of private writing as a false or misleading concept—that writing is inherently or essentially social. The author distinguishes and explores the various forms or senses in which this claim is true; in doing so, the author explores the limitations of certain kinds of totalistic forms of argumentation. In the second section, the author also addresses criticisms that acknowledge the existence of private writing but asserts that it is misguided or harmful. In the final section, the author suggests possibilities for empirical research that might not only throw light on theoretical disputes about the nature of private writing but also provide some concrete help to teachers of writing.
March 1999
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Abstract
Reviews three books: Time to Know Them: A Longitudinal Study of Writing and Learning at the College Level, by Marilyn S. Sternglass; Feminism and Composition Studies: In Other Words, ed. by Susan C. Jarratt and Lynn Worsham; The Performance of Self in Student Writing, by Thomas Newkirk.
January 1999
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Abstract
Geographically distributed software development projects have been made possible by rapid developments primarily within the data communication area. A number of companies recognize that distributed collaboration has great potential for the near future. The article describes the empirical study of a cooperative student project located at two different geographical sites. The project was carried out at two universities: one in Sweden and one in Finland. The initial goals were to give the students the opportunity to learn about the practical aspects of cooperation between two geographically separate institutions and to study specific problems anticipated by the teachers with regard to communication, coordination, language, culture, requirements' handling, testing, and bug fixing. The article focuses on communication and coordination within the cooperative project, as these were identified as the most significant problem areas. We also thought that these areas were the most interesting and the ones most likely to lead to improvements. The article not only describes our findings but also gives hints about what to think about when running similar projects, both with respect to project related issues and teaching issues.
November 1998
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Abstract
Investigates, in a longitudinal study, the spelling development of young deaf children in the context of an integrated process writing classroom. Identifies/categorizes the spelling strategies employed by deaf writers as print-based, speech-based, and sign-based. Provides insights into the nature of cognitive processes in the deaf child.
January 1998
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Abstract
Since the 1960s, attitudes toward empirical research on writing, including research on technical/professional writing, have shifted from encouragement to resistance. This essay traces these shifts in light of changes in writing research, psychology, and the rhetoric of science. In composition studies, an initial mild uneasiness about “scientism”; intensified with the rise of process models, suggesting a Romanticist defense of the mystique of creativity. More recent post‐modernist denunciations of scientific methods as immoral have other Romanticist overtones. In technical communication, a long‐standing interest in workplace writing practices allowed a smoother integration of empirical analysis with descriptive studies of writing contexts. However, as in composition, recent critiques in technical communication suggest that empirical methods should not be employed. These critiques too tightly circumscribe the values that may be considered humanist and cut off important avenues of inquiry and critique that historically have advanced both the sciences and humanities.
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Marbles, dimples, rubber sheets, and quantum wells: The role of analogy in the rhetoric of science ↗
Abstract
delegitimate any work that has been done on scientific style and arrangement and any attention that has been paid to ethical and pathetical proofs in (252) by scholars in sociology and rhetoric of science. Pera responds to the point about scientific style by stating believe that style and arrangement, although interesting topics of philosophical analysis, are inessential to science (the law of falling bodies, say, did not acquire or change its status of scientific knowledge when Galileo translated it from Latin into Italian and put it in the context of a dialogue) (255). In effect, he agrees with Gross's assessment by implying that style has no role in science. In addition, Pera's example suggests that he limits the scope of style to mere surface features of discourse-words may change but the concept (or scientific law) does not. If we examine examples from the realm of contemporary science in action, it becomes difficult to continue to conceive of style as ornamental or reduced to surface features and separate from the thoughts being articulated. While some scholars and many scientists may share Pera's reductive definition of style as surface, recent research in rhetoric and composition, as well as postmodern theories of language, suggest that style is connected in central ways with thought and argument (Faigley, Gage, Rankin). To build on this recent scholarship on style, the study of scientific practices can provide important examples of style that encompass an integral part of the scientific concepts or laws being formulated. The role of the rhetorical trope of metaphor or the figure of analogy in the process of scientific inquiry constitutes a prime example. In fact, the role of analogies and metaphors (and a third, related category, models) in scientific investigation has been, for several decades, a topic of much discussion by scholars interested in the workings of science; however, there has been much less inclination for scholars to draw out the implications of these discussions. In this paper, I want to begin to explore some of these implications by reviewing first, how philosophers and rhetoricians of science have conceptualized analogy and its contribution to the work of science; and second, by reporting some observations drawn from an empirical study of a group of physicists as they
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Abstract
The famous Awk is a well-known designation, but this label does not refer to a well-defined concept. The authors report here on an empirical study of the predominant types and patterns of awkward sentences in student writing. They suggest that four general types of syntactic problems—mismanagement of clause structure in errors of embedding, of syntax shift, of parallel structure, and of direct/indirect speech—are associated with four general patterns of semantic problems—mismanagement of idea structure in errors of subordinating ideas, of starting and finishing ideas, of adding ideas, and of incorporating ideas from sources. The authors argue that awkward sentences arise from a complex combination of semantics and syntax, as student writers struggle to manage the relationships among multiple ideas as well as the relationships among multiple clauses. These findings are used to suggest a number of possible pedagogical approaches to the problem of awkward sentences, including the use of read-aloud editing, the targeted teaching of grammar for syntactic editing, and the separation of ideas from sentence form for semantic editing.
April 1997
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Assessing the Value of Client-Based Group Projects in an Introductory Technical Communication Course ↗
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This article argues for the long-term value of client-based group projects in an introductory technical communication course. Survey results are presented from 73 former technical communication students with two to seven years of workplace experience. Lasting five to six weeks, these projects are a compromise between a briefer conventional case method and a more lengthy individualized internship or cooperative education experience. The projects reinforce research, analysis, and reporting skills, such as interviewing specialists and conducting survey research, that graduates continue to value highly even after years of workplace writing. When framed as such, client-based projects also encourage students to define and debate public policy issues.
January 1997
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Abstract
The paper explores the feasibility of using computer networks as communication survey research instruments. Also covered are the use of computers and computer networks in survey studies; a listing of the advantages and disadvantages of network surveys as compared with mail, phone, and fax surveys; a description of the development steps of network surveys; and a comparison of differences in network survey forms. Research issues are also discussed.
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Abstract
Data analysis and representation are important political acts in the research process. The types of data we select for study, the analysis we draw, and our textual and graphic representations of data all contribute to the ways in which the people involved in our research are positioned as subjects and the degree of individual and collective agency that can be constructed through the research process itself. It is because of the potential effects of our research on others that we need to demystify the research we do through laying bare our epistemological positions and opening our methods and methodologies to public criticism. Further, in the case of empowering research, it is important to include the research participants in the development of our research projects. This necessitates explorations into postmodern conceptions of subjectivity, knowledge formation, collaboration, and resistance as they relate to empirical research as well as redefining notions of validity and reliability.
January 1996
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Competence and Critique in Technical Communication: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Journal Articles ↗
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This study uses qualitative content analysis to discuss current perspectives in technical communication pedagogy. It examines the 1990-94 issues of five major scholarly journals—a collection of 563 articles—to identify 98 articles mentioning teaching in undergraduate technical communication courses. Influenced by differing theoretical and practical approaches, the 98 articles were classified according to four pedagogical perspectives: (1) the functional perspective, based on empirical research and workplace experience; (2) the rhetorical perspective, based on scholarship in the humanities and influenced by rhetorical theory; (3) the ideological perspective, also based on scholarship in the humanities but influenced by critical theory; and (4) the intercultural and feminist perspective, a bridging perspective based on both empirical research and critical theory. This article discusses the four perspectives in terms of the educational goals of communicative competence (the ability to use language to succeed in the workplace) and social critique (the ability to question existing social structures and to envision cultural change).
April 1995
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Collaborative Projects in Technical Communication Classes: A Survey of Student Attitudes and Perceptions ↗
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This article reports the results of survey research designed to determine how students feel about peer assistance and group writing. In general, the results are quite favorable, although more problems surface regarding fully collaborative projects than peer criticism. Statistical analysis of both objective and open-ended items yields suggestions for design and management of collaborative projects in technical communication classes.
January 1995
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Abstract
Approaches to using visual language in a cultural context can be placed on a continuum, with global (universal) on one end and culture-focused on the other. Each approach reveals contrasting assumptions about three central design issues: perception, aesthetics and pragmatics. The global approach is characterized by attempts to invent an objective, universal visual language or to define such a language through perceptual principles and empirical research. The culture-focused perspective is founded on the principle that visual communication is intimately bound to experience and hence can function only within a given cultural context, to which designers must be sensitive. While the modernist, universal approach has been losing ground to the postmodern, culture-focused approach, the two complement each other in a variety of ways and, depending on the rhetorical situation, offer pragmatic benefits and drawbacks.
March 1994
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Abstract
To gain a better sense of the metaphorical nature of the scientific research paper, the author reviewed 89 journal articles taken from the top 400 most‐cited documents in the Science Citation Index database for the period 1945–1988. Metaphorical constructions were found in a variety of forms: conceptual models, experimental designs, technical analogies, standard technical names, conventional figurative expressions, and even original figurative language normally associated with more‐literary writing. Examples are given for each mode of metaphor.
January 1994
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Abstract
Visual design has played an important role in the historical development of professional communication. The technology of laser printing has reestablished the importance of visual language in functional communication, transforming contemporary document design and redefining its relation to the traditions of handwritten, typewritten, and printed text. During this period of transition, three factors will shape the new visual language: (a) the development of a visual rhetoric that represents design as an integral part of the message rather than merely as external “dress,” (b) the rediscovery of aesthetics as a legitimate factor in text design, and (c) the use of empirical research—particularly context-specific research—to guide the document design process.
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This longitudinal study examines the reading processes and practices of one college student, Eliza, through eight semesters of undergraduate postsecondary education. Specifically, the study traces the development of this student's beliefs about literate activity—focusing not only on changes in her reading and writing activities per se, but also on her views about those activities, her representations of the nature of texts, and her understanding of the relationship between knowledge and written discourse within her disciplinary field of biology. Multiple data sources—including extended interviews, reading/writing logs, observations and field notes, texts, and read-and-think-aloud protocols—were used to explore Eliza's rhetorical development over her 4 college years. Results of various analyses together suggest that Eliza's conceptions of the function of texts and the role of authors—both as authors and as scientists—grew in complexity. A number of possibly interrelated factors may account for Eliza's expanding notions of authors and of texts: increased subject matter knowledge, instructional support, “natural” development, and mentoring in an internship situation.
May 1993
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The Relationship Between Children’s Concept of Word in Text and Phoneme Awareness in Learning to Read: A Longitudinal Study ↗
Abstract
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February 1993
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This paper focuses on the literacy development of 26 children who were prenatally exposed to crack or cocaine. It reports observations of them during the first year of a six year longitudinal study of their literacy development. Among the specific literacy behaviors targeted for the monthly observations of the children were storybook reading behaviors, writing development, book handling skills, and orthographic knowledge. At the end of the first year, the literacy development of these children appeared to be within the parameters of what might be considered normal literacy development.
January 1992
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Categorizing Professional Discourse: Engineering, Administrative, and Technical/Professional Writing ↗
Abstract
Rhetorical categories can and should be developed by scholars of professional writing to identify how values held within professions constrain the ways discourse is interpreted in organizational settings. Empirical research (conducted by the author and others), discourse theory, and pedagogical practice in professional writing strongly suggest that at least three categories of professional writing exist: engineering, administrative, and technical/professional writing. The author demonstrates this claim and distinguishes the characteristics of these three categories. Engineering writing is shown to respond to professional values of scientific objectivity and professional judgment as well as to corporate interests. Administrative writing reflects the locus of decision-making authority and promotes institutional identity. Technical/professional writing aims to accommodate audience needs through complying with professional readability standards. Future research should focus on defining the characteristics of these varieties more precisely. Articulated definitions of these three varieties of professional writing can help scholars and practitioners better understand how discourse is framed and interpreted in organizational settings.
July 1991
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Abstract
Technical communicators are faced daily with digesting the results of research reports; however, many technical communicators do not have the training that would facilitate their comprehension of such reports, particularly the sections of research reports that cite statistical terminology. This article addresses the need of technical communicators to become critical readers of empirical research. Specifically, we present simple definitions of selected research designs and statistical concepts and accompany these definitions with concrete examples related to the field of technical communication research.
May 1991
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A Longitudinal Study of the Predictive Relations Among Symbolic Play, Linguistic Verbs, and Early Literacy ↗
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The intent of this study was to examine the predictive relations among dimensions of symbolic play (i.e., object and ideational transformations), linguistic verbs, and measures of early literacy (i.e., Concepts of Print, Emergent Reading and Writing). A sample of 12 preschool children (3-1/2-years-of-age) was observed for two years during free play and in a variety of literacy events. Results indicated that use of linguistic verbs predicted Concepts of Print scores. Further, symbolic play and linguistic verbs predicted emergent writing and reading, respectively. Results are discussed in the terms of the separate ontogenies of writing and reading
October 1990
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Abstract
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May 1990
October 1989
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Abstract
In their searches for examples of rhetorical strategies, students of modern rhetoric frequently overlook writers from the past. In his huge six-book work on the “Art of Falconry” written about 1247–1249, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, a remarkably versatile ruler, an early renaissance man, an empirical researcher, provided numerous excellent examples of rhetorical practices from which students and practicing writers well could learn. This article offers extended examples of definition, contrast, partition, causal analysis, classification, and description, to name but a few.
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Writing in the humanities may, typically, be distinguished from writing in the social sciences in its treatments of abstractions. Writing about literature is here characterized as data-driven, in that it begins with a text and proceeds up the ladder of abstraction by interpretive classifications which are likely to diverge from one interpreter to another. Social science writing is described as conceptually driven, in that writers begin with communally defined abstractions which then drive the selection and discussion of data; the divergence between writers' abstractions characteristic of data-driven writing is less likely to occur in conceptually driven writing. This article describes how the difference shows up in professional academic writing, some of the confusion students experience in trying to shift from one kind of writing to another, the strengths and weaknesses of each kind of writing, and the benefits to be gained from alternating between the two kinds.
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Intended for writing instructors at all levels who lack the training to deal effectively with the increasingly important role played by empirical research in their field, Composition Research explains ten of the most common empirical designs used in the social sciences. These include: case study, ethnography, sampling/survey, quantitative descriptive research, prediction and classification studies, true and quasi-experiments, meta-analysis, and program evaluation. Each design is explained with reference to at least two specific composition studies, and includes a separate bibliography that identifies further writing studies that use it. The book also features a chapter on measurement, an appendix on statistical analyses, a glossary of technical terms and symbols, and guidelines for research on human subjects.
March 1989
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Abstract
An empirical study was conducted to explore text editing performance in an actual work environment. The text editing performance of 12 experts and 24 novices was studied across several benchmark tasks using either a command-driven, PC-based or hard-wired text editing system. Experts were tested for performance and functionality; novices were tested for learning. Additionally, the keystroke-level model was applied to the performance tasks and the results compared to actual observations. The results indicated that the methodology of T. Roberts (unpub. Ph.D. thesis, Stanford Univ., CA, USA, 1980) could be easily applied to a work environment and provided useful information for the evaluation of text editing systems. The study identified several areas of the keystroke-level model that could be modified to provide a more accurate assessment of text editing performance.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>
March 1988
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Abstract
When we teach, we tell a story to our students and to ourselves, a story about the acquisition of knowledge. The telling of this tale is what we usually refer to as pedagogy. A syllabus, in this view, is a kind of fiction inhabited by nonfictional characters who journey together through the plot of the story. Every syllabus, of course, tells a slightly different tale. However, when a syllabus is codified into a textbook-that most maligned of literary genres-it begins to resemble something more akin to what Jean-Franvois Lyotard calls a master narrative, a story around which other are constructed. According to Lyotard, even in an age of science, narration is the quintessential form in which how-to knowledge is established and transmitted. I would argue that in the largely literate and institutionalized societies of the West, textbooks provide us with many of these culturally essential of knowledge. In this essay I propose to anatomize the stories that four influential composition textbooks tell, both to reveal their pedagogical and epistemological suppositions and also to uncover the master narratives that give their theories of writing consequence and shape. The four texts are Rhetoric: Discovery and Change by Richard Young, Alton Becker, and Kenneth Pike; ForminglThinking/Writing by Ann Berthoff; Teaching Composing by William Coles; and A Short Course in Writing by Kenneth A. Bruffee. In the case of these four, at least, the tale told follows the ancient pattern of heroic adventure, a pattern of separation, initiation, and return. Joseph Campbell's comparative study of eastern and occidental mythologies, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, identifies a basic form of this heroic story, the monomyth.
April 1987
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Abstract
This article presents the results and implications of an empirical study designed to explore the descriptive characteristics of boundary spanning individuals. Boundary spanners are individuals in an organization who facilitate and filter the flow of information internally and externally. Demographic profiles of boundary spanners (stars, isolates, and liaisons) are developed. Conclusions of this study provide information that could enable organizations to more effectively manage the boundary spanning process.
January 1986
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Many scholars call for systematic empirical research in technical writing. This article reviews the Westley-MacLean communication model and provides an example of the model within a technical communication context. The author suggests use of the Westley-MacLean model as a means to conceptualize the technical communication process, and illustrates how the model can be used as a technical writing paradigm.
November 1985
September 1985
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Abstract
The results of an empirical study made of the report-reading habits of a group of Westinghouse managers are presented. The author systematically documents two types of information: (1) how managers read reports; and (2) what managers look for in reports. Useful checklists for various types of reports are provided and a section on the responsibility of management in the reporting process is included.
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Abstract
It is argued that, with today's growing emphasis on audience analysis in technical communication, there needs to be a sharper focus on the informational needs of various audiences; much empirical study is needed to provide a fuller definition and understanding of the nature of these informational needs and how they directly affect the writing done. Effective upward management communication is directly dependent on the quality of communication moving downward in the organization to the staff, and on how staff is made to understand the decision-making role and informational needs of the management reader. Of all the people involved in technical communications, the manager of the writers may be best equipped to determine the informational needs of readers, especially those of upper management. A brief review of two empirical studies conducted by the author demonstrates the value of such studies and encourages others to undertake similar studies.
April 1985
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Abstract
A great deal of empirical research has been done in the past to test writing rules commonly taught in the classroom. To date, however, no one has constructed a deep theory of the relationship between cognition and writing that confirms the writing rules and explains why they work. Grunig, Ramsey, and Schneider construct a deep theory of the relationship between language, cognition, and writing — based upon theories and research in the fields of cognitive psychology, social psychology, philosophy of language, information theory, reading theory, rhetoric, and systems theory. The authors build a theory of writing that contains fifteen definitions, eleven premises, and eleven principles. The eleven axiomatic principles subsume practical writing rules, especially science writing rules, and offer a broad framework for research. The article concludes with results of several exploratory studies using the “signaled stopping technique” to observe the cognitive effects of writing.
October 1984
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Abstract
Conceptual and empirical research were combined to develop information concerning the kinds of papers appropriate for lower-division technical writing in various kinds of institutions: the community college, the technical institute, the four-year college or small university, and the multi-purpose university. Relationships were studied between types of papers rated highly appropriate by teachers of technical writing and types of institutions as well as instructional aims. Also studied were those teachers' suggestions for specialized kinds of papers. The author discusses the implications of this research for determining instructional aims of lower-division technical writing courses in four-year institutions.
June 1984
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Abstract
The author presents the results of a comparative study of experienced writers editing and revising at a word processor and with pen and paper. Seven writers performed four writing tasks, each of which provided several kinds of data. Among these are statistical analyses and graphs of a chronological record of changes made in both modes and summaries of interviews with the subjects after each writing task. Results suggest that the word processor directly alters a writer's composing style.
July 1983
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Abstract
Little empirical research has been conducted concerning the relationship of photographs to text in photoillustration. Knowledge of photoillustration has remained the informal folklore of layout artists and photographers for several reasons: the unquantifiable nature of aesthetic judgment; the differences between principles of photography and of traditional art forms; and advances in both camera and press technology. As a result of these factors, tradition, not empirical research, has dominated practice. But traditional layout principles which have been the subject of empirical testing have received both denial and reinforcement in such areas as the effectiveness of photoillustration, color versus black-and-white, placement of photographs, and the photograph and traditional layout principles. More research is needed into this vital aspect of text production; fruitful research directions are suggested and the synthesis of the knowledge of both the practitioner and the researcher advocated.
December 1982
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Abstract
Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. C. Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963. Cooley, W. W., & Lohnes, P. R. Evaluation research in education. New York: Irvington, 1976. Hilgers, T. L. Training college composition students in the use of freewnting and problem-solving heuristics for rhetorical invention. Research in the Teaching of English, 1980, 14, 293-307. Hilgers, T. L. Self -monitoring and the expository writing process. Unpublished thesis, The University of Hawaii, 1977. Keppel, G. Design and analysis: A researcher's handbook. Englewood-Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973. Kerlinger, F. N. Foundations of behavioral research (2nd ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1973.
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Abstract
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