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.

The study demonstrates the language skills value added by business writing instruction. Descriptive Tests of Language Skills of the College Board (DTLS) covering sentence structure and usage were administered as a pretest/posttest assessment to students enrolled in two business writing courses. Instruction in business writing resulted in improved language skills as measured by the DTLS.

It is pointed out that veteran technical writers and editors sometimes suspect that the professors who teach technical writing and editing are too deeply immersed in their academic culture to translate effectively into the classroom the world of work culture in which technical writing and editing are practised. It is argued, however, that the two cultures are remarkably alike, sharing the same goal-to improve communication. Differences arise primarily in the approaches taken to achieve that common goal. Drawing on 25 years of experience as a visiting professor in a university writing program, the author discusses the different approaches that industry and academia take to such topics as grammar, rhetoric, audience, editing, artwork, decision-making, and collaborative writing.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

For me it is a starting point in all thought about language that, whatever I say or do with words, my expression will never mean exactly the same thing to you that it does to me; and of course yours will never mean exactly the same thing to me that it does to you. It cannot: each act of expression is a gesture against a context; it derives its meaning largely, perhaps entirely, from its relation to that context; and for each of us the context of every gesture is different, if only because one of us is doing it, the other observing. Think of the tennis game, and how differently the same shot is experienced by you and by me. From your point of view, having made the play, the ball disappears across the net into the larger scene from which it is about to be returned; for me, the ball emerges from such a scene to become increasingly the object of focus and potential action. For you the shot is something done; for me it constitutes a challenge: Can I respond? This is to focus on the difference between the sender and the receiver, between the person who writes words in her study, on a pad, then sees them printed and sent forth into the world to merge with all the other books and articles out there, and the other person, who finds this book or article among the others, idly glances at it, or chooses to read it with care, and thus locates it within the world of the other texts that he has known. This is one difference, but not the only one, for our sense of context and action is different in many other ways as well: our sense of the words themselves is different, for they have different histories for each of us; our sense of the way words are related by syntax varies too, since, as any language teacher knows, we inhabit different syntactical worlds; and our experience of the natural world, of other people, of institutions, of other gestures on other occasions-all of which provide parts of the context against which the particular performance occursvary too. My meaning can never be your meaning; all writing is a way of addressing, or avoiding, that fact. It is this theme that I wish to pursue in responding to the various articles written about my work, beginning with that by Eugene Garver.

Introduction Social Science Perspectives Who are Basic Writers? by Andrea Lunsford and Patricia A. Sullivan Development Psychology and Basic Writers by Donna Haisty Winchell Literacy Theory and Basic Writing by Mariolina Salvatori and Glynda Hull Linguistic Perspectives Modern Grammar and Basic Writers by Ronald F. Lunsford Dialects and Basic Writers by Michael Montgomery TESL Research and Basic Writing by Sue Render Pedalogical Perspectives Basic Writing Courses and Programs by Michael D. Hood Computers and Writing Instruction by Stephen A. Bernhardt and Patricia G. Wojahn Writing Laboratories and Basic Writing by Donna Beth Nelson Preparing Teachers of Basic Writing by Richard Filloy Appendix: Selective Bibliography of Basic Writing Textbooks by Mary Sue Ply Name Index Subject Index

Despite the advent of computerized spelling checkers, being a poor speller is still asignificant burden for a writer. Spelling errors are stigmatizing, considered a mark of illiteracy both in academia and in business. Occasions for spelling errors are far more frequent than are opportunities for other errors, and misspellings arc more noticeable. Relatively few readers respond to comma splices or dangling participles, but virtually everyone reacts to "dosen't" or "stuped" or "thair." For the poor speller, writing, particularly in impromptu situations, is a gamble; spelling errors always threaten to sabotage the communication. Since spelling instruction is usually not part of the firstyear composition curriculum -even in a basic writing course, only some students will be poor spellers -assistance with spelling problems should become a regular part of a writing center program; it may be the only resource available to students who need help.

Harris argues that linguistic theory is useful for solving certain problems encountered in technical writing theory and pedagogy [1]. However, he undermines his purpose by introducing irrelevant distinctions between competing syntactic theories (Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar and Transformational Grammar) and by failing to exploit the full potential of the few applications he mentions. The passive rule is a case in point. It not only constitutes an operational test for identifying passive sentences, it also contributes to the flow of discourse by rearranging both thematic roles (e.g. agent and patient) and given/new information. The passive rule is only one of a class of noun phrase-moving operations that technical writing specialists may find useful.

When faced with mathematical material, editors with limited technical training often address only superficial concerns such as format and punctuation. A few simple guidelines are presented here which can help one do a more complete job. Superfluous symbols should be deleted; the remaining symbols should be defined properly, redefined where necessary, and used according to the rules of grammar.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

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.

It is noted that existing editorial style sheets/guides do not address the unique needs encountered in developing computer-delivered information. The author presents guidelines that supplement the stylesheets/guides. These guidelines suggest ways to handle the organization and presentation of information, paragraphs, sentences, questions and responses, language, punctuation, and screen design.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

The author notes the unique needs of the graphic interface and the demands these needs make on the technical writer. Ten principles to help cope with writing for the graphic interface are presented, with emphasis on lexical, syntactic, and display issues. The principles are: (1) avoid verbal shortcuts; (2) keep the words simple and direct; (3) keep the syntax simple and direct; (4) keep the punctuation simple and direct; (5) keep the layout simple and direct; (6) keep the writing brief; (7) keep all dialogue and window text self-contained; (8) be absolutely consistent; (9) revise; and (10) always keep the user firmly in mind.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

students. In 1966 Orin Seright, in On Defining the Appositive, contrasts the appositive with the adjectival, using this example of the adjective clause: My sister, whom we elected president, is here (108). Seright calls the italicized clause a non-restrictive although it is a modifier of sister rather than the main clause. (Seright points out that appositives, often presented as if they were always nominals, not only restate previous structures but also may substitute for them [109]; thus, verbs, adverbials, and adjectivals as well as nominals may function as appositives.) Seright's belief that the adjective clause is a modifier may follow directly from what I regard as an oversight by Seright's colleague Francis Christensen. In the 1968 article entitled The Problem of Defining a Mature Style, Christensen objects to the term modifiers--only because the constructions one another as well as sentences (143). He overlooks the possibility that many of these sentence actually modify a particular word in the (usually) preceding word-group. Indeed, calling them modifiers, in contrast to modifiers,' he explains that bound modifiers word They close or limiting or restrictive modifiers. But free modifiers are modifiers not of words but of constructions, from which they set off by junctures or punctuation. Grammatically, they loose or additive or nonessential or nonrestrictive (143). Free modifiers, Christensen seems to say, always modify the preceding main clause or free modifier, and concomitantly free modifiers do not modify a particular word in the preceding unit. But as I view these modifiers, they indeed seem to be loose; and they clearly additive, nonessential, and nonrestrictive. However, many of them do not modify consrucions but single words.

Typical spelling errors that the Japanese make when writing in English are discussed. An improved spelling checker for Japanese users that takes their linguistic idiosyncracies into consideration is described.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

This article discusses the recommendations made by compositionists to import the findings of linguistics into composition instruction during the middle years of the twentieth century. The article classifies these recommendations for the uses of linguistics into three kinds: (1) improvement of instruction in grammar and usage; (2) enhancement of students' syntactic and stylistic repertoires; and (3) an aid to invention. Utilizing this history, the article argues that while linguistics can offer teachers of composition some assistance in matters that are proper to linguistic investigation and analysis, the noncontextual orientation of modern linguistics renders it insufficient as a comprehensive source of theoretical or practical assistance in composition instruction.

Linguists and philosophers have traditionally argued that definite constructions presuppose familiarity on the part of the addressee. This article examines empirically the question of what kind of familiarity, in the context of newspaper editorials, this might be. A significant issue, articulated by literacy theorist Walter Ong, is the nature of the reader and whether a writer can know what a reader is familiar with. Taking a case study approach, the author examines definite constructions in 15 editorial articles from the Christian Science Monitor. These constructions are classified, following Brown and Yule (1983), as either re-evoking, new, or inferrable. It is argued that for purposes of studying the writer-reader relationship, the inferrables are most interesting since they indicate what the writer believes the reader is capable of inferring. Ultimately both the new and the inferrable show that writers use definite constructions in accord with genre conventions. The author concludes that such conventions make communication efficient.

This book constitutes an interesting guide to recent developments in vocabulary studies. As will be made clear below, this review addresses researchers and others interested in issues concerning computational morphology and lexicography in a Machine Translation (MT) environment. For this reason we focus more on relevant chapters of the book than on those which concern pure language teaching and language learning issues. The book is divided into three parts. Part one contains four chapters devoted to the analysis of lexis with a particular emphasis on its role in discourse contexts. Part two consists of three chapters dealing mostly with issues related to language learning, language teaching and lexicography. Part three includes two case studies in lexical stylistics based on informant analyses. Chapter 1 explores the notion of word. A definition based on orthographic criteria (i.e. a word viewed as a sequence of letters bound on either side by a space or a punctuation mark) is taken into consideration. Nevertheless, it is observed that such a definition is violated by the existence of a great number of multi- word units (e.g. instead of, post box, etc.). On the other hand, the phonological criterion for defining a word as a string of phonemes containing only one stress is also not felicitous, firstly because it only concerns spoken language and secondly because a stress can be used as a demarcator of strings for emphatic purposes. Other problems relate to the existence of several forms for only one lexical meaning (e.g. verbal allomorphs of the same inflectional paradigm: bring, brings, brought, bringing), as well as to the appearance of the same form for different meanings (e.g. the different meanings of the word/a/r). The case of idioms (e.g. to kick the bucket) involving more than one text word which, semantically, can be substituted by a single word is also problematic. In attempting to provide a good criterion for defining a word, Carter uses the valuable concept of lexeme which helps to override most of the problems mentioned above (e.g. the existence of different form variants for the same word). He correctly observes that are the basic contrasting units of vocabulary in a language. When we look up in a dictionary we are looking up lexemes rather than words (p. 7).

The author reviews the research on the effectiveness of graphics in instruction and then proposes a framework for developing a theory that accounts for the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of graphics. His goal is to lay the groundwork for developing prescriptive guidelines for the design of effective graphics in training documents. He stresses that further research needs to be done in order that a theory of learning from graphics can be developed in sufficient detail for design prescriptions to be provided and that prescriptive theory for graphic design is necessary.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

While writing teachers view the résumé as a sophisticated rhetorical chal lenge, students tend to see it as a "technical specification"of their employment qualifications. This study investigated the reader's perspective by examining how writing features influence recruiters' assessments of résumés. Eighteen recruiters rated 72 résumés describing fictitious mechanical-engineering stu dents. Four résumé features were systematically varied: relevance of previous work experience, elaboration ofindependent coursework, stylistic quality, and mechanical correctness. The major result suggests that technical work experi ence is important but not sufficient: If the résumés of technically well- qualified applicants contained grammatical errors, recruiters rated these résumés lower than résumés listing less experience but containing more accu rate writing.1

Of all the bruising confrontations between the capitalist and communist power blocks perhaps none was so staggering as the Cuban missile crisis. Most Americans patriotically rallied around our determined young president in this great moment of crisis, but there were other Americans who spoke with a different voice then who presumed to disagree with the dominant opinion. These were the voices from the left, now the old left. Their rhetorical response is my subject. By concentrating on several specimens written from a leftist perspective in response to a single event, I create a framework for analyzing the discourse of an ideology to demonstrate the influence of that ideology on and argument, together with the usefulnesses of an analytic method. Antecedent to this analysis are particular considerations about style, argument and method which lead to other considerations peculiar to the relation of political discourse to the world. Because the event focused opinion strongly, and time gives perspective, I have chosen written and oral reactions to the Cuban missile crisis. In addition to selections of written from three leftist newspapers, the National Guardian, The Weekly People, and The Catholic Worker, I have included speech samples on the same topic from Dean Rusk, then Secretary of State, as a contrast to the rhetoric of the left. To analyze this discourse I use Walker Gibson's style machine as he calls it developed to account for distinctions...in the voices addressing (115), distinctions which he breaks down into tough, sweet and stuffy talkers. Gibson's machine, consisting of sixteen grammatical-rhetorical qualities, is appended (A). Other available descriptions or classifications of or argument are Huntington Brown's deliberative, expository and prophetic, Edwin Black's exhortation and argument, and Aristotle's topics. Brown and Black analyze thought methodology with some consideration of style. The neo-Aristotelians, on the other hand, consider and thought combined into argumentative methods. I follow the classical topics in considering rhetorical argument (Rhetoric chs. 22, 23, 24; Corbett 94-132). My particular assumptions are that belief influences style, that while prose styles can be typed individual differences remain, that includes varieties of diction, syntax, and argument Further, I seek an attitude towards language, an attitude, however, influenced not by cultural or individual psychology, but by political belief. Because political writers argue, their arguments common to all rhetoric can also be typed. Argument creates patterns which shapes. For Gibson is a matter of sheer individual will, a desire for a particular kind of self-definition no matter what the circumstances (24). Political belief can condition will. For both Marie H. Nichols (75), and Edwin Black (Persona) reveals distinctive political personalities. In selecting a usable analytical methodology I had either to invent my own, or use an existing one. I chose Gibson's because we share similar concerns. I want to know what kind of voice speaks. What does the use of that voice imply? How do I determine trust? I also want to know the attitude of that voice towards subject and audience. If Gibson can help to answer these questions, then I accept his work saving the necessity of inventing yet another method, concentrating instead on the results produced. In general, stylistics seems more of a discourse on method than on results. Although we want to know what ails us, naming is not enough. To know that Dorothy Day talks tough does not suffice. We know there are other names than tough, sweet or stuffy. The point is not just to label, but to penetrate into the thought behind the voice aided by a given point of view. Gibson describes his work as primitive. Primitive, yet legitimate because applied he yields insight His method reveals attitude just as psychiatric categories, which might also be called primitive, reveal motive. If the arguments which pattern are traditional and discernible, their correlations with are not as clear. The advertiser, for example, speaks sweetly with recognizably dubious argument. Those political voices purring and storming at us must also be judged by how they argue so their trustworthiness can be determined. We can uncover falsehood by showing how a statement varies from reality--plain lying. We can discover understanding of mental illness by probing the discordance the aberrant mind creates

The mature writer is recognized ... by his ability to create a flow of sentences, a pattern of thought that is produced, one suspects, according to the principles of yet another kind of grammara grammar, let us say, of passages. Mina ShaughnessyRichard M. Coe has developed such a grammar, one which uses a simple graphic instrument to analyze the meaningful relationships between sentences in a passage and to clarify the function of structure in discourse. Working in the tradition of Christensen s generative rhetoric, Coe presents a two-dimensional graphic matrix that effectively analyzes the logical relations between statements by mapping coordinate, subordinate, and superordinate relationships.Coe demonstrates the power of his discourse matrix by applying it to a variety of significant problems, such as how to demonstrate discourse differences between cultures (especially between Chinese and English), how to explain precisely what is bad about the structure of passages that do not work, and how best to teach structure. This new view of the structure of passages helps to articulate crucial questions about the relations between form and function, language, thought and culture, cognitive and social processes.

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Introspection suggests that both writers and readers experience auditory imagery of intonation, accents, and hesitations. The suggestion here is that certain important aspects of this “covert prosody” of written language are reflected in punctuation. In order to study systematically the degree to which punctuation reflects the covert prosody of written language, one would like to find independent ways of uncovering that prosody. Two such ways are explored here: reading aloud and “repunctuating” (inserting punctuation in passages from which the author's punctuation has been removed). The article focuses especially on the relation between “punctuation units” (stretches of language between punctuation marks) and the “intonation units” of speech, and the variations in this relation that are found among different authors and different styles. It explores the degree to which different pieces of writing are prosodically spokenlike, and the degree to which they capture the prosodic imagery of ordinary readers. “Close” and “open” punctuation are discussed, as are selected grammatical sites at which there is a discrepancy between punctuation and prosody. It is suggested that an awareness of prosodic imagery is an important ingredient of “good writing.”

Winifred Bryan Homer, Rhetoric in the Classical Tradition. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988. xvii + 462 pages. Ira Shor, ed., Freire for the Classroom: A Sourcebook for Liberatory Teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, Heinemann, 1987. Afterword by Paulo Freire. 237 pages. Erika Lindemann, Longman Bibliography of Composition and Rhetoric: 1984–1985. Longman, 1987. xviii + 318 pages. Longman Bibliography of Composition and Rhetoric: 1986. Longman, 1988. xv + 249 pages. Richard M. Coe, Toward a Grammar of Passages. CCCC Studies in Writing and Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988. 123 pages.

Linguistics has been largely misunderstood in writing pedagogy. After Chomsky's revolution, it was widely touted as a panacea; now it is widely flogged as a pariah. Both attitudes are extreme. It has a number of applications in the writing classroom, and it is particularly ripe for technical writing students, who have more sophistication with formalism than their humanities counterparts. Moreover, although few scholars outside of linguistics are aware of it, Transformational Grammar is virtually obsolete; most grammatical models are organized around principled aversions to the transformation, and even Chomsky has little use for his most famous innovation these days. Among the more recent developments is Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, a model with distinct formal and pedagogical advantages over Chomsky's early transformational work.

When writers make frequent grammatical errors, they often spend a substantial part of composing time making decisions about grammar. Studies of unskilled writers with normal hearing indicate this hyperconcern for correctness. There have been reasons to believe, however, that the attention of deaf writers who make errors is less consumed by grammatical decision making. The present study was undertaken to determine whether representative deaf writers devote as much attention to grammatical decisions as unskilled hearing subjects. Ten deaf subjects and five hearing subjects wrote and edited accounts of two short stories that were signed and spoken on videotape. Under all composing conditions, the deaf subjects' rates of pausing were substantially lower than those of the hearing writers. Combined with subjects' patterns of error correction, these findings suggest that the deaf subjects devoted substantially less attention to grammatical decision making during composition.

Four types of quick references (small, portable packages of information) are described: slide rules, syntax summaries, informational guides, and posters and templates. Their design is discussed, covering the use of white space, type legibility, logical organization, inclusion of relevant information only, information accessibility, and effective headings.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Findings from a comparison of undergraduate and on-the-job writers recommend some changes in traditional methods of teaching technical writing in college. Freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and “competent” writers in business and industry were given the same composing task. The writing of the employees showed telling and sometimes unexpected differences in a wide variety of areas, in length, vocabulary, organization, specificity, coherence, sentence formation, and surface error. Implied is increased attention to several general writing skills: compression of meaning, fluency of expression, efficiency in techniques of coherence, expandability of organization and syntax, and rhetorical maneuverability and adaptability.

The purposes of this study were to identify the types of misspellings made in student writing during the first eight years of school, to determine at what grade level these problems emerged, and to identify any developmental changes in the kinds of errors committed over the years. Among some of the important findings were the facts that the total number of spelling errors increases from the first grade through the fourth and then begins to decline. The deletion of letters is by far the major problem area, accounting for practically 40% of the errors throughout the eight years. Although the percentage of vowel deletions declines steadily, the percentage of consonant deletions, even though erratic, remains relatively high. The article concludes with an explanation of the results and ideas for future research.

The author's grading strategy in an upper-division technical writing course is documented. Students taking the course plan technical communication careers. They complete 50 pages of editing exercises and generate more than 75 pages of double-spaced copy for eight assignments. The author responds to students' work in several ways: (1) personalized memos and extended handwritten comments, (2) marginal handwritten comments and questions, (3) internal copyediting of student manuscripts, (4) individual conferences, and (5) assignment of a grade. When editing student assignments, criticism is provided of content, communication effectiveness, and appearance. For content, the accuracy, consistency, logic, and evidence are evaluated. For communication effectiveness, the appropriateness of the narrative and visuals for the audiences, organization, clarity, and conciseness are evaluated, and for appearance, checks are made for spelling, mechanics, stylebook, and format errors.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

Grammar errors and style weaknesses identified by CRITIQUE, a text processing system developed at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, are discussed. Linguistic criteria for distinguishing between grammar and style are drawn first. These criteria are reflected in the messages issued by CRITIQUE to the user. Then, a computational criterion for distinguishing between grammar and style is discussed. This criterion is reflected in the implementation of the grammar-checking and style-checking mechanisms. Finally, it is explained how CRITIQUE operates when the criteria are in conflict: the implementation is driven by the computational criterion, while the display to the user remains faithful to the linguistic criteria.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>

A Comprehensive grammar of the English language , A Comprehensive grammar of the English language , کتابخانه دانشگاه علوم پزشکی و خدمات بهداشتی درمانی کرمان

This study surveyed recruiter, teacher, and student groups to determine the following: attitudes about cover letters and resumes, reasons to reject cover letters and resumes, the contents of the ideal cover letter and where specific information should occur in it, and the importance of various categories of the resume and contents of the ideal resume. The results indicate that 1) limited time is spent in processing cover letters and resumes; 2) the length of a cover letter and resume should be one page; 3) spelling errors, poor grammar, and poor organization are key problems in cover letters and resumes; 4) specific jobs wanted, career goals, and personal information are the most important factors of a cover letter; 5) job objectives/career goals, employment history, and educational history are the most important parts of the resume. Specific differences in attitudes among recruiters, teachers, and students are discussed in this article.

Two studies investigated the editing strategies used by college basic writing (BW) students as they went about correcting sentence-level errors in controlled editing tasks. One study involved simple word processing, and a second involved an interactive editor that supplemented the word-processing program, giving students feedback on their correction attempts and helping them focus on the errors. In both studies BW students showed two clearly different editing strategies, a consulting strategy in which grammatical rules were consulted and an intuiting strategy in which the sound of the text was assessed for “goodness” in a rather naturalistic way. Students consistently used their intuiting strategies more effectively; however, errors requiring consulting strategies showed a larger improvement after intervention by the interactive editor. Cognitive implications of the editing strategies are discussed in terms of the requisite knowledge involved in successful application of each strategy.

Scientists and engineers have to present technical information effectively. But when they do it, they face language difficulties which are beyond formal grammar as taught at school. To overcome this problem, we designed a systematic course for technical writing aimed at breaking such language barriers by planned channeling of the scientific message. The course was designed to improve the communication skills of scientists and engineers. In keeping with this goal effective writing criteria were defined and formal presentation conventions were described. Because Hebrew is the common language in Israel, problems of Hebrew structures were presented. The massive infiltration of vocabulary and syntactic elements from foreign languages into scientists' Hebrew style were addressed. An evaluation apparatus was also applied and future prospects of the course were discussed.

Intuitively all users of language understand whether a unit of discourse is cohesive, whether it makes sense. Markels seeks to formalize some of this innate knowledge about discourse by describing some of the textual cues that contribute to cohesion in particular types of English paragraphs. Focusing on expository paragraphs, she investigates the semantic relations among nouns necessary to create noun chains and the syntactic information necessary to invest those chains with Other researchers have investigated cohesion only as a semantic phenomenon, but by pursuing this new approach, Markels gives equal weight to syntax. She points out that while noun chains establish semantic consistency only the interaction of those chains with syntactic information that thematizes them can create Markels identifies and describes four common patterns through which paragraphs achieve cohesion or unity. In describing these cohesion patterns, she also identifies paragraph structures based on semantic and syntactic relationships that produce cohesion.

As a concept of rhetoric in technical writing, relevance involves an awareness of time. The report deals with the past; the manual, with the present; the proposal, with the future. To be considered relevant, however, all the modes of technical writing must relate to the present reality of the audience. Writers must recognize this need not only as it influences grammar and style but also as it affects larger concerns of organization and tone. Realizing that the temporal classification of modem reports, manuals, and proposals correlates with Aristotle's designation of forensic, epideictic, and deliberative discourse, technical writers can discover a body of rhetorical theory on which to base choices about selection, arrangement, and presentation of subject matter.

This pilot study investigated relationships between individual differences in levels of writing skills and proficiencies at simultaneous and successive cognitive processing. Data from a group of 46 subjects indicate that scores on successive processing tasks were able to predict final grades in an introductory English composition course (p<.01). This suggested both the possibility and importance of investigating further how simultaneous and (especially) successive processing relate to writing skills. With three subjects used for pilot data, low scores in successive processing showed relationships with sentence-level errors and with the ability to develop sequences of ideas in writing. Low scores in simultaneous processing correlated with an inability to indicate clear relationships between sentences and paragraphs. Planning, a third cognitive factor, was found to be a powerful influence in organizing content. In the interaction of planning and simultaneous processing, lack of planning ability may interfere with the writer's ability to survey and thus organize his or her material.

A description is given of software currently available for analyzing and editing the style of word-processed documents, usually those written by nonprofessional communicators. The packages covered are Grammatik II, Rightwriter, Punctuation and Style, Electric Webster, and PC style.

The teaching of English grammar in the nineteenth century can be a rewarding subject of study because it reveals attitudes toward language and language teaching that also shaped the pedagogy of rhetoric, composition, and literature during that period. The prescriptive attitude toward grammar and usage inherited from the eighteenth century was a powerful determinant both in grammar teaching and in the teaching of speaking, reading, and writing, where taste, facility, precision, and perspicuity (clarity) were central issues. And when continental notions of inductive (we would say progressive) teaching begin to have an effect on American education, the signs of change appear earliest in the school grammar texts. In this essay I will describe the main strands of theory and practice in early nineteenth-century grammar teaching and then show how these analytic and synthetic approaches were combined in grammar texts around the middle of the century, contributing to an eclectic theory of expression employed in both grammar and composition teaching by the 1890s.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship of student attitude using graphic enhanced versus nongraphic enhanced computer-based instruction. Four intact groups were randomly assigned treatment. Two groups received graphic instruction and two groups received nongraphic computer-based instruction. An attitude questionnaire was administered to evaluate student attitude toward the graphic and nongraphic computer-based instruction. Results of t-tests indicated there was no significant difference in attitude scores between graphic and nongraphic treatment groups at the .05 level.

It is good form in English Department offices and corridors to grump, grouse, growl, even whine about how the is going. Such labor, such a dreary business, how grubby, how ridiculous to expect publication, as if an article could reveal the subtleties of a finely-tuned mind. The more you publish, the more tactful it is to moan and groan. The danger is that young colleagues, new to the academy, may believe us. They may think that we who publish are performing penance, obediently fulfilling a vow to publish out of fear of perishing, when this academic, and others, will slyly look around to see who is listening, then confess, writing is fun. The focus is on writing. That is where writers discover they know more than they knew they knew, where accidents of diction or syntax reveal meaning, where sentences run ahead to expose a thought. If the is done, publication-perhaps not this piece but the next or the one after that-will follow. And publishing promises a lifetime of exploration and learning, active memberhip in a scholarly community, and the opportunity for composition teachers to practice what we preach. I will share some of the methods that have helped me publish what some would say-and have said-is an excessive number of articles and books on composing processes. I do not do this to suggest that others should work as I work, but as a way to invite others who publish to reveal their own craft so those who join our profession can become productive members of it-and share the secret pleasure in which we feel but rarely admit.

Some theoreticians and practitioners view editing as a superficial task, often no more than the mindless following of a set of prescriptive rules for grammar, syntax, and style. In addition, the editor-author relationship is typically perceived as an interaction between an editor and words. However, drawing upon rhetoric and cognitive psychology, I argue in this article for the complexity and importance of the editing process and the writer-editor relationship. This perspective is tentatively supported by a study of the revising and editing patterns of professional and experienced writers. The study suggests that revising and editing may be equally complex tasks. Further, the complexity increases if editors and authors discuss their changes as opposed to legislating them. Several methods for imparting this perspective and related knowledge to students are discussed.

Most technical writing texts contain grammar reviews, but few supply more than prescriptive rules to correct persistent examples of unclear writing. To provide a more progressive approach to grammatical analysis, this article applies the non-prescriptive constructs of modern grammar to the recurrent problem of faulty pronoun reference. Grammatical problems often arise because pronouns serve both as form-class and as structure-class words, because they often must agree in case, person, gender, and number with antecedents, and because the pronoun it is often misunderstood as an expletiv. The author suggests that small, problem-oriented doses of modern grammar may help students and professionals alike to better understand the intricacies of textual English.