Written Communication Apr 1990

Appealing Texts

RUSSEL DURST ; CHESTER LAINE ; LUCILLE M. SCHULTZ ; WILLIAM VILTER

Abstract

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.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1990-04-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088390007002003
Open Access
Closed
Topics
voice and style

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. CRAMMOND (1998)
    The Uses and Complexity of Argument Structures in Expert and Student Persuasive…
    Written Communication
  2. CHAMBLISS et al. (1996)
    Do Adults Change their Minds after Reading Persuasive Text?
    Written Communication

Cites in this index (9)

  1. Hays et al. (1988)
    The Impact of Friendly and Hostile Audiences on the Argumentative Writing of Hi…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  2. Durst (1987)
    Cognitive and Linguistic Demands of Analytic Writing
    Research in the Teaching of English
  3. Marshall (1987)
    The Effects of Writing on Students’ Understanding of Literary Texts
    Research in the Teaching of English
  4. Bamberg (1984)
    Assessing Coherence: A Reanalysis of Essays Written for the National Assessment…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  5. Newell (1984)
    Learning from Writing in Two Content Areas: A Case Study/Protocol Analysis
    Research in the Teaching of English
Show all 9 →
  1. Matsuhashi (1981)
    Pausing and Planning: The Tempo of Written Discourse Production
    Research in the Teaching of English
  2. Bridwell (1980)
    Revising Strategies in Twelfth Grade Students’ Transactional Writing
    Research in the Teaching of English
  3. Crowhurst (1980)
    Syntactic Complexity and Teachers’ Quality Ratings of Narrations and Arguments
    Research in the Teaching of English
  4. Nold et al. (1977)
    An Analysis of Readers’ Responses to Essays
    Research in the Teaching of English
Also cites 10 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.2307/358048
     ↗
  2. 10.2307/357794
     ↗
  3. 10.2307/374114
     ↗
  4. 10.1515/text.1.1985.5.4.309
     ↗
  5. 10.2307/357695
     ↗
  6. 10.2307/358049
     ↗
  7. 10.2307/358093
     ↗
  8. 10.2307/357793
     ↗
  9. 10.2307/357405
     ↗
  10. 10.2307/357792
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 12 View in citation network →

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