As research on corrective feedback targeting linguistic accuracy in second language (L2) writing expands in scope and quality, we continue to gain insights about the effects of feedback on L2 writers. Nevertheless, comparatively little research has focused on the teachers themselves – those who make the pedagogical decisions about the use of feedback in the classroom. Thus, we have sought to better understand the variables that may shape practitioners’ choices about feedback targeting linguistic accuracy. The purpose of this study was to analyze learner, teacher, and situational variables that may influence correct feedback choices in the L2 classroom. Data were collected by means of an electronic survey distributed to over 1000 ESL/EFL writing teachers in 69 different nations. In addition to investigating the entire data set, we examined those practitioners who provide the most and least feedback targeting linguistic accuracy. We analyzed variables such as learner age, proficiency, purposes for language learning, the ESL/EFL context, and type of institution, as well as the teachers’ L1, level of education, academic background, years of experience, and professional responsibilities. A number of systematic differences between groups were observed. Explanations for these findings are explored and suggestions are given for future research. Teacher attention to linguistic accuracy versus rhetorical instruction

Few papers have been published that describe how authors go about writing book reviews. This article provides an account of the procedures used to write one specific book review. Examples are given to illustrate what is basically a three-stage procedure: making notes; creating a rough draft; and polishing the final version. Some comments on the language of book reviews are included.

Many authors give advice to students about how to write the Introduction section of their articles. Some give examples of different ways of doing this in general, and a few discuss the opening sentence in particular. In this article, 13 different types of opening sentences are outlined, and their usage contrasted in British and American journals in the Sciences and Social Sciences. Implications for teaching are considered.

There is little research on the use of titles in academic articles, and even less on different types of titles. In this article Crosby's taxonomy of titles [1] is brought up-to date and extended. Twelve types of titles are distinguished. The author argues that it would be helpful to discuss these different types with student writers.

This article critiques some titles in journal articles for being misleading and it argues that titles need to be informative. Examples are given of work on measuring the effectiveness of titles in two areas—sentence structure and reader comprehension—and the article concludes with brief comments on the effectiveness of book titles.

Background: Previous research suggests that there are advantages to writing in groups or in pairs compared with writing individually, and that men write differently from women. However, as far as we know, no one has yet used new technology to assess published academic articles written in these different modes. Method: We assembled 80 papers from recent issues of the Journal of Educational Psychology as follows: 21 authored by individual men, 21 by individual women, 19 by pairs of men, and 19 by pairs of women. We then used two computer-based measures to assess various textual features of the Abstracts, the Introductions, and the Discussion sections of these 80 papers. Results: Several differences were found between these various parts of the journal articles (e.g., the Discussions were more readable than the Introductions and these in turn were more readable than the Abstracts). However, there were few differences between the writing of pairs or individuals, or between that of men and women. Conclusions: There was no real evidence to support the notion that writing in pairs would lead to better quality articles or that there would be differences between the readability of papers produced by men and women. Such differences may occur, however, before peer review.

Many people have speculated over the last 80 years or so about the possibilities of using colored paper to boost response-rates to surveys and questionnaires, and several studies have been carried out. Most of these enquiries report no significant effects from using colored paper, although there have been some exceptions. In this investigation we pooled together the results from all of the experimental studies known to us on the topic and we carried out a meta-analysis to see if there might be a positive effect for colored paper overall. The results indicated that this was not the case, for we found no significant differences between the response rates to white and to colored paper in general. However, when we considered separately the most common colors used, it appeared that pink paper had the greatest effect.

This article compares the response rates for obtaining journal reprints from colleagues when the requests are made using postcards with or without a self-addressed return label. Higher response rates were obtained from the cards with the self-addressed return labels, and more women responded than did men, but these differences were not statistically significant.

Structured abstracts contain more information, are of higher quality, and are easier to search and read than are traditional abstracts. However, there is a bewildering variety of ways in which structured abstracts can be printed and little is known about how the typography of structured abstracts can affect their clarity. The aim of this article is to delineate some of these major typographic variables and to comment on their effects upon the layouts of structured abstracts.

Work with structured abstracts—which contain sub-headings in a standard order—has suggested that such abstracts contain more information, are of a higher quality, and are easier to search and to read than are traditional abstracts. The aim of this article is to suggest that this work with structured abstracts can be extended to cover scientific articles as a whole. The article outlines a set of sub-headings—drawn from research on academic writing—that can be used to make the presentation of scientific papers easier to read and to write. Twenty published research papers are then analyzed in terms of these sub-headings. The analysis, with some reservations, supports the viability of this approach.

This paper describes the suggestions for improvement made by nine colleagues about an article written by the author. These suggestions are placed in categories and examples of each are provided. The suggestions are then compared with those provided by a set of computer-based text-editing programs. The results suggests that both the contributions of humans and computers are limited in certain respects. Text-editing programs can deal well with textual issues (perhaps better than humans) but humans have prior knowledge and expertise about content which programs currently lack. An optimal approach would be to combine computer-based and human aids to writing and to explore further how computer-based programs can be made to match human skills.

This paper presents suggestions for improving instructional text under three main headings: prose materials, graphic materials, and typographic considerations. Each suggestion is based on research findings and references are made to this research whenever possible. Readers are reminded, however, that these suggestions are generalizations — often drawn from specific and limited cases — and caution is therefore necessary in their application.

Fifteen American and 15 British readers used the method of paired comparisons to assess 12 ways of presenting reference lists in science journals. The results indicated — despite British preferences for British styles — that the spatial arrangement of elements in the list was the major determinant of preference; and that the presence of a typographic cue only enhanced a preference for a particular layout.