Three key areas of confusion in the English department--composition, curriculum, and humanism--can be resolved by marshaling ideas from social dramatism, games theory, and sociobiology. (DD)

Literature, which deals with truth, should be the focus of the English department instead of writing, which is a trivial technology. (DD)

Discusses the characteristics of written composition that can be applied to successful speech communication. (HTH)

Proposes a general theory of writing evaluation that attends to communication intention, as well as formal semantics. Suggests practical ways of implementing such a theory. (RL)

Argues that, in understanding creativity and the process of composing, it is helpful to think in terms of the metaphysical concept and while polar opposites appear to be contradictory, they are part of the same whole. Suggests some polarities that help in understanding the creative process in writing. (TJ)

Recounts the experiences of a writer-in-residence at a small liberal arts college as she helped her students through the composing process. (RL)

The validity of the "publish or perish" dictum in faculty evaluation and promotion is discussed. Professors cannot always be expected to produce written works if adequate attention is to be paid to the duties of teaching. (CJ)

Laments the trend toward the simplistic and plain styles of writing. Offers English teachers reasons for endorsing elegance as an alternative to stark plainness. (RL)

Explores the alternating mental perspectives that writers assume during the composing process, from inner experience to outer judgment and back to experience. (HTH)

Lists reasons for using the study of literature in helping students learn to write. (RL)

Notes that recent composition textbooks have classified Carl Rogers' work as a new rhetoric or as an alternative to classical argument. Demonstrates that to portray Rogers' method as a form of argument is to misunderstand his intent and that, while Rogers and Aristotle are similar superficially, their differences are profound. (FL)

Views technical writing as a discipline requiring skills basic to communication, with some distinctive elements, including that it is written by assignment and often to specification, is highly situational, is an analytic problem-solving process, and is a "real world" art. (TJ)

Since enthymemes (or "rhetorical syllogisms") always shape the prose of anyone writing to convey an idea, students should be trained to recognize the enthymemes they use. (DD)

Insisting that student writers always use definite, specific, concrete language when they write can prevent them from using language to understand, transform, and relate immediate experience to everything else. (DD)

Draws implications for the teaching and learning of writing from the language acquisition of children, based on the contention that human capacities for acquiring language do not change qualitatively as people mature. (DD)