Considers the conventions of quotation marks--or "perverted commas"--and identifies seven uses, including shudder quotes (slang or inappropriate words) and scare quotes (used for attention or emphasis). Notes that quotation marks influence meaning and that finding a personal voice entails using language without quotes. (MM)

Concentrates on effective procedures for teaching typewritten transcription. Discusses teaching typewritten transcription early; teaching transcription rather than monitoring transcription; teaching punctuation and spelling; and teaching transcription of mailable letters. (CT)

Notes that, although linguistics has had little influence on composition pedagogy, the study of functional grammar or linguistic performance (how language is actually used) is of direct value to composition theory. Offers an extended discussion of a functional approach to punctuation instruction, and proposes a functional approach in other areas…

Presents a detailed study of two newspaper reports published on the same day and describing the same event. The study reveals (1) different attitudes concerning the need for objectivity in news reporting and (2) the complex and covert nature of the textual features through which bias is communicated. (SED)

Traditionally writing is taught in three segments: discourse, syntax, and grammar. Research in the 1970s questions this and shows that formal grammar study does little to improve student writing. Some educators are now showing that students learn English structure and grammar best as they find they need it through their own writing experiences.…

An item discriminability study of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills Language Skills tests identified test items that are robust discriminators, psychometrically capable of separating low scorers from higher scorers in the language tests battery. The analysis was conducted by calculating a point-biserial correlation for each item on the four language…

The need to include an audio component in computer-assisted instruction in French is discussed and an attempted solution is described in terms of a suite of programs designed to facilitate the creation and use of dictation practice materials. (Author/SED)

The author identified grammar and punctuation software suitable for secondary or postsecondary business students. Three programs--(1) Agreement of Subject and Verb, (2) Punctuation Review, and (3) English Achievement I--were field tested in a classroom setting. Student impressions of the programs are reported. (CH)

Looks at how the best writers of English from the 1600s to the present use punctuation in their nonfiction. Finds three bases for punctuation: intonation, grammar (or syntax), and semantics (or rhetoric). Shows that these authors do not regularly and consistently follow the institutionalized rules. Argues for rhetoric-based punctuation because its…

Many of the best nonfiction writers violate punctuation rules frequently enough to indicate that the rules neither tell very well what to do nor inform very accurately about what is done. An examination of 18 prominent authors' use of the entire hierarchy of punctuation marks shows disagreement and inconsistency among the writers concerning…

The "Write a Sentence Test" was developed for use in the evaluation of student writing abilities in association with a project in Memphis, Tennessee. This paper discusses ways of administering and scoring the test, decisions concerning modification of the test, and experiences when the test was administered to sample subjects. All forms…

The three papers included in this report address typography for graphic communication, typographic access structures for educational texts, and typography as macropunctuation. The first paper considers the consequences of an aesthetic bias in the literature of typography, and identifies two misleading assumptions about textbooks; i.e., that print…

Observation and interviews of the children in two third grade classrooms--one in which children write frequently and learn punctuation skills in context, and one in which children learn punctuation in isolation--suggest that punctuation skills are learned more effectively in context. In interviews the "writers" could explain an average of 8.66…

A study investigated whether children and adolescents use commas and the principle of Late Closure to guide sentence parsing decisions as adults do in processing syntactically ambiguous sentences. The study consisted of three experiments, conducted similarly but with different subject groups: 24 university students; 24 fourth-graders; and 19…

This study compares the results of an indirect measure of writing ability, the Florida State Student Assessment Test, Part I (SSAT-I), and the Production Writing Assessment (PWA). Both instruments were administered to 10th graders in Dade County (Florida) during the spring of 1987. The SSAT-I is an untimed test containing a section indirectly…