Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of language and literature can illuminate the workings of multigenre compositions. Bakhtin's theories of heteroglossia and novelization are applicable because they are not genre dependent. As he says, they reach "beyond the bounds of the novel as genre" to reflect the ways all kinds of written language may…

Discusses the state of humanities instruction in community colleges and offers suggestions for ways to bolster that curriculum form. (FL)

Gorgias' rhetoric can be explained in three parts: his sensory-based but non-empirical epistemology; his definitions of language as inherently deceptive and of "doxa" as the only "knowledge" communicable; and his antithetical style, which reproduces the necessary negotiation of understanding in the world. Gorgias' epistemology…

This paper defines technical writing as writing about subjects in the sciences in which the writer informs the reader through an objective presentation of facts. The emphasis in the definition is on three aspects of writing: the writer's subject; the writer's purpose; and the writer's attitude. A stanza from Shelley's "To a Skylark" and the entry…

An examination of the additions, deletions, and revisions of the 2-volume "Norton Anthology of English Literature" (the most popular text used by college teachers) from the 1962 first edition to the 1986 fifth edition, sought to identify those changes which would confirm the editors' stated purposes in the prefaces and to speculate on…

One of the most useful models of the composing process is that derived from an interpretation of the rhetorical triangle. This basic model implies the relationships between the writer's subject, background, and audience, but it also points to the specific writing functions that underlie these terms. For example, in conceiving a subject, the writer…

Students tend to think of writing as reporting the topography of their minds and souls guided by the assumptions that reality is "out there," that reality is relatively unproblematical, that the concepts they use are common to everyone and are therefore self-evident, and that they should and can abstract themselves from the processes of the worlds…

Improving spelling performance of college students is a question of insuring that the correct information is in long-term memory and readily retrievable. Any system of spelling instruction should recognize the capacity limits of the sensory register and short-term memory; provide for identification of and concentration on the distinctive features…

For at least three reasons, university English faculties should reassess their attitudes toward children's literature, a field of vital importance in children's education. First, specialists in children's literature are sorely needed in English departments, where courses on the subject properly belong (rather than in colleges of education).…

Doublespeak--inflated, involved, and often deliberately ambiguous language--can occur in the interpretation of statistics when a "credible" statistic is misused, when an unsupported number is passed off as a credible statistic, or when the limitations of a statistic are not known. This paper, intended for English teachers who are…

In expository writing, making an outline may prove helpful, but it is just as likely to prove inhibiting. While traditional textbooks advocate making a formal outline, recent studies, books, and articles question the value of formal outlining for all students. Alternatives to the formal outline include making only a rough plan or sketchy lists of…

Discusses the effects of the computer and telecommunications revolution on the humanities and compares the modes of conception and analysis that are inherent in the computer and in the humanities. (AEA)

Muses on such topics as the importance of teaching students about the craft of poetry and of helping them see that life can turn into literature. (GT)

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)

A separation between textual production and textual consumption is not a self-evident state of being for English studies. The gap in English studies has been constructed in large part along the lines of production of texts as opposed to the consumption of texts. Several articles published in the 1980s called for a unifying theory of composition…