The roots of technical writing are deeply planted in the field of mining engineering, with its emphasis on economics, value, and social stability. In the mid-16th century, Georgius Agricola published "De Re Metallica," a compilation of knowledge about mining and metallurgy. Agricola sought to explain the reasoning behind some of the…

This paper contains three parts. Part 1 consists of a poem, "An Apology for Performative Writing." Part 2, "The Traditional Scholar's Game--An Argument," discusses the arguments regarding performative writing. It identifies several key arguments both for and against the works that cluster around such labels as performative…

To develop courses which would emphasize instruction in writing specifically needed to successfully carry out the professional responsibilities of a reading teacher, a study surveyed inservice reading teachers about their writing activities and compared those results with the writing activities required of preservice reading teachers in existing…

An ethnographic study examined the impact of a writing workshop on non-academic writers. Subjects, 11 adult non-academic writers who wrote little, were seldom around others who did, and did not think they were good writers, participated in 10 Saturday sessions conducted in a bookstore in a rural town. They wrote narratives on self-selected topics…

An unavoidably ideological frame of reference in Writing across the Curriculum (WAC) exists and an unavoidably political job must be undertaken if Writing across the Curriculum is to escape being the handmaiden to the so-called content disciplines. Despite this, many teachers who work in the field do not see their task as emerging from a distinct…

Using interviews in a longitudinal study can be a productive way to gain insights into various factors that play a part in how students view their experiences as they make transitions into a university and across various contexts for writing. During the first three semesters of a study, 312 interviews were conducted with students, beginning when…

A study examined college freshmen management students' views about the social implications for their writing in terms of themselves as writers, the way they view their audience and their audience's reaction to their writing, and about the actual text itself. Seven self-selected students in the management class were interviewed after each of three…

This study attempted to establish a desired image of an expert science writer based on a synthesis of writing theory, models, and research literature on academic writing in science and other disciplines and to contrast this desired image with an actual prototypical image of scientists as writers of science. The synthesis was used to develop a…

Many traditionally held academic views of personal writing have myths embedded in them. These myths include: (1) anything written in the first person singular is autobiographical; (2) personal writing can only exist in an expressionist classroom and is often uncritical and unproblematic; (3) student personal writing is a dying genre, and college…

A study investigated whether there are common experiences which most people who become writers share. Samples of autobiographical writing assignments completed by about 120 graduate students (over 90% of whom already had some teaching experience) enrolled in masters programs in education and/or English were examined. Most of the narratives were…

Ellen Kreger Stark, in her article, "Reforming the Critical Space," in "Critical Quarterly" discusses the gap which exists for poets writing in academic discourse, saying that she could not tell when she was writing criticism and when she was being a poet. Usually, teachers/professors say such writing is too personal, too…

A study examined students' reactions to a writing placement test. Subjects, 98 fall 1992 freshmen at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, completed a questionnaire. Results indicated that: (1) only 24% liked the assigned writing topic; (2) 97% found the statement of the topic clear and understandable; (3) 77% were comfortable with the one hour…

Teachers of college writing have a vested interest in the tremors of rhetoric surfacing from within the discipline of economics. In the past 15 years, some economists, philosophers of science, and humanists have challenged the positivist mantel of economics. They argue that economic methodology would be more ethical, more honest to the profession…

A study examined the personal, social, and political functions that underlie the reading and writing that young children do about themselves, their families and communities, and their culture. Subjects, five third-grade children attending an inner-city elementary school, participated in an alternative language arts program involving independent…

The collaborative student essay invites exploration of various points of view in multiple voices. The co-written essay brings out language's heteroglossic richness, as shown by the students' collaborative writing experiences in a college writing class. Students worked within the frames of two assignments: (1) an analysis of a text or trend; and…