This paper argues that unsatisfactory argumentative and expository texts generated by college students represent a simplification of complex discourse structures. It asserts that the usual explanations for poor student performance, such as illogical thinking, lack of academic commitment, and poor mastery of grammar, are unsatisfactory. The paper…

Intended for those who are preparing term papers, working on newspapers or newsletters, taking creative writing courses, composing resumes, submitting journal articles for publication, or giving oral presentations, this bibliography lists a number of resources designed to help improve communication skills. The resources are arranged according to…

Predicting that when presented with a general context children and adults would produce different specific inferences, a study examined children's and adults' script representations of a common event and the use of representation in comprehension. In the first phase of the study, 23 fourth grade and 48 college students were asked to generate…

A study examining the writing processes of five college students for whom English was a second language is reported. The students were labeled "unskilled" writers because of their inability to pass a university writing proficiency test. The study looked at: (1) the composing behaviors these students exhibited; (2) the conscious composing…

This paper considers the inclusion of different types of dialect variants in formal language behavior. College-level writing is examined from the points of view of the writer and the teacher, and the determinants and features of vernacular transference are discussed with reference to literary, social, and economic realities. Specific techniques…

A college English instructor made an informal comparison of rewriting habits of students in a freshman composition course and two advanced composition courses. Notes kept on student rewriting focused on this central question: given peer and instructor response to their papers and a choice as to what and how to rewrite, what will students decide to…

The purpose of this research was to identify and analyze student writing strategies and procedures. Six male college students, three high scorers and three low scorers on the Differential Aptitude Test, were videotaped while they wrote their regular English class assignments, two summaries and two essays. For each writing session, the students…

IN DISCUSSIONS OF THE "ILL-DEFINED" TERMINAL ENGLISH COURSE TWO QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ANSWERED--WHO ARE THE TERMINAL STUDENTS AND WHAT SHOULD THE TERMINAL COURSE TRY TO ACCOMPLISH. ALTHOUGH MANY SCHOOLS ALLOW TERMINAL STUDENTS TO IDENTIFY THEMSELVES, A MORE "SUITABLE" ARRANGEMENT IS FOR THE COLLEGE TO IDENTIFY TERMINAL STUDENTS ON THE BASIS OF THEIR…

This paper describes a variable-credit advanced writing course that allows non-English majors to set their own goals for writing and to develop specific writing skills that apply to their major fields. The course is a unitized sequence of three five-week sessions. The first session discusses the theoretical product model and process model for the…

The foreign student in an American university must be able to communicate in English, orally and in writing, well enough to do college-level academic work. The college or university which admits foreign students has the responsibility either to require a certain level of English proficiency or to provide the means for the student to get the…

A small ethnographic study determining the writing strategy preferences of advanced English as a second language students (N=48) found that students' most common preferences were hierarchical treeing or planning. Open-ended exploratory techniques were also popular. The least common preference was for systematic heuristics. (Author/CB)

A computer program that provides a routine assessment of a text is an important instructional aid. AT&T's system, Writer's Workbench, provides Colorado State University's business students feedback to achieve a clear writing style in letters, memos, and reports. (MLW)

This paper is about teaching writing for academic purposes to non-native speakers of English at English-medium universities in such differing contexts as Japan and Spain. It provides an analysis of the role of nominal groups in academic registers, along with data from Japanese and Spanish student essays written for English language courses at the…

This paper begins with a literature review of research on syntactic maturity, defined as the developmental stages from one- and two-word utterances to the hierarchical structures of adult speech, and seeks to answer questions in the context of past and current research in this area. It attempts to study some of the ramifications of the movement…

This study examined students' beliefs about themselves as writers and about their experiences of learning through writing. A sample of 30 students enrolled in 2 freshman composition classes at a medium-sized Midwestern university completed a 74-item inventory measuring student writing approaches. Following administration of the inventory, 13…