Designed for use by composition students as well as teachers, the essays and background discussions in this book address themselves to questions of theory and practice in rhetoric. The book is divided into sections on invention, form, and style, and contains articles by such authors as Janet Emig, Wayne C. Booth, Richard L. Larson, Kenneth Burke,…

A list of points to aid essay writers is suggested as the basis of a marking system for the teacher of English as a foreign language. The checklist, obtained from a book on higher education by Ruth Beard, can be adapted to the English as a foreign language situation. (SW)

This experimental, statistical study investigated the effects that the testing of grammar and writing mechanics would have on the overall quality and reduction of errors in college students' essays for freshman composition. In the experimental group of 42 students, the professor assigned several exercises in grammar and mechanics as a review…

Most human gradings of essays are holistic, or "overall." Therefore, Project Essay Grade (PEG), an attempt to develop computerized grading of essays, has concentrated most of its research on overall grading. It has successfully simulated human judges. However, since computer grading is less expensive than human grading, PEG has also…

Describes a learning procedure for the purpose of improving competence in the field of essay writing. The procedure is grounded in systematic linguistics: making the student aware of the structural possibilities of English and using the substitution technique. The procedure has been tried out in language courses at the University of Trier.…

Essays were rewritten to be stronger or weaker in content, organization, sentence structure, and mechanics. Twelve evaluators first used a four-point holistic rating scale and then rated whether each of the four categories was strong or weak. Analyses of variance revealed content and organization affected ratings most. (Author/RD)

Explored the hypothesis that Arab learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) transfer Arabic text organization features into their English writing by examining essays written by 30 Arab ESL students and 30 non-Arab ESL students. The results indicated little evidence of transfer in either group. Implications for further research are discussed.…

Argues that scholars need to develop a more rhetorical perspective on the history of rhetoric to encompass rhetoric's dual nature as an intellectual discipline and a practical political art. Reviews history of rhetoric in England and Scotland during the 18th century when the distance between the educated world and the public sphere narrowed when…

Describes what happened when students, unsupervised, used a style-checking computer program to check their essays. The feedback (considered somewhat misleading) suggested that teachers need to guide students along the technological path. (seven references) (GLR)

Describes National History Day, a year-long program using history to teach students research, analysis, and communication skills, in which students from grades 6-12 research topics related to an annual theme. Focuses on the 1998 contest with the theme of "Migration in History: Peoples, Cultures, Ideas." (CMK)

As scholars increasingly view the World Wide Web (the Web) as a legitimate research resource in academic writing, questions remain regarding how Web sources, as new media, influence the writing of second and foreign language (L2) learners. Via a 17-item questionnaire and an analysis of the references to 243 Web sources in the essays of 43 Japanese…

Academic assessment of their coursework is of great importance to undergraduate students. Yet little attention has been paid to the perceptions of undergraduate writing that academics draw on in their assessment practices and the ways in which these perceptions may be gendered. This article reports findings from a study that asked lecturers about…

Historically, the Composition Program at Eastern Washington University (EWU), a comprehensive university in Cheney, WA, required a single essay sample from each composition student as the final exit exam; in practice, a student passed or failed the course based on an in-class argumentative essay, written in three consecutive class periods. Such a…