Comparison of college students' (N=14) graded and ungraded Spanish compositions revealed that, when they anticipated receiving a grade, students wrote longer compositions with more complex sentences. However, the type and number of errors varied among students. (CB)

Experiences at Brooklyn College with Russian students who have had some formal English study before emigrating are recounted. Steady progress through a sequence of English-as-a-Second-Language courses is attributed to a student network of jobs, apartments, and English classes. Writing instruction techniques are cited. (Contains eight references.)…

Investigates the degree to which children and adult readers use semantic and syntactic information sources to increase speed of word recognition and to increase speed of determining sentence meaningfulness. Finds three developmental differences in the speed of analyzing these sentences for words/nonwords versus meaningfulness/nonmeaningfulness.…

Offers four brief descriptions from composition/writing teachers of class activities that work well for them, addressing using a grocery list to help students understand why audience awareness is important; using group work to help students analyze literature; having students define and describe good writing; and helping students with specified…

Three experiments are reported that showed effects of "structure priming," the tendency to repeat syntactic structure across successive sentences. These effects were demonstrated in Dutch, a previously untested language. All experiments studied spoken sentence production. (Author/JL)

Discussion of academic bibliographic instruction highlights an exercise in developing critical reading skills by reading and effectively reviewing ERIC abstracts. Topics include rhetoric and writing-based approaches in bibliographic instruction, sentence structure, text assessment, and automated bibliographic tools and interpreting text on a…

Two experiments were conducted to determine whether a parser's on-line processes are affected by manipulation of case markings in Korean sentence processing, and to evaluate the usefulness of a Ranked Flagged Serial Parser model in predicting Korean ambiguity resolution processes. (Author/VWL)

Has the new emphasis on process versus product led instructors to teach that the writing process is everything and the product, the finished paper, of no import? This is a lesson that not even the most orthodox believer in writing process methodology would support. The process and the product are, in fact, mutually linked, rather than mutually…

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects on college students of audiotaping classroom assignments. As part of their course requirements, students were asked to submit both a hard copy of their work plus an audiotape containing their assignments. During a 3-year period, 231 undergraduate education majors enrolled in 12 courses at 3…

This paper introduces a procedure for analyzing sentential themes and demonstrates how it may be useful to students when they consider the effectiveness of their own sentences in the process of revising a piece of writing. The paper shows that, by analyzing sentential themes and their function in academic writing, students can learn to perform the…

Four experiments were conducted to determine how the keyword method of vocabulary instruction affects both subjects' comprehension of words encountered in sentences (experiments 1 and 2), and their ability to use words in appropriate sentences (experiments 3 and 4). In the first two experiments, college students were presented sentences containing…

A heuristic procedure can be used to teach organizational skills to students of technical writing. Designed to allow students on their own to explore ways that numbers can be used to give a definite shape to technical information, its central feature is a matrix composed of a series of control numbers (horizontal axis) and organizing concerns…

Knowing the connections between ideas and the interrelationships among groups of ideas is a skill that can be useful throughout the writing process. Writers who are aware of the meaning relationships existing between sentences and ideas can discover the logical possibilities inherent in their topic at the prewriting stage, determine patterns for…

Four recently developed computer programs can help students with the composition process. The first, a prewriting program, helps students prepare to write by asking them a series of questions, similar to those an instructor would ask, intended to help them think more deeply about their subject. The second writing program also contains prewriting…

A study examined the relationship between students' linguistic insecurity (writing apprehension) and writing performance. College students in three remedial and two freshman composition classes were administered a test of linguistic insecurity that included pronunciation items and choices of hypercorrect, colloquial, and nonstandard versions of…