Based on the idea that to beat the competition and impress college admissions officers a student must write a first-rate college application, this guide provides easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions for applications that get results. The guide contains worksheets, checklists, and examples that will help the student in the admissions process.…

The issues confronting education today challenge educators on all levels and make it more imperative that colleges, school boards, and administrations work together. Collaboration on writing projects between college writers and elementary school writers, and between freshmen English high school writers and college writers at the University of…

Literature instructors become frustrated as they read poorly written student essays. The problem is partly the students' lack of experience: they have not read a lot or written a lot. Literature classes can be more interesting and effective if teachers coordinate two kinds of emphases: allowing for discovery and moving toward productivity. In…

College faculty who teach writing courses might find an examination of early religious literature helpful when trying to explain "writing for an audience" or "audience awareness" to their students. The Jesuit priest who preached to and wrote for the Indians in Brazil during the early colonial period, Jose de Anchieta, is a…

In many advertising programs, students spend a great deal of time coming up with creative strategies, writing copy, and preparing layouts based on objectives provided by a client (or professor) and directed to an already established target market. Seldom, however, do students learn firsthand about the advertising decision making on the part of…

A study examined a number of concepts drawn from recent research on the social contexts of writing as it is conducted in academic and professional communities to determine how novice writers learn the rhetorical and linguistic conventions that constitute specialized, disciplinary literacy. These concepts were applied to a close inspection of three…

This paper discusses "Comments," a computer tool developed to study computer support for response to writing. The paper presents two primary theoretical perspectives to support the use of response to writing in learning to write: (1) writing is a social act; and (2) writing is a skill whose acquisition requires more than one reader so…

Recent research on how students perceive the function of writing assignments and the effects of different kinds of writing assignments on learning is inconclusive. Noting that this issue clouds writing across the curriculum programs, a study sought to determine how students perceive their involvement in assignments that require them to present an…

This paper presents six original in-class activities for audience analysis and adaptation before, during, and after a speech presentation in a basic public speaking course. The activities in the paper combine audience information surveys, demographic traits, situational traits, adaptation strategies, adjustment to audience feedback, and self…

This study examined differences between two populations of composition students over the course of a semester in their perceptions of collaboration as reported in the pre- and post-surveys. In addition, using an assessment rubric developed by the researchers, the study examined students' audience awareness as demonstrated in their writing. Both…

Suggests ways to increase creativity in individuals and in team members who are involved with developing video productions. Topics discussed include freedom of expression; setting goals and objectives; visualization; laser video discs; instant cameras; the function of evaluation; and the impact of technological developments on audience…

Explores the effect of age of the intended addressee on the written performance of Japanese university students. Twenty-six female students each wrote letters to three people they knew from a recent study abroad program: one significantly older than themselves, one significantly younger, and one approximately the same age. Analysis of the…

A political science professor at James Madison University (VA) constructed a Web page to support an undergraduate course in government. This article defines Web-site goals and audience, reviews other sites, and discusses organization of Web links and technical choices for HTML editor, page layout and use of image, audio, and video files. Stresses…

The United States blood plasma industry uses various rhetorics to access donors and markets its products while managing its stigma and potential legal liability. The industry includes both the public "nonprofit" sector and the private, for-profit blood collection and manufacturing businesses owned by pharmaceutical companies that rely on…

Writing 125 is a 13-week course that all first-year students at Wellesley College (Massachusetts) are required to take. One instructor teaches a section of it called "Law in Contemporary Society" which centers writing and reading activities around legal issues, namely "Roe v. Wade" and "Webster v. Cruzan." As an…