Examines relationships among computer experience, attitudes, writing behaviors, and writing quality for advanced undergraduate students who have owned Macintosh computers for at least three years. Finds that writing attitudes and practices are fairly well ingrained for the less competent writers, and they need to become comfortable with the…

Explores how ownership of student writing was represented in the progressivism of the early 1900s and the expressivism of the 1960s and 1970s. Suggests that as vestiges of progressive and expressivist concepts of composition continue into the present, there are hopeful signs that a new, more usable concept of ownership is emerging. (RS)

Argues that students' attitudes about authorship and intellectual property rights are evidence of cultural habits of mind. Overviews perceptions of literary products as public and/or private property. Explores conflicts in legal notions of textual ownership relating to copyrights and the idea/expression dichotomy in American Constitutional law.…

Suggests that through Kenneth Burke, writing teachers can approach writing as something to be feared, something to approach with trembling and mortification. Examines Burke's notion of how language "goads" writers to eliminate the response of others. Examines contemporary and Burkean approaches to writing that would help students to…

Investigated university students' beliefs about themselves as writers and about the experience of learning in writing as related to writing approaches measured by the Inventory of Processes in College Composition. Found support for the deep and surface paradigm, and variation in students' conceptions of writing, attitudes about themselves as…

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 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 article tells the story of a writer for whom "voice" is an important element that he feels he once had but has lost in his writing. The article mostly places the blame on his trying to please teachers and professors and listening to their comments about his writing. It quotes many scholars (such as Lev Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner)…

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 examined the relevancy of freshman composition to writing in the workplace. Four professionals in middle management who had been out of college for a number of years were surveyed by e-mail about their writing in the workplace, college education, freshman writing classes, and importance of seven skills employers want employees to have.…

Discusses general issues related to attitudes towards writing, which may be of interest to those working with English-as-a-second-language students, especially students coming from educational settings where writing is not traditionally taught. Presents the practice of the Writing Center at Central uropean University, one of the few centers in…