Reports findings from interviews conducted with four inexperienced writing students and one experienced writer regarding their awareness of external and internal audiences guiding their writing. Most inexperienced writers perceived only external audiences (e.g., teacher-as-audience), although one inexperienced writer and the experienced writer…

Finds that students perceived several areas of improvement associated with writing-intensive classes: writing skills, knowledge acquisition, and problem-solving abilities. Finds that students also reported they had become better writers through interaction with their professors during the writing process and wanted to better understand the…

Finds that root organizational metaphors significantly influence writers' rhetorical choices and perception of their communication role. Shows that 23 staff writers described their communication activities in mechanistic terms, which complements their organization's view of itself as a smoothly operated machine, and explains why writers were not…

Assesses writing attitudes and epistemologies of 117 first-year and 329 upper-level undergraduates. Uses attitude scales and epistemological scales. Finds that students with higher "evaluatism" scores tended to enjoy writing more, and that differences in attitudes and epistemologies emerged between men and women and among upper-level students in…

Uses ethnomethodological perspectives to translate the language of Flower and Hayes's cognitive theory of writing into a more thoroughly social vocabulary as a way of articulating the role of social context and social structure in individual acts of writing. (SR)

Discusses how to respond to student writing. Offers two assignments that encourage a dialogue between the teacher and student. Relays actual student comments and the process of helping these students. (PRA)

Discusses five things which help the author (herself a reluctant writer) to push past her own doubts, and notes how they are helpful in working with students who are reluctant to write. (SR)

Relates interviews with 17 writers in 4 departments at a major insurance corporation. Describes the writers' frustrations and challenges, the reasons for not collaborating, their reasons for not needing written standards, and their document approval process. (PRA)

Surveys faculty attitudes toward the writing center at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania to identify ways the writing center could mediate opposing perspectives about priorities and practices in teaching writing. Finds that the writing center is satisfying most instructors' expectations and that its approach to teaching writing is congruent…

Discusses the teaching of writing and the focus of the writer's inner sense of well-being or fulfillment used by Romantic teachers. Mentions that some teachers believe that this is at the cost of suppressing the concept of discourse. Argues that writerly pleasure empowers students, and that this topic is relevant to the teaching of writing. (CR)

Presents examples of writing to show that glory provides a better pretext for writing teachers to think about the motives for writing than those that are set forth in textbooks. Notes that these examples are of ordinary glory, glory as it appears in the writing of students and teachers and judges in writing workshops. (RS)

Finds significant differences in level of writing apprehension among students in Freshman Composition based on grades in Freshman Composition but not based on a student's age or gender. Finds significantly greater writing apprehension among accounting majors than among non-accounting majors. (SR)

Interviewed students taking creative writing courses at three institutions of higher education in the United Kingdom. Analysis revealed a typology of four differing student conceptions of creative writing within two overall "transcribing" and "composing" categories; these categories closely resemble students' conceptions of…

A study investigated whether there are common experiences which most people who become writers share. Samples of autobiographical writing assignments completed by about 120 graduate students (over 90% of whom already had some teaching experience) enrolled in masters programs in education and/or English were examined. Most of the narratives were…

Ellen Kreger Stark, in her article, "Reforming the Critical Space," in "Critical Quarterly" discusses the gap which exists for poets writing in academic discourse, saying that she could not tell when she was writing criticism and when she was being a poet. Usually, teachers/professors say such writing is too personal, too…