Perhaps because of their familiarity with joke telling, students often do their best writing when using humor. In both telling jokes and creating humorous works, students need to develop a strong sense of audience, an awareness of the importance of vivid description, a strong sense of purpose, and the ability to use punctuation for effect. The…

Phonological rules based on "stress-terminal pattern" (the principle that a phonological phrase has one primary stress and one terminal juncture requiring a mark of punctuation) can be used to improve punctuation in composition. These rules require that the writer be able to speak sentences at a normal pace with intonation appropriate to the…

Some new ways to capitalize on an old truth: When you begin with your students' own interests, they'll learn faster and remember more. (Editor)

Discusses the advantages of using student compositions rather than textbook materials in a college remedial writing course. (RL)

Business educators must improve the teaching of machine transcription so that students acquire employable transcribing skills, states the author, who describes five levels of learning machine transcription and gives examples of the listening, writing, and typing skills needed for correct transcription. (MF)

Pretranscription, the individual skills needed to produce a mailable typewritten letter from shorthand notes, should be included in each semester of shorthand instead of just in the final class, according to this article. The author suggests strategies for teaching such elements as spelling, punctuation, and mailability and offers a guideline for…

This paper investigated six to nine year old children's ability to use contractive and possessive apostrophes, the effects of type and token frequency, and the effect of teaching on this ability. Apostrophes provide an interesting opportunity to examine the basis of frequency effects in rule inference, as type and token frequencies dissociate in…

The test detailed in this document is designed to diagnose learning deficiencies in punctuation for grades three through seven and supplies the teacher with a list of specific teaching concepts which need to be taught to each child. The document contains a test description, directions for administration and scoring, two references, a sample of…

Nine components of a system for teaching shorthand transcription are described and examples of how each component was integrated into courses at Los Angeles City College are presented. (BM)

In a study of advanced shorthand students, the following were the most frequent transcription errors: punctuation errors, substitutions, spelling or English usage errors, poor corrections, omission in notes, and incorrectly written figures. Constant reviewing, testing, and drills in these areas were recommended. (CT)

Tells how one teacher provides English instruction by simulating an atmosphere of medical internships and consultation. Notes the benefits of such a classroom game. (RL)

Describes five teaching methods concerning the social nature of writing, basic writers writing letters to the editor, journal writing, homophones, and punctuation. (RS)

The purposes of this study were to: (1) investigate the nature and extent of specific teaching, and the grade placement of language skills in primary grades; and (2) investigate experimentally the validity, reliability, and practicality of several different methods for measuring achievement in capitalization and punctuation in Grade 2. Phase I…

Laments the neglect of punctuation in English courses, even in university-preparatory schools. Emphasizes the greater importance that punctuation has in English than in German. Illustrates, with example sentences, the interference of the native language and shows how using or omitting a comma can change the meaning of a sentence. (IFS/WGA)

One example of the vast potential of audiovisual techniques as teaching aids may be seen in the successful use of a television tape and a slide-cassette version of a lesson on the comma splice error with community college daytime and evening classes in freshman composition. Results of the posttests administered after presentation of the television…