There appears to be little research on the standard of post-16 students' writing and how it can be improved. In respect of such students, the focus of teaching professionals seems to be on content rather than on the writing process; arguably this leads to weaknesses in written expression. This article examines some current research and follows one…

Teachers can use comics for reading instruction by capitalizing on their colorful graphic representation. Technology and reading are wed during the use of the Internet, and readers must rely on their visual literacy skills--a group of vision competencies people can hone for comprehension. This article reports on strategies for developing visual…

Although the main characteristics of procedural discourse are well known, less is known about its various subtypes. Most of the data for the present paper are taken from Category E (skills, trades, and hobbies) in the Brown and LOB corpora, supplemented with examples from computer manuals and a manual for drivers. Following a survey of previous…

Uses multiple typefaces to express multiple voices that call into question the conventional wisdom about collaboration and collaborative writing. Presents vignettes. Discusses "indefinite definitions," multivalent texts/ambivalent authors, collaboration and community, collaboration and identity, and collaboration qua textuality. (RS)

Discussion of information filtering in information retrieval systems introduces a method for defining filters for structured text where the text structure is originally defined by a grammar consisting of a set of productions. Use of a template that is created interactively from the grammar is explained, and a prototype implementation is described.…

Describes in detail the practice of information retrieval within business organizations based on 46 interviews. Highlights include the importance of text to the performance of information work rather than technical aspects of retrieval; information management; and information retrieval problems in organizations. (LRW)

Studies verbal pretexts, social subtexts, and interpretive contexts of works by Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Notes that cultural repression is propagated (and dispelled) in part through the power of language. Notes that these texts are relevant for teaching textual power in hopes of affecting social change. (RS)

Notes that, although unillustrated text has changed from a string of unseparated words to the paragraph system, text-image relations present a continuous pattern of different degrees of interpretation and structuring for visual understanding. Suggests that human cognitive needs caused an adaptation in unillustrated text and that text illustrations…

Considers recent developments in literary textual studies, examines characteristics of scholarly editions in paper form, identifies areas in which hypertext would be helpful, and proposes a hypertext model for studying scholarly texts. Improvements to existing software are suggested, and examples from an experimental system using Guide hypertext…

Examines the relationship between a sentence and its context by exploring the role of partial repetition in the interpretation of a text and its component sentences. Shows patterns in the lexico-semantic interactions in a text, and shows that these patterns affect the interpretation of the text's individual messages. (SR)

Shows how visual images and text differ from one another in the extent to which they resemble their referents; kinds of concepts they evoke; precision with which they evoke them; kinds of structures they impose on the information they convey; and degree to which that information can be interpreted by perceptual as opposed to higher level cognitive…

Argues that all the various genres of documents produced in military research and development formulate some sort of problem. Discusses problem formulation and offers a rhetorical map showing their structural relationships to each other. (SR)

Presents a text-linguistic definition of the difference between semantic and pragmatic relations. Shows that the type of context (descriptive, argumentative) appeared not to influence language users' interpretation of clear cases, whereas their judgments of ambiguous relations were influenced by the type of context. Finds informative texts are…

Describes the development of a Spanish version of the Lexile Framework(R) and a Spanish readability equation. Discusses some differences between Spanish and English and how these differences affect the development of the Lexile measures. (SLD)

Explores the ways in which 11- and 12-year-old students used intertextuality within diverse literacy events in a classroom context. Reveals different patterns of intertextual connections depending on discourse mode (oral or written) and the functional context of discourse (literary or informational) in terms of the types of sources to which…