The city and school system in this research project is identified with a pseudonym as City X. This doctoral project, "Online publishing and authentic audience to improve student writing", is designed as one element of a district wide initiative to improve student writing literacy in the City X Public School district. In City X, as in many schools, students are graduating from high school and entering higher education and the workforce with inadequate writing skills (NAEP, 2008; Lambert, 2009; Massachusetts D.E.S.E., 2011). Colleges are finding that students often need remediation in this area before they can proceed with freshman level work. In addition, City X High School high stakes testing scores paint a bleak picture with high percentages of students scoring below the proficiency level, falling within the failure or needs improvement categories. Therefore, it is important to determine why City X students struggle with writing and explore what instructional practices may hold promise in developing students as proficient writers. The problem of practice that was researched is the use of technology, online publishing, and authentic audience as tools to engage students to become more proficient writers. This practice-based research project sought to understand student perspectives about their writing assignments written for an authentic audience of Internet readers as well as those assignments written for a teacher and a grade. This research used extensive data collection in the form of observations, interviews, and student surveys to develop a hypothesis about the use of the Internet and publishing to an authentic audience of peers, and the effects on student writing attitudes and level of proficiency. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]