Offers strategies to help educators get their book ideas, teaching tips, and feature articles into print. Teacher-authors and journal editors explain what to do before writing, how to start writing, how to send query letters, how to propose book ideas to a publisher, and how to submit manuscripts. (SM)

Describes a useful training format with which virtually any process or operation can be reduced to a series of logical, clearly presented steps, key points, and recommended safe procedures. (SR)

Dime novels, a form of American/Canadian subliterature that gained popularity from 1840 to 1910, entertained with fast-paced action, high adventure, and ethically uplifting stories emphasizing the triumph of good over evil. Students can approach North American history creatively and practically by locating, collecting, and organizing information…

Investigates whether two versions of a letter (one consistently applying the principles of you-attitude and positive emphasis at the sentence level, the other one violating these principles) requesting participation in a research project elicited the same response rate. Finds that, contrary to received wisdom, the letter violating these principles…

Shares two examples of writing, both involving magic and incantation, used as models to help students add energy to their own writing. (MG)

Suggests a nine-step summary writing strategy for use with secondary and college developmental readers and writers. (MG)

Describes the strategies used to encourage two friends--professed nonwriters--to write about the stories of their childhood days. The sequence of the process shows how a teacher can build confidence in beginning writers. (JOW)

Studies master's students in professional writing to discern value added by technical communicators. Shows that some expertise is brought to collaborative projects, while other types develop as a function of collaboration. Provides practicing communicators, students, and managers with ideas for documenting, developing, and enhancing this…

Explains how a teacher used tape--pieces hanging from her hair, her desk, and student desks--to help students remember some of the principles of writing represented in the acronym TAPE: topic, audience, purpose, and elaboration. (TB)

Provides pointers for incorporating the use of metaphors, alliteration, restating of the thesis, answering questions by reiteration of the thesis, and other ideas for writing an effective conclusion in high school and college papers. (PA)

The authors investigated ways of encouraging students to consider more counterarguments when writing argumentative texts. One hundred eighty-four undergraduates wrote essays on TV violence. In Experiment 1, students given specific goals generated more counterarguments and rebuttals than controls. In Experiment 2, some participants were provided…

Assisting students with written work continues to be a challenging task for today's teachers. Outlining represents a relevant instructional technique to help students develop self-regulated writing skills and promote higher order thinking. The author shares writing advice that can be used by teachers working in traditional face-to-face…

All humans use objects in their environment as tools for actions. Some tools are more useful than others for certain people and populations. This paper describes how different first-graders used handheld computers as tools when writing. While all 17 children in the observed classroom were competent users of their handheld computers, their use of…

Although the FCB (Foote, Cone, & Belding) grid was never intended to serve as an educational tool, it can be applied successfully in advertising classes to address the three areas that S. E. Moriarty considers to be the minimum for writing strategy. To demonstrate the superiority of the FCB grid as a pedagogical tool, a study analyzed…

Although socio-cultural awareness is an important element of discourse, freshman composition's primary obligation is to provide students with instruction in and practice "owning" a process of writing that foregrounds writing as a rhetorical art. Students should leave the course more aware of and better able to employ powerful, flexible…