The Structure of Advanced Composition  

Every advanced composition course I taught had five elements: audience, purpose, voice, organization, and polish. 'If we teachers,' I thought, 'can visualize advanced composition as a structure with five components we should be able to teach any upper level writing course, no matter what the specific content, with confidence.' The purpose of this article is to explain the five components essential to advanced composition and to illustrate their general applicability with examples from technical writing, business writing, journalism, and academic writing.

Halpern, Jeanne W. JAC (1980). Articles>Rhetoric>Writing

Transferable and Local Writing Skills  

One indication of the state of our profession is the discriminations that we are just getting around to making: useful, even essential, 'sortings out' that, when then, are made, seem embarrassingly obvious. One such 'sorting out' or discrimination is essential for an understanding of what any composition class can do, whether advanced composition, technical writing, feature writing, or whatever. In the writer’s repertoire, there are local and transferable skills. Local skills have to do with a given genre and involve such matters as special forms (e. g., the scientific report), footnoting, vocabularies, special styles, and even the 'tones' that particular fields demand. Transferable skills are the 'basics' of writing: syntactic fluency, control of diction, sense of audience, organizational ability, 'mechanics' such as punctuation and spelling.

Winterowd, W. Ross. JAC (1980). Articles>TC>Writing>Rhetoric

Writing for the Pre-Professional Within a Liberal Arts Curriculum  

Believing that writing instruction beyond the basics of composition is an integral part of a liberal education but realizing that students are increasingly turning to career-oriented electives which will help them secure employment upon graduation, I developed an advanced writing class that would link liberal arts education and professional training. The course is entitled “Writing for the Pre-professional.”

Palumbo, Roberta M. JAC (1980). Articles>Education>Writing