"Advanced Composition" And Occasion-Sensitivity

As writing teacher but also freelance writer and editor, I rejoice to see current advanced composition textbooks emphasize sensitivity to occasion. For real-world writing profoundly requires audience-awareness. Out there, students will not be writing yet another typical theme for the teacher, concerned mainly with correctness. Nor will they be writing expressively, concerned mainly with self and authenticity. They must be writing for the occasion, to achieve specific purpose with specific readers, and hence must be concerned with effectiveness above all. But what about actual current classroom practice on this point?

Beck, James P. JAC (1981). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

The Canisius Project: From Field-Work To Classroom    

In the Canisius Project for Writing Across the Curriculum, we have studied the writing worlds of business, social services, science and technology, and 'public life' (the media, public relations, law, fund raising, and the like). For all these fields, our research has followed the same basic pattern. We begin with an initial interview, using a questionnaire which asks about the range of tasks, the problems, the methods, and the significance of the person's work world writing. Then we collect a portfolio of the person's writings. As an ideal, we request at least one sample of each kind of writing, with several samples of the most frequent and important kinds. After studying the portfolio, we return for a taped interview which focuses on specific features of selected pieces of writing. At the end of each research sequence, we hold a workshop which brings together researchers, faculty from the relevant departments, and as many as possible of our work world writers. Near the end of the workshop, the group defines some of the goals and methods most important for an upper level writing course which is to be aimed at, but not restricted to, business majors, or social science majors, or science majors, or humanities majors. (The groups of majors correspond to our research sequences: business, social services, science and technology, and, for want of a better term, public life.)

Schroeder, Melvin W. and Kenneth M. Sroka. JAC (1981). Articles>Education>Writing Across the Curriculum

Changes In the Training of Writing Teachers  

English departments are once again confronted with charges in the popular media that the illiteracy of the American people generally, and of recent high school graduates in particular, constitutes a disturbing or perhaps even a dangerous state which we should regard as having reached 'crisis' proportions. In the past, this public concern has been directed primarily at reading ability, but in its present form, it focuses on writing skill. Not surprisingly, much of the commentary has been directed at elementary and secondary school teachers. Time emblazoned the news that 'Teachers Can't Teach' across the cover of its June 16, 1980, issue, then devoted several pages to a critical analysis of the shortcomings in modern American education. The authors of that article estimated that up to twenty percent of certified teachers have not mastered the 'basic skills' that they are supposed to teach.1 If this estimate is accurate—and most Americans believe, intuitively at least that it is—then we must recognize that not only are teachers unskilled in areas outside their expertise, but also, more frightening, they are incompetent within areas in which they ostensibly are trained. And since, as Charles Moran and J. T. Skerrett recently pointed out two of the three traditional Rs of basic education are within the province of the English teachers, we must be particularly sensitive to the criticism presently being leveled at teacher inability.

Ward, Jay A. JAC (1981). Articles>Education>Writing

Improving the Usability of Programming Publications  

This paper summarizes the work of a study group on ways to improve the usability of publications that support programming products. Task orientation, an approach to providing, organizing, and packaging information, is covered, together with innovations to improve the usability of programming publications: ease-of-use education, measurement of user opinion, and incorporating usability into the publications development process.

Bethke, W.M., P.H. Dean, E. Ort Kaiser and F.H. Pessin. IBM Systems Journal (1981). Articles>Documentation>Writing>Technical Writing

The Irony Game: Assessing a Writer's Adaptation to an Opponent  

The study of composition processes describes what writers do. The study of the art of composition describes methods for giving writers better control over what they do. This essay makes a contribution to both research concerns. It contributes to the study of composition processes by describing what ironists do when they refute an opponent. It contributes to the study of the art of composition by offering methods for giving writers better control over the adaptive strategies they use when attempting refutations.

Kaufer, David S. and Christine M. Neuwirth. JAC (1981). Articles>Rhetoric>Writing

The Passive In Technical and Scientific Writing  

Almost every discussion of technical or scientific style mentions the passive voice, usually as a stylistic evil to avoid. While I doubt that many of us would endorse such extreme prescriptions as 'Always use the active voice,' or 'A writer will almost automatically improve his style when he shifts from passive to active constructions,' we may be more ready to accept Freedman's position in 'The Seven Sins of Technical Writing.' His Sin 6 is 'the Deadly Passive, or, better, deadening passive; it takes the life out of writing, making everything impersonal, eternal, remote and dead,'3 but he adds that 'frequently, of course, the passive is not a sin and not deadly, for there simply is no active agent and the material must be put impersonally.'

Rodman, Lilita. JAC (1981). Articles>Writing>Style Guides

Proposal Checklist

An extensive list of questions one should consider while preparing a grant proposal.

Chermside, Herbert B. Virginia Commonwealth University (1981). Articles>Grants>Proposals

The Rhetoric of the Paragraph: A Reconsideration  

Efforts to define the fundamental structures that enable meaning in discourse have a long history, beginning with ancient speculation. Classical logic, rhetoric, and grammar imposed restrictions on the processes of composing, as well as the shapes of finished texts, in order to safeguard the truth by attending to prerequisites for its effective communication. From earliest times, a concern for vindicating some larger moral order, and for teaching others to appreciate it, has often motivated pronouncements on the nature of verbal form. From Quintilian to the present, for example, teacher-scholars have striven to insure that logical and aesthetic values celebrated in the classical doctrine of decorum are made suitably manifest in student performance, as though to enforce publicly accepted styles of thought and action by reference to acceptable forms of language.

Knoblauch, C.H. JAC (1981). Articles>Writing>Style Guides

Some Speculations About Writing Programs in the Eighties

This decade is a very good time to be a writing teacher. Those of us who were foresighted or brash or lucky enough to have chosen this career five or ten years ago now find ourselves in the midst of a ferment of professional activity.

Hairston, Maxine. ADE Bulletin (1981). Articles>Education>Writing

The Technical Talk: More Effective Use Of Visual Aids  

While most technical writing teachers assign the oral report and insist on visuals, very few offer their students good classroom examples of technical report visual aids. However, a set of 35 mm slides on one teaching topic could be easily produced with neither expensive equipment nor much ability in graphic design.

Jobst, Jack W. JAC (1981). Presentations>Advice>Visual>Visual Rhetoric