Annotated Research in English (3)

Topics: pre-writing; revision; audience.

Question: How do pre-writing activities affect quality of writing?

Answer: “Found a positive correlation between amount of initial planning and text quality.” L Carey. 1989. 447.

Comment: I’m not sure what is meant by “planning.” In my experience, pre-writing consists of two steps: brainstorming the topic, and careful construction of the thesis sentence. RayS.

Revision

Question: How do students revise?

Answer: “Students relied heavily on teacher comments, seldom expressing their own purposes or authorship.” GH Dohrer. 1989. P. 447.

Comment: Suggests to me that teacher comments need to focus on students’ making their own changes. Interesting. RayS.

Audience

Question: How can scientists make comprehension less difficult in writing professional articles in journals?

Answer: “Demonstrated that even within the constraints of the journal article, scientists have considerable freedom to exercise choices concerning audience.” G Gragson and J Selzer. 1990. P. 447.

Comment: For instance, the writer can explain technical language for the non-scientist and use diagrams, etc., to clarify concepts. But will they bother to do so? The same can be true for the non-researcher audience in published educational research. RayS.

Title: “Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English.” RK Durst and JD Marshall. Research in the Teaching of English (December 1990), 441-457.