Showing papers in "Written Communication in 2014"
TL;DR: This article used corpus methods to examine linguistic expressions of stance in over 4,000 argumentative essays written by incoming first-year university students in comparison with the writing of non-first-year students.
Abstract: This article uses corpus methods to examine linguistic expressions of stance in over 4,000 argumentative essays written by incoming first-year university students in comparison with the writing of ...
161 citations
TL;DR: This article conducted a corpus-based study of a key aspect of academic writing in one discipline (biology) by final-year undergraduates and first-, second-, and third-year graduate students.
Abstract: This is a corpus-based study of a key aspect of academic writing in one discipline (biology) by final-year undergraduates and first-, second-, and third-year graduate students. The papers come from...
88 citations
TL;DR: This article examined patterns of stance in a corpus of 92 high and low-graded argumentative papers written in the co-authors of this paper, drawn from the appraisal framework from systemic functional linguistics (SFL).
Abstract: Drawing on the appraisal framework from systemic functional linguistics (SFL), this article examines patterns of stance in a corpus of 92 high- and low-graded argumentative papers written in the co...
72 citations
TL;DR: This article identified multiple profiles of successful essays via a cluster analysis approach using linguistic features reported by a variety of natural language processing tools, and provided empirical evidence that successful writing cannot be defined simply through a single set of predefined features, but rather, successful writing has multiple profiles.
Abstract: This study identifies multiple profiles of successful essays via a cluster analysis approach using linguistic features reported by a variety of natural language processing tools. The findings from the study indicate that there are four profiles of successful writers for the samples analyzed. These four profiles are linguistically distinct from one another and demonstrate that expert human raters examine a number of different linguistic features in a variety of combinations when assessing writing proficiency and assigning high scores to independent essays (regardless of the scoring rubric considered). The writing styles in the four clusters can be described as action and depiction style, academic style, accessible style, and lexical style. The study provides empirical evidence that successful writing cannot be defined simply through a single set of predefined features, but that, rather, successful writing has multiple profiles. While these profiles may overlap, each profile is distinct.
70 citations
TL;DR: This article reported instruction supporting the development of fifth grade English learners' argumentative writing in an English language arts setting, and the teacher introduced students to the stages, or structural elements, expected in argumentation, with genre-specific scaffolds.
Abstract: This article reports instruction supporting the development of fifth grade English learners’ argumentative writing in an English language arts setting. Arguments analyzed for the study were produced by the same students on two occasions, roughly 3 months apart. In the first instance, students discussed the source text in detail, but were given no genre-specific support for writing. Following professional development, the teacher introduced students to the stages, or structural elements, expected in argumentation, with genre-specific scaffolds. Classroom data illustrate how the teacher scaffolded students’ argumentative writing. Analysis of writing data identifies the text- and stage-level features of students’ responses, with particular attention paid to students’ construction of the reason stage, in which writers must explain why textual evidence supports their overall position on a question about a character or theme. Findings describe the range of responses and point to characteristics of texts and pro...
56 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a design-based writing program was introduced to teach students how to design multimodal and digital texts across a range of genres and text types, such as web pages, online comics, video documentaries, and blogs.
Abstract: Theorists of multiliteracies, social semiotics, and the New Literacy Studies have drawn attention to the potential changing nature of writing and literacy in the context of networked communications. This article reports findings from a design-based research project in Year 4 classrooms (students aged 8.5-10 years) in a low socioeconomic status school. A new writing program taught students how to design multimodal and digital texts across a range of genres and text types, such as web pages, online comics, video documentaries, and blogs. The authors use Bernstein’s theory of the pedagogic device to theorize the pedagogic struggles and resolutions in remaking English through the specialization of time, space, and text. The changes created an ideological struggle as new writing practices were adapted from broader societal fields to meet the instructional and regulative discourses of a conventional writing curriculum.
46 citations
TL;DR: Using Ivanic's (2004) framework, this article examined the relationships among teachers' beliefs about writing, their instructional practices, and contextual factors in a study of 20 elementary teachers.
Abstract: Using Ivanic’s (2004) framework, the study of 20 elementary teachers examines the relationships among teachers’ beliefs about writing, their instructional practices, and contextual factors. While t...
43 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a multi-institutional study of the role of writing in college students' lives is presented, using case studies built from a larger population survey along with interviews.
Abstract: This article shares results from a multi-institutional study of the role of writing in college students’ lives. Using case studies built from a larger population survey along with interviews, diari...
29 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an African American writer from a low-income community is followed across a 10-year period as he progresses from first grade through high school, and the author identifies a set of interrelated dispositions that contribute to his development of habitus as a writer.
Abstract: Peter, an African American writer from a low-income community, is followed across a 10-year period as he progresses from first grade through high school. Drawing on writing samples and interviews, the author identifies a set of interrelated dispositions that contribute to his development of habitus as a writer. This article considers Peter’s developing writing abilities alongside these emerging dispositions that include (a) meeting school expectations for reading and writing, (b) being good in school and being a good student, (c) forming friendships and affiliations that involve reading and writing practices, and (d) crafting future goals related to writing. Future success as a professional writer was contingent on his writing abilities being recognized, valued, and taken up in contexts beyond high school. The author draw on Bourdieu’s constructs of habitus and field to explore Peter’s becoming a writer across time.
24 citations
TL;DR: Learning to read and write is seen as both the acquisition of skills useful in a modern society and an introduction to a world increasingly organized around the reading and writing of authoritative authors as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Learning to read and write is seen as both the acquisition of skills useful in a modern society and an introduction to a world increasingly organized around the reading and writing of authoritative...
23 citations
TL;DR: This article investigated similarities and differences between Generation 1.5 students and two other student groups: mainstream first language (L1) learners and more traditional second language learners (L2) learners, and found significant differences between G1.5 and L2 students on holistic writing quality, word errors, word class errors, verb errors, total identified errors, and spoken features of language.
Abstract: Developmental composition courses serve a sizable and growing number of Generation 1.5 students, or long-term U.S. resident language learners, and it is believed that language challenges may be part of Generation 1.5 writers’ difficulty in controlling the academic register. The current study investigates possible similarities and differences between Generation 1.5 students (n = 149) and two other student groups: mainstream first language (L1) writers (n = 203) and more traditional second language (L2) writers (n = 55), thus determining the extent to which language-use variables distinguish Generation 1.5 texts from those of their classmates. Results indicate significant differences between Generation 1.5 and L2 students on holistic writing quality, word errors, word class errors, verb errors, total identified errors, and spoken features of language. Generation 1.5 and L1 texts significantly differed on academic features of language. Implications are presented, suggesting that developmental Generation 1.5 ...
TL;DR: The authors investigates the distinct effects that shuttling between national contexts have on the accumulation and use of genre knowledge, through a case study of one Third Culture Kid student writer, who reports on how her genre knowledge develops in response to transnational relocations between Italy and the United States and the way this transnational genre knowledge informs her writing of a high-stakes in-school genre.
Abstract: Scholars have recently begun to conceive of literacy practices as drawing from resources that are simultaneously situated and extracontextual. In particular, studies of transnational literacy affirm the importance of both locality and movement in literacy studies. Continuing this inquiry into the situated and dispersed nature of transnational literacy, the author investigates the distinct effects that shuttling between national contexts have on the accumulation and use of genre knowledge. Specifically, through a case study of one Third Culture Kid student writer, the author reports on how her genre knowledge develops in response to transnational relocations between Italy and the United States and the way this transnational genre knowledge informs her writing of a high-stakes in-school genre. This case illustrates the value of rhetorical genre studies for understanding the situated and dispersed nature of transnational literacy and begins to outline the distinctiveness of transnational boundary-crossing pr...
TL;DR: This paper investigated changes across grades in the cognitive demands associated with the organizing subprocess of writing and found that 85 fifth grade (age M = 10.8), 88 seventh grade (AGE M = 12.9), and 79 ninth grade (aged M = 14.5)
Abstract: We investigated changes across grades in the cognitive demands associated with the organizing subprocess of writing. A total of 85 fifth (age M = 10.8), 88 seventh (age M = 12.9), and 79 ninth (age...
TL;DR: Readers' objectivity and bias evaluations of news texts were investigated in this paper to better understand the process by which readers make these kinds of judgments and the evidence on which they based their judgments.
Abstract: Readers’ objectivity and bias evaluations of news texts were investigated in order to better understand the process by which readers make these kinds of judgments and the evidence on which they bas...
TL;DR: Examination of a social network site where specific interlocutors communicate by combining aspects of academic American English, digital language, and African American Language found DAAL to be a robust form of written communication.
Abstract: This study examines a social network site (SNS) where specific interlocutors communicate by combining aspects of academic American English (AE), digital language (DL), and African American Language (AAL)—creating a digital form of AAL or digital AAL (DAAL). This article describes the features of DAAL in the discursive, online context of MySpace, by analyzing a corpus of DAAL comments (1,494 instances). The use of SNSs affords a space where AAL exists in written form, serving the function of approximating spoken AAL. More interesting, however, is the function that DAAL serves as a text that is visually distinct from AE, emphasizing the orthographic freedom of DAAL on SNSs. By examining how DL and AAL exist and combine in an SNS environment, this research found DAAL to be a robust form of written communication.