Professional Journals on Writing 21

Is sexist language discriminatory? In the spirit of combating sexism in language, an author named Jones objects to the indiscriminate use of people named “Jones” in examples used by teacher. VH Jones. College Composition and Communication (Oct. 77), 283.

How use the resources of word processing programs to correct mistakes frequently repeated? [B Ross-Larson]: Modify the ‘auto-correct section of your word processor to flag frequent misusages such as ‘media is’ or ‘irregardless.’ CS Stepp in Rev. of B Ross-Larson’s The Web’s Impact on Writing…. American Journalism. Issue 8, 2002, p. 2.

What type of writing is emphasized in college? Most writing at the college level in all academic courses is expository. Not much use of “expressive” or “creative” writing. AR Gere. College Composition and Communication (May 78), 185.

How do faculty outside of English feel about student errors in writing? “But do we have any evidence to support our assertion that faculty outside the English department are upset by English errors in student writing or that they are even capable of detecting such errors when confronted with them?” GC Klinger. College Composition and Communication (Dec. 77), 343.

How do faculty outside of English feel about student writing? Author sampled college content teachers on “major” errors—those that are particularly irritating. Concludes, “English usage may not have a strong direct bearing on grading outside of English courses, but language errors are clearly distracting…to many instructors. On the other hand, undergraduates who have a firm command of proper English usage and who are skillful in written expression are likely to impress instructors favorably.” GC Klinger. College Composition and Communication (Dec. 77), 247.

How teach students to write professional journal articles? Students in the social studies (history, psychology, criminology, geography and urban studies) learn how to write journal articles in their fields by reading them. EM Hoffman. College Composition and Communication (May 77), 195-197.

How do content teachers use writing in their classes? Concludes that most faculty interviewed have not developed a coherent approach to the role of writing in their classes, are not aware of how to deal with problems in students’ writing and do not see possible connections between writing activities and other ways in which students learn. S Zemelman in RL Larson. College Composition and Communication (May 79), 213.

What is the effect of our oral culture on students’ learning to write? [Ray: They write as they speak? Repetition, conversational vocabulary, i.e., “there,” “this,” “get,” “thing,” “it,” etc.?] Running words together (“alot”); confusion of similar-sounding words (“there/their”); misspelled words [tries, receive, existence, experience, persuade, neither, succeed, necessary, leisure, environment, dying, truly, writing, athlete, embarrass, definite, analyze, similar, disastrous]; sentence fragments; comma faults; omission of terminal “—ed”; proliferation of second-person pronoun; size of vocabulary. Compared 70s- and 50s-era papers. [File.] E Sloan. College Composition and Communication (May 79), 156-160.