Technology-enhanced collaborative writing for second language learning has been receiving accumulating attention from researchers and educators over years. However, there was a lack of updated review with foci on the types and effectiveness of technologies in collaborative writing. This study conducted a systematic and in-depth review of 34…

The current study examined relationships between expert human judgments of text quality and grammar and mechanical errors in student writing. A corpus of essays (N = 100) written by high school students in the W-Pal system was collected, coded for grammar and mechanical errors, and scored by expert human raters. Results revealed weak relations…

The authors offer research studies and other documented evidence that teaching grammar without a meaningful context does not improve student writing, largely because that approach does not address the root causes of errors. Several resources that support this position and offer more productive strategies are summarized, including the authors'…

Examines four topics in composition research that are pertinent to journalism instruction: writing as process, writing across the curriculum, modes of instruction, and dealing with errors. (FL)

This paper reviews research about how speaking a dialect can influence students' writing and how writing should be taught to students who speak a dialect of English. Literature on the writing errors commonly made by speakers of Black English and other American dialects is summarized. (PP)

Discusses the collected research on free modifiers and "minor sentences," or "formal fragments." Asks English teachers for less concentration on initial placement of modifiers, less rigidity concerning fragments, and more practice with punctuating final free modifiers. (RL)

A review of 38 articles published from 1990 to 2000 on college students with learning disabilities and writing difficulties (LD/WD) found four major topics were discussed: available assistive technology; effectiveness of assistive technology; characteristics and error patterns in the writings of college students with LD/WD; and instructional…

It is important that teachers help students to realize that writing is not simply a product, or a means to an end, but an exploratory, cyclical process. Research has shown that skilled writers conceptualize the effect of their writing as a whole, as a generative process, whereas unskilled writers are distracted by surface-level features and are…

Discussion of programs for analyzing the writing of students using word processors focuses on six categories of available software that can help to improve students' writing skills: error checkers, reformatters, audience awareness programs (including reader's needs and readability formulas), student conferencing utilities, grading utilities, and…

Supports the use of the applied linguistics technique of error analysis (i.e., charting and analyzing patterns in language errors) in developmental writing instruction. Argues that error enables teachers to diagnose the cognitive strategies and processes used by students in writing. Discusses teaching strategies and the approach's limitations.…

This paper reviews how various nonstandard dialects of English may influence written products and how writing may be taught to speakers of such dialects. Sections of the literature review focus on the speech patterns of black English, of other English dialects, and of other languages, and on how these patterns manifest themselves in written…

Seven research-based papers on writing disorders of learning-disabled college students are listed and reviewed. The papers deal with persistent auditory language deficits in adults with learning disabilities; error patterns and instructional alternatives relating to college learning-disabled writers; syntactic complexity in written expression;…