A group of 41 business communication students were taught to use a grammar/style checker and completed a writing exercise. Compared to 44 controls who did not use the software, there were no differences in error scores. Previous computer experience did not affect scores, but prior language skills may have influenced them. (SK)

Provides a bibliography of 79 articles on technology and communication from the following sources: "ABI/Inform,""Academic Abstracts,""ERIC,""UMI's Dissertation Abstracts,""Wilson's Applied Science and Technology Index" and "Wilson's Education Index" (1986 through 1991); the "Journal…

There is an abundance of educational software available, the quality of which ranges from invaluable to a waste of money. The following guidelines should make shopping for software as painless as possible: (1) know your objectives; (2) be sure the software fits your equipment; (3) consider dealer support; (4) consider brand names first; (5) check…

The paper describes two experiments conducted to improve writing skills of learning disabled adolescents. Experiment 1 used creative prompts plus a cut and paste editing strategy. In experiment 2, the same creative prompts were used with the Bank Street word processing program. Writing samples were scored for composition quality (holistic, number…

In a class of eight students, an attempt was made to determine the effects on student collaboration of using the computer as a writing instrument and the influence the computer might have on social relationships in a high school writing class. Student collaboration consisted of several kinds, including: (1) the sharing of technical help for using…

Reports that professional writing students using computers wrote significantly better papers than their counterparts in traditional classrooms. Attributes the success of this study (other studies have failed to find significant differences) to the population of skilled, motivated, upper-level students and consistent use of computers from planning…

Describes the development and objectives of a personal computer program to help journalism students learn word processing at Syracuse (New York) University. (HTH)

Describes the benefits of word processing in social studies instruction, for both students and teachers. Provides two U. S. History lesson plans which have students make use of word processing. (JDH)

Discusses word processing computer programs' potential to perform operations similar to those performed by computer assisted instruction (CAI). Suggests not abandoning CAI software entirely for the CAI potential of word processors. (RS)

Offers five high school teachers' comments regarding how the computer has changed their lives in the classroom, the uses they make of it, and what it promises for the immediate future. (SR)

Explores the use of microcomputers in the study of literature, particularly in Hispanic studies. The philosophy and methodology of literary computing, electronic text preparation, note-taking, searching, indexing, tagging, text collating procedures, and poetry and literary analysis are discussed. (CB)

Studied four-year olds' writing development over a school year by analyzing their output on a word-processing program. Found a combined increase in productivity, complexity, and accuracy. Results suggest that these increases may be attributable to the word processing program and not solely to novelty, maturation and incidental learning, or teacher…

Discussing available computer software for prompting for the kinds of computers likely to be used in writing programs, this paper concentrates on categorizing software programs and exploring their "uniquely electronic" features. The paper deals with the following questions: (1) What kinds of planning software are available? (2) What happens when…

Describes a variety of computer software. Subjects reviewed include history simulations and wordprocessing programs. Some of the eleven packages reviewed are Thog, North Utilities, HBJ Writer, Textra, Pro-cite, and Simulation Construction Kit. (BSR)

Presents the results of a recent survey of microcomputer use in economics departments in United Kingdom universities and polytechnic schools. The BBC B and IBM PC were the first and second most popular machines, respectively. Eighty-five per cent of the use was secretarial with Wordstar and Wordwise being the most popular word processing packages.…