To determine if people who wrote legal documents could read such documents with understanding and rewrite them to be understandable to the general public, eight experienced government writers were asked to rewrite a portion of a government regulation for a general audience. The writers--four lawyers and four nonlawyers--were audio recorded as they…

A 16-page, four-color-on-newsprint magazine, "Krokodil" is among the world's most popular magazines of humor and satire. As a product of the Pravda Publishing House, it is produced by a branch of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, yet there are no official taboos or guidelines. Connections, popularity, and profits give…

It was hypothesized in this study that, because of strong socialization pressures, gatekeepers would have stronger agreement and accuracy relations with the publisher than they would have with the audience and that the gatekeepers' congruency relations with the publisher and audience would not differ significantly. Additionally, research questions…

This paper describes basic skills in terms of three stages of the writing process: drafting, editing, and preservation. During the drafting stage, the basics are those skills and attitudes necessary to release the students' powers of expression. It is basic that they learn how to start and maintain a flow of words and ideas, how to use various…

This paper describes an approach for teachers to use in editing students' poems. The general editorial tactic recommended is for teachers to edit first drafts toward figures of speech, and towards the schemes and tropes that are latent or emergent within the students' writing. It is suggested that teachers avoid dealing directly with the contents…

This style manual, published by the National Education Association (NEA) for writers and editors, has been prepared to update and clarify questions of literary usage. The manual contains sections on abbreviations and symbols, capitalization, dates and time, division of words, foreign words and phrases, italics, lists and enumerations, numbers and…

This handbook was developed for the University of Southern California "Daily Trojan" student newspaper staff and the School of Journalism. It is a compendium of suggestions based on the problems that inexperienced reporters, copyreaders, and new staff members encounter. Contents include "In General," which discusses censorship,…

Offers suggestions about many aspects of sports editing, including providing balanced coverage, working for variety in layout, finding interesting angles in writing sports stories, obtaining interesting quotations, and achieving accuracy in copy. (GW)

Discusses artistic or esthetic, social and cultural, functional, and commercial values looked for by children's book editors in selecting and publishing manuscripts. Also reviews changes in social and cultural values as shown by children's books published in 1947, 1957, and 1967. (GT)

Offers four ways to help first-year reporting students get on the right copy-editing track: copy edit three times, copy edit aloud, use a tape recorder, or read a story backwards. (Author/RL)

Defines the responsibilities of individual members of junior and senior high school publication staffs. (GW)

Emphasizes the need for proofreading instruction in a college technical writing class. Provides the locations of frequently undetected proofreading errors and a strategy for when and how to proofread. (RL)

Discusses recent developments in video technology, especially small format video, that have made possible low cost instructional television production. Highlights include a new production model, orienting the client to the instructional design process, techniques for in-house video productions, editing, and possible uses for this new technology.…

Claims recent research involving premature editing--thinking aloud for the study--is too narrow in scope to allow for basic writers whose writing processes do not resemble the model. Using eight basic writers produces evidence to support the claim that many or most basic writers can write without editing prematurely.(NH)

Discusses several considerations of which trainers should be aware when teaching the following radio production techniques to trainees in developing nations: equipment use, use of talkback facility, scriptwriting, location interviewing, drama production, educational radio production, and editing. (MBR)