Textbook assertions about the use and placement of topic sentences are contradicted by analyses of professionally-written prose. (JH)

Information is provided on state and regional language arts periodicals. (JH)

This paper examines the negative stereotypes so long foisted on witty women and the move of contemporary witty women writers into a comic vision beyond the imposed connection of female wit to sly cleverness and witchcraft. To illustrate how the woman writer had to cope with a prejudice against and a fear of her wit, the paper considers three…

This paper profiles representative Afro-Brazilian writers and provides a guide to English language translations and critical studies of their work. The aim is to encourage instructors to broaden the scope of current curricula in black and Latin American studies courses. Recent studies estimate that more than 40 percent of Brazil's inhabitants are…

An examination of three articles written in the year 1900-1901 by the young rhetoric instructor Gertrude Buck reveals her influence on the development of modern rhetorical theory. Her view that discourse is a social act, her attempts to free discourse from formal rhetoric and the expectations of teachers, and her insistence that rhetoric should…

A presentation of the history of reading instruction in the United States, this book is a special edition of Nila Banton Smith's original 1965 volume with the addition of a prologue on her life, and an epilogue which updates the history of reading instruction from 1965 to 1985. Chapter headings consist of: (1) The Beginnings of Reading…

Updating and augmenting a first edition published in 1983, this book provides a comprehensive guide to awards granted in English-speaking countries for excellence in children's literature. Included in the book are awards presented to an author or illustrator for his or her body of work, awards presented for a particular title, and awards presented…

During his long career as medical doctor, professor, lecturer, and author, Oliver Wendell Holmes produced, among other notable works, three novels designed to caution the medical profession against giving precedence to cures over causes in the healing process: "Elsie Venner,""the Guardian Angel," and "A Mortal…

Recent use of the "New Yorker" Education Program in an upper division non-fiction writing class in the School of Journalism of the University of Tennessee proved to be very effective. Initially, the numerous assignments to read detailed articles appeared overwhelming to the students, but they soon learned the importance of reading as the…

The purpose of this study was to develop a model for the distribution of authorships--based on the initial hypothesis that the distribution of authorships follows a shifted Waring distribution--and to test the derived model and some other discrete probability models for goodness-of-fit against empirical data. Bibliographic data from 15 abstracting…

Research in the late 1950's showed a trend towards increased multiple authorship, as opposed to single authorship, of research papers in psychology. To investigate whether the trend has continued into the 1980's, convention papers presented at the meetings of seven psychological associations and articles published in nine American Psychological…

Strategies for writing a text are offered by a college professor on the basis of his own experience of writing a text on social psychology. Suggestions are given on creating an efficient office environment, researching the topic, and drafting the manuscript. One way to improve efficiency is to compress teaching into a few days, leaving the…

Comments from young readers can be a valuable way of learning about children's books. (JH)