In a study, 52 first-year college students were asked to complete questionnaires about their attitudes about legalizing drugs. The students were to offer persona judgments about hypothetical authors arguing for and against legalization. Next, the participants were assigned to read and evaluate essays for and against legalization, and then were to…

Theodore H. White's "The Making of the President 1960" is widely acknowledged to be a classic of contemporary political history. Using the concepts of Northrop Frye, a study examined the narrative structure of White's work and contends that the book's power derives from its form as a quest story in a high mimetic mode. As such, the book…

A checklist of characteristics of effective mail questionnaires was developed that reflects some degree of consensus among experts in survey research and that can serve as a guide to novices designing a questionnaire. Journal and book sources of information about mail questionnaires were reviewed to yield 83 items in 7 categories that comprised…

To study any social movement is ultimately to examine an intricate social drama. With the publication of "The Jungle" in 1906, Upton Sinclair emerged from the stormy background of the muckraking movement to become one of that movement's principal actors. But in the 1920s, long after the Progressive reformers dusted and put away their…

Developed as the direct result of the August 1982, International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Seminar on Better Journals for the Library Profession held in Montreal, Canada, this report is designed to provide broad guidelines for the editors of library journals through an examination of the fundamental problems of editing journals for…

The articles in this journal issue explore the use of literature in instruction and, particularly, the characterization of women in literature. The titles of the articles and their authors are as follows: (1) "George Orwell and the Politics of Misogyny" (Robert Keith Miller); (2) "Women and Huckleberry Finn: A Literary Criticism" (Linda Roehrig…

This guide outlines the suggested program for 1988 for the Texas Reading Club, an activity sponsored cooperatively by local libraries and the Texas State Library to encourage children and their parents to read and use the library. The general theme, "Trailblazers, Stargazers," focuses on people who do new things, go new places,…

Intended for use by those interested in promoting books and reading in the world, this report describes the state of books and reading in Kenya. Following a brief description of Kenya, major sections of the report deal with authorship, publishing, physical production, distribution, reading habits, professional training, and legal and institutional…

Collaborative scholarly writing published in education journals was studied. Two basic investigative approaches were used. The first was to directly examine 26 major education journals published from 1984-86. This yielded information about the incidence of multiple authorship, the type of journal articles published (practical, research, or…

Voice is a useful critical concept for studying texts, and can be classified into three types: (1) audible voice--how much the reader "hears" the text; (2) dramatic voice--what kind of speaker or writer is implied in the text; and (3) one's own voice--the relationship of the text to the actual writer. Written language is more likely to…

The word "authorship," like "ownership" or "professorship," reflects an appropriate and necessary connection between authors and their texts. First used in 1710, the concept of authorship is a relatively recent invention. To understand how constructed the concept is--not commonsensical or inevitable but a complex…

An English instructor examined 9 Judy Blume adolescent novels and interviewed 12 students (grades 6, 7, and 8) who had read the novels to look at the world as it was presented in the books and to compare the instructor's own perceptions with those of the adolescent readers. The study revealed that the books did in fact dwell on the problems of…

Christopher Paul Curtis is an internationally known author of books loved by young adult readers. "The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963" and "Bud, Not Buddy" have now been joined by "Bucking the Sarge," Curtis' newest book. This article will share information about each of the texts, as well as how they can be used in…

Reform in English studies is compromised by our tendency to talk like dilettantes, but behave like philologists. (JH)