Outlines the characteristics of policy and procedure manuals. Focuses on some of the difficulties in writing these: (1) maintaining legality; (2) maintaining accuracy and consistency; (3) finding an appropriate style; and (4) handling the review and approval process. (JAD)

Describes methods for organizing and developing booklets of technical articles emphasizing engineering innovations, used as a marketing tool by corporate sales divisions. (JAD)

Explores the mental processes involved in preparing to write. (FL)

The article describes an approach by which word processing helps to solve some of the writing problems of learning disabled students. Aspects considered include prewriting, drafting, revising, and completing the story. (CL)

Adapts Edward de Bono's "Intermediate Impossible" strategy--for considering ideas that normally would be discarded as stepping-stones to new ideas--for use as a prewriting activity to enhance creative problem solving. (HTH)

Describes five prewriting activities for courses that emphasize writing and deemphasize discussion of literature. The activities focus on organization and theme statement so that students think about every possible subject, theme, and approach. (HTH)

Describes the use of speech communication activities as springboards for writing assignments. Focuses on interviewing, storytelling, role-playing, letter-writing, and nonverbal communication exercises. Concludes that such prewriting activities help remedial writing students in organizing thoughts, generating information, interacting with peers and…

Reports the results of a study that revealed that the instructional activities that precede writing are more important to student improvement than longer comments on the writing itself. (JL)

Professional speakers often use simple mental recipes to organize impromptu talks. The author taught these recipes to his high school composition students and used a timed trial format to give them practice in rapidly outlining their thoughts on a given topic. Thirteen of these recipes are provided. (SJL)

Reports on the difficulties a teacher had while trying to compose her first poetry assignment at the Bread Loaf School of English. (RL)

Presents teaching tips for (1) generating titles as a prewriting activity; (2) having students write a biography of a classmate; (3) asking students to determine scenarios for their business communication documents; (4) using interviewing as a method of primary research; and (5) sequencing writing assignments to help students clarify their…

Argues that students need invention strategies as well as introspection to collect information and make sense of it, but they also need instruction in discriminating among invention strategies and help in choosing the best strategy for a given writing task. Three overlooked strategies are research, collaboration, and form. (RS)

Asserts that the most important part of the research process occurs before formal research writing begins, when students engage in expressive, genuine communication. Describes several activities that promote meaningful responses to literature as a prelude to researching an American literary work. (MM)

Describes the effects of two prewriting strategies for the generation and storage of ideas (external storage and heuristic) on freshman English students' compositions in honors and basic writing classes. Both honors and remedial students produced the best essays when writing under conditions closely approximating their usual prewriting behavior.…

Discusses ways to motivate children to become readers and writers, characteristics of good children's literature, using patterned books as models, and prewriting activities; provides an annotated bibliography of 26 patterned books to encourage the reading/writing connection. A subset of updated folk and fairy tales is included. (LRW)