Customer Reviews

Handbook of Writing Research

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There was a time between 1975 and 1985 when most of the exciting and important research on writing was being conducted by people trained in composition studies. Much of it drew on the social sciences to discover why young people had so much difficulty with writing and to investigate ways to help them improve.

The situation began changing around 1985. In my own work, I have attributed the change to the fact that during this same period large numbers of people trained in literature were unable to get jobs in their fields. The market for composition specialists, however, was red hot, so in desperation a staggering number of literature people began posing as writing teachers, even though they had little or no training in the field.

Their hearts were never in it. Teaching writing is hard, pedestrian work, and it cannot be done properly without training. These manque compositionists dreamed of the day when they could talk about leitmotif in Jane Austen or symbolism in Ralph Ellison. And with the inevitable cycle of promotion and tenure, many of them realized that they were no longer obligated to continue the theater that was their careers, and they began doing what they had wanted to do all along, superficially masking their deception behind "cultural studies," "emerging literacies," and "visual rhetoric."

Consequently, research in composition studies stopped dead as the literature people in the field began claiming that rhetoric was "everything." Unable to understand social science methodologies or even basic statistics, they rejected empirical models as useless. The editor of the leading professional journal in composition recently stated, for example, that psychology has no bearing whatsoever on literacy.

We therefore should not be surprised that the responsibility for research in composition/writing was embraced by those working in education and psychology. THE HANDBOOK OF WRITING RESEARCH is an example, and it is an outstanding one. The text covers all the major issues in the field, from theores and models to methodologies. Throughout, the writing is clear, perceptive, and informative. I recommend it highly for anyone who is serious about writing, literacy, and education.

Book is a very good summary of the recent writing reasearch. No hands on material as to how to improve my writing - but reasearch based material. very usefull for anyone who needs data in regards to writing. Good and comprehensive collection.