Advanced Composition Courses
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Business Writing Resources

List of online resources

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab, "Professional Writing Handouts and Resources"

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab, "Writing Across the Curriculum and Writing in the Disciplines Resources"


Technical Writing Resources
Technology Resources
Website for Writing in Digital Environments.  Be sure to look at their evalution of the implications of the Supreme Court's MGM vs Grokster ruling and its implications for writing teachers.

Plagiarism Resources
The writer of the "Week of Kindness" blog wrote (27 Mar 05 entry): "What follows is the epic saga of a random instant message that came to me from a stranger this weekend, asking whether I wanted to be paid to write a college paper for her."

"Four Academic Plagiarists You've Never Heard Of: How Many More Are OutThere?"

"Professor Copycat"

"'Tutoring' Rich Kids Cost Me My Dreams" "Evan's parents had hired 'tutors' to compose their son's papers since he was 12 because he 'wasn't going to be a writer anyway.'"

Resources for Teaching Grammar  & Style

How, if at all, does explicit grammar instruction help students write better? Here is Dr. Keith Rhodes' assessment.

Does sentence-level instruction improve writing? If so, which pedagogies are most effective? Here are some resources:
  • Connors, Bob. "The Erasure of the Sentence" (CCC 52.1). Argues that sentence pedagogies have a beneficial effect on student writing.
  • Hairston, Maxine Successful Writing. Various selections
  • Huges, George. Reading Novels. Chapter on Sentence Struction and Connection.
  • Koln, Martha. Rhetorical Grammar.
  • Myers, Sharon. "ReMembering the Sentence" (CCC 54.4). Survey of various type of sentence pedagogies.
  • Schuster. Breaking the Rules: Liberating Writers Through Innovative Grammar Instruction.
  • Williams, Joe. Style. The chapter called "Shape."
How useful is the infamous 5-paragraph theme?  "It absolutely is probably the worst way to teach writing," says Nancy Patterson of Grand Valley State University, who spent more than 28 years teaching English to high school and middle school.

Argument Resources

Guest Columnist:  Is Persuasion Dead?
MILLER, MATT.  New York Times. June 4, 2005
Is it possible in America today to convince anyone of anything he doesn't already believe?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/04/opinion/04miller_oped.html
Excerpt:
. . . marshaling a case to persuade those who start from a different position is a lost art. Honoring what's right in the other side's argument seems a superfluous thing that can only cause trouble, like
an appendix. Politicos huddle with like-minded souls in opinion cocoons that seem impervious to facts. The politicians and the press didn't kill off persuasion intentionally, of course; it's more manslaughter than murder. Persuasion just isn't relevant to delivering elections or eyeballs. Pols have figured out that to get votes you don't need to change minds. Even when they want to, modern media make it hard.