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This article describes the unfolding of one student's encounter with writing. It was not an encounter of miraculous proportions, but, rather, one that became apparent through a teacher's careful observations of the engagement of a nonwriting third grader with print. This encounter may have been one of the first times the student realized he could be literate.
This article describes the experience of first- and second-grade students as they put together the pieces of literacy knowledge necessary for each to discover a writing process that produces readable work. Woven into the description is the unfolding of the author's own understanding of how to help her students make sense of the literacy code.
This article reviews the ways that computers can support writing by students with learning disabilities, with an emphasis applications that go beyond word processing. Following an overview of research on word processing is a discussion of software assists with the basic processes of transcription and sentence generation, including spelling checkers, speech synthesis, prediction, and grammar and style checkers. Next, applications that support the cognitive processes of planning are review including prompting programs, outlining and semantic mapping software, and multimedia applications. Finally, the use of computer networks to support collaboration and communication with diverse audiences is addressed.
Over the past few years, the number of well-trained researchers has increased, but the amount of money available for research has remained the same or even decreased. Consequently, competition for support is keener than it ever was. How a grant is written may tip the balance between getting funded or not. This article provides some guidelines for writing better proposals, touching on the various parts of the protocol and how it should be packaged. It addresses both the overt purpose of the proposal, which is telling the reviewers what you want to do, why, and how; and the covert message, which is convincing them that you have the ability to do what you propose. The article also discusses the review mechanism, who it is who reads the grant, and why this matters.
The author presents his views for breaking from the traditional order ("Chapter Two" in many studies) and segregation of topics--literature review, theory, and method-in favor of integrating these components into a report only as needed. He urges researchers to consider alternative ways of satisfying the intent of a literature review. He questions whether traditional requirements result in theories being forced or presented prematurely, and raises the possibility of presenting mutltiple or cumulative theories toward the study's end. He notes that qualitative research is based on participant observation and the resulting insights and wonders whether an emphasis on methodology detracts from our studies. Engaging writing can result when writers are free to break with tradition and present their findings in discovery-oriented ways.
Writing the proposal for a qualitative research methodology study is a double challenge because of the emergent nature of qualitative research design and because a methodology study entails describing a process to produce a process. How the authors addressed this challenge is shown in the annotated text of the grant proposal--"Analytic Techniques for Qualitative Metasynthesis"--funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research. Appealing qualitative research proposals adhere to principles that engage writers and readers in an informative and mutually respectful interaction.
As a program of research is developed, the small-project grant is a perfect means for initiating discrete projects to build support for larger funding. The author describes the development of a successful small qualitative project proposal on the disabling effects of osteoporosis. She dissects the process of writing a small-project proposal to assist novice or junior researchers in securing funding for small projects that, she hopes, will build toward funding on a larger scale. Major portions of the proposal are included in this article to demonstrate the keys to success in getting small qualitative projects funded.
The Internet is now a site where women with breast cancer both read and write about the illness, and in doing so negotiate identity and definitions of situation in disembodied space. Cyberspace has been imagined as a liberatory realm where women can transgress gender roles, invent selves and create new forms of knowledge. This study explores the personal web pages of women with breast cancer with an interest in exploring the issue of 'cyber-agency' or empowerment in cyberspace. I suggest here that women's web pages might offer potentially critical opportunities for women's knowledge-making in relation to what are often highly political aspects of the body, gender and illness. However, the Internet is not an inherently empowering technology, and it can be a medium for affirming norms of femininity, consumerism, individualism and other powerful social messages.
Documenting the process, results, impact, and effectiveness of community-based health promotion programs is an important part of any evaluation. This article provides information on how to write community-centered evaluation reports for program stake-holders. Specific prerequisites and principles are provided. In addition, several tips for increasing the use of the results are highlighted.
The prospect of writing a thesis can be intimidating. However, there are certain formats that the writer should follow in order to make life much easier. This article covers a logical approach to presenting research findings. Also included are suggestions for a last minute checklist.
A patient with acquired, pathologic left-handed mirror writing and mirror movements during bimanual coordination is reported. CT demonstrated an ischemic infarction involving the right supplementary motor area, medial prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate gyrus with nearly total sparing of the corpus callosum. This case, together with recent experimental findings in monkeys, supports the hypothesis that the supplementary motor area may be responsible for nonmirror transformation of motor programs originating in the left hemisphere prior to execution by the primary motor area in the right hemisphere.
The mechanisms of rehabilitation-induced plasticity in the motor system after stroke are not defined. The authors studied seven patients with residual poststroke agraphia, aphasia, and right hemiparesis. After a 40-minute rehabilitation therapy that promoted use of the paretic hand for writing, the authors observed a task-specific increase in recruitment of ipsilateral corticospinal pathways. Rehabilitation aimed to increase the use of the paretic hand may induce recruitment of previously silent ipsilateral corticospinal pathways even in poorly recovered poststroke patients.
This article discusses how to transform material worthy of dissemination into a form that leads to successful publication. It focuses on publication of systematic and literature reviews, empirical studies and conceptual analyses undertaken as part of a course of academic study. An increasing number of nurses and midwives are undertaking healthcare-related courses at BSc, MSc, MPhil and PhD level. Many of their theses are ultimately left to gather dust on library shelves, and are only read by examiners. The authors have worked with many novice writers whose attempts to write up their theses have been unsuccessful for a number of reasons. These are explored in this article. Suggestions for avoiding the many pitfalls that can prevent publication are offered.
Writing a good review article is a real challenge. It requires not just a detailed literature search but a thorough 'digest' of the material obtained. Readers seek an up-to-date guide through a morass of data that has been sifted by the author and then integrated into a coherent and authoritative account.
PURPOSE: Guidelines for writing patient case reports, with a focus on medication-related reports, are provided. SUMMARY: The format of a patient case report encompasses the following five sections: an abstract, an introduction and objective that contain a literature review, a description of the case report, a discussion that includes a detailed explanation of the literature review, a summary of the case, and a conclusion. The abstract of a patient case report should succinctly include the four sections of the main text of the report. The introduction section should provide the subject, purpose, and merit of the case report. It must explain why the case report is novel or merits review, and it should include a comprehensive literature review that corroborates the author's claims. The case presentation section should describe the case in chronological order and in enough detail for the reader to establish his or her own conclusions about the case's validity. The discussion section is the most important section of the case report. It ought to evaluate the patient case for accuracy, validity, and uniqueness; compare and contrast the case report with the published literature; derive new knowledge; summarize the essential features of the report; and draw recommendations. The conclusion section should be brief and provide a conclusion with evidence-based recommendations and applicability to practice. CONCLUSION: Patient case reports are valuable resources of new and unusual information that may lead to vital research.
To test the effects of interrupting visual feedback on writing, two groups of subjects--9 experienced and 9 inexperienced writers--were prevented from re-reading as they produced written texts. Their texts were then analyzed for error, syntax, over-all quality, and sentence connectedness. While both groups of writers were able to produce relatively well-formed sentences when they could not re-read, both were nonetheless hindered at the level of discourse production. Each group, however, reacted to that hinderance with different linguistic strategies.
Although the phrase, "handwriting is brainwriting," is commonly heard, there is little in the literature to support the statement. This case study of a 28-year-old quadriplegic woman briefly describes the disorder, its treatment, and her reaction to sudden disability. Writing pre- and postparalysis illustrates the similarities in slant, spacing, size, and idiosyncracies found when written by hand or by holding the pen in the mouth.
This pilot study analyzed the actual language used in two writing samples by university students (8 men, 28 women) about a tragic public incident, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack. To analyze samples a computer-based text-analysis program with a wide range of psychological dimensions and linguistic variables was used. More words and more past tense verbs were used right after the incident. Words related to religion, family, and home increased dramatically right after the incident.