II. EARLY EXPOSITORY PROSE: THE PHILOSOPHERS

This article reviews previous research on the effects of certain structural cues, called signals, that affect a reader's comprehension of expository prose. It concludes that the inconsistent results of many studies may be due to inadequate methodologies that have failed to control for confounding variables, such as text length and difficulty, reader familiarity with the topic, and timing of comprehension tests. Further, accepted signal types (headings, logical connectives, and previews) have not been sufficiently examined for their individual effects, perhaps creating unidentified disordinal interactions that could preclude the possibility of researchers identifying significant effects. This article concludes with recommendations for more valid research methodology to be used in prose assessment studies. The next issue of this journal will present Part II of this article, which details a new study of signaling effects for readers of expository prose, a study that is based on the refined methodology suggested in this article.

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Text relations and recall for expository prose

Discourse Processes ◽

10.1080/01638539109544794 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 14 (4) ◽

pp. 399-422 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Connie K. Varnhagen

Keyword(s):

Expository Prose

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Cohesion strategies and genre in expository prose: An analysis of the writing of children of ethnolinguistic cultural groups

Pragmatics ◽

10.1075/prag.5.3.02aba ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 299-324

Author(s):

Helen R. Abadiano

Keyword(s):

Sixth Grade ◽

Literacy Learning ◽

The United States ◽

Cultural Groups ◽

Literacy Practice ◽

Expository Prose ◽

Children's Literacy ◽

Classroom Literacy ◽

Mainstream Culture

In most societies the ability to write has become a significant criterion in judging one's "success or "failure" in becoming literate. This paper focuses on the classroom literacy practice called "writing," inasmuch as learning to write in a specific kind of way is part and parcel of children's literacy learning expectations. It is based on a study which examined cohesion patterns found in expository writing samples of sixth grade urban African American, urban Appalachian, and mainstream culture children attending a middle school in a large midwestern urban school system in the United States. This paper challenges the prevailing notion that ethnicity, social class and language variation influence the quality of writing these children produce.

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THE PREDICTION OF GRE READING COMPREHENSION ITEM DIFFICULTY FOR EXPOSITORY PROSE PASSAGES FOR EACH OF THREE ITEM TYPES: MAIN IDEAS, INFERENCES AND EXPLICIT STATEMENTS

ETS Research Report Series ◽

10.1002/j.2333-8504.1991.tb01426.x ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 1991 (2) ◽

pp. i-53 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Roy Freedle ◽

Irene Kostin

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Item Difficulty ◽

Expository Prose ◽

Main Ideas ◽

Item Types

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Readability of a Rhetorically Linked Expository Paragraph

Perceptual and Motor Skills ◽

10.2466/pms.1980.51.1.245 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 51 (1) ◽

pp. 245-246

Author(s):

William J. Vande Kopple

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

School Subjects ◽

New Information ◽

Expository Prose ◽

A Chain ◽

Significant Factors

This research is part of an attempt to discover significant factors of readability for connected expository prose. Keeping the content of two paragraphs identical, I varied their forms using the Functional Sentence Perspectivists' rule for relating old and new information within the sentences of discourse. The rule-governed form contains a chain of old and new information; in the variant this chain is disrupted. In two tests involving subjective readability decisions, a significant number of 272 high-school subjects found the rule-governed paragraph more readable than the variant. This is additional evidence that we should follow the Functional Sentence Perspectivists' rule in writing discourse.

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