I need one article from any source on the writing abilities of college
students. The article should focus on the degrading literacy and
writing skills of college students. It would also be helpful if I
could find one other article that connects reading to writing skills,
saying that more reading affects ones ability to write.

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Request for Question Clarification by secret901-ga on 18 Sep 2002 10:49 PDT

Do you need the full text of the article or a citing of it?

Hi Sprocket --



An article closely meeting your criteria is  Decline of Literacy 
 By J. Martin Rochester in Education Week 5/15/96
http://www.edweek.org/ew/vol-15/34roch.h15

Here is the lede:
"s a college professor for over a quarter of a century, I have been
struck by the steady, almost annual decline in the literacy of
students. This observation has been confirmed by colleagues in various
disciplines at virtually all universities with which I have had
contact. By literacy, I mean (1) the capacity to read a sophisticated
written work and to understand the major ideas expressed by the author
and (2) the capacity to write polished prose consisting of complete
words, sentences, and paragraphs using standard English conventions.
Oral communication is also normally included under "literacy," but I
am mainly concerned here with two of the "three R's"-- reading and
(w)riting."


Another article "College Freshman Can't Cut the Mustard" in the
Education Reporter
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/1995/sept95/ersept1.html 
contains pertainent statistics

"Last fall, the California State University system provided remedial
courses to 60% of all entering freshmen. Campuses anticipate higher
enrollments in remedial courses this fall.

Nearly a third of the nation's college freshmen took a remedial course
in 1989, the most recent figure available from the National Center for
Education Statistics.

In Maryland, 35% of the 1993 public and private high school graduates
who went on to higher education in the state needed remedial math and
about 25% needed remedial English, according to the Maryland Higher
Education Commission.

A survey developed by the National Center on the Education Quality of
the Work Force at the University of Pennsylvania revealed that
managers at 3,000 office, factory and construction sites throughout
the country consider 20% of their workers not fully proficient in
their jobs.

In New Jersey, he pointed out, results of the 1993 College Basic
Skills Placement Test revealed that 74.1% of the recent high school
graduates seeking college admission lacked proficiency or demonstrated
only partial proficiency in verbal skills. In computation, 59.8%
lacked full proficiency and in algebra 60.3% needed remediation."


In another article 
Freeing the Education Market
by Sheldon Richman, March 1993
in Freedom Daily
http://www.fff.org/freedom/0393c.asp

David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, points out
that the record of the schools is revealed in the following facts: "25
percent of U.S. college freshmen take remedial math courses, 21
percent take remedial writing courses, and 16 percent take remedial
reading courses.

---
You may find other useful information at "The Nation's Report Card"
National Assessment of Educational Progress at
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/sitemap.asp

Search Strategy:
"college student" literacy
"college freshmen" literacy
followed links from pages yielded by these searches


I hope this is useful.

Nellie Bly

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Request for Answer Clarification by sprocket003-ga on 18 Sep 2002 11:39 PDT

I need the full text to extract infomation  and specific examples for
a paper. The links you provided were great. But what about an article
on how reading influences writing? I wanted to make the thesis for my
paper, how reading influences ones writing ability. Thanks a lot!

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Clarification of Answer by nellie_bly-ga on 18 Sep 2002 12:46 PDT

OK, but that's really sort of a separate question, don't you think?
The Rochester article does link reading and writing, although not in great depth.

So, do you want that only as it pertains to college students or in general.
Finding it only for college students would be a bit of a long haul.

Please let me know.

Nellie

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Request for Answer Clarification by sprocket003-ga on 18 Sep 2002 13:01 PDT

Nellie,

The reading part was kind of the second part to my question. It didn't
have to be about reading in college students. Just some sort of
article about how reading affects ones writing. Just one general
article on that would be nice if you can. You don't have to go in
depth, if it takes too much work don't worry. Thanks a lot, I
appreciate it.

-Andrew

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Request for Answer Clarification by sprocket003-ga on 18 Sep 2002 13:05 PDT

You know what, I think the Rochester article has enough information
for me. So I guess it's not a big deal for you to find that other
article. Thanks anyway.

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Clarification of Answer by nellie_bly-ga on 18 Sep 2002 14:03 PDT

Fine Sprocket, glad that article works.  Just ask for another
clarification, if you find you need something else.

Nellie Bly

Very good. But, the last part of my question on reading influencing
writing was not answered, so I requested an answer in a clarification.
Otherwise, great links.