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Today's research world demands a variety of different abstracts to serve different purposes. As a result, writing abstracts can be a difficult task for graduate and international students, researchers, and even practiced authors. Abstracts and the Writing of Abstracts is designed to demystify the construction of this essential writing form and to equip scholars with the skills to summarize their work in clear and compelling ways.

This volume represents a revision and expansion of the material on writing abstracts that appeared in English in Today's Research World.

The Abstracts volume focuses on abstracts for research articles before addressing abstracts for short communications, conferences, and PhD dissertations. It also covers keywords, titles, and author names. Wherever appropriate within the text, Language Focus sections discuss options and provide tips for meeting specific linguistic challenges posed by the writing of different types of abstracts.

Aspects of Article Introductions has bee reissued to make it more easily available than it has ever been, particularly for the use of university libraries and for younger and newer practitioners and researchers in the rapidly expanding and increasingly global field of EAP.

The original Aspects of Article Introductions appeared in fall 1981 as a ring-bound 90-page monograph. The “publisher” was the Language Studies Unit at the University of Aston in Birmingham. Although essentially an “underground” work, it has remained a relevant part of the short intellectual history of English for Academic Purposes, particularly as genre-based or genre-driven approaches to EAP research and pedagogical practice have become  more popular. Its longevity is also a testament to the genre analysis work of John Swales, but in addition, the research article has become the most influential genre in most areas of scholarship, and introductions are at least supposed to be read first and to be designed in such a way as to attract as large readership as possible.

“If I were asked to list the most influential texts in applied linguistics over the last 30 years, John Swales' Aspects of Article Introductions would be in the top three or four. This was a seminal work which not only presented a novel way of analysing texts and a commentary on academic discourse, but one which helped to establish a foundation for the massive interest we see today in describing the structure and features of academic articles. This is not just a text which offers us a glimpse of an intellectual history, but it remains full of fascinating insights and observations about texts and the workings of academic discourse. While the ideas may have evolved and the genre it describes moved on, both the style of writing and the methodology it describes are as fresh and as revealing as anything written on the topic since.”                                                                                   ---Ken Hyland, Hong Kong University

Assessing English Language Learners in the Content Areas: A Research-into-Practice Guide for Educators seeks to provide guidance to classroom teachers, staff developers, and test-item designers who want to improve ELL assessment outcomes, particularly in the areas of math, science and social studies. The first two chapters of the book establish the background for the discussion of content-area assessment for ELLs, examining several important characteristics of this rapidly growing student population (as well as critical legislation affecting ELLs) and providing a description of various forms of assessment, including how ELL assessment is different from the assessment of English-proficient students.  Important assessment principles that educators should use in their evaluation of tests or other forms of measurement are provided.

 Other chapters review ELL test accommodations nationwide (because, surprisingly, most teachers do not know what they can and cannot allow) and the research on the effectiveness of these types of accommodations. The book analyzes the characteristics of alternative assessment; it discusses three popular alternative assessment instruments (performance assessment, curriculum-based measurement, and portfolios) and makes recommendations as to how to increase the validity, reliability, and practicality of alternative assessments. The book proposes fundamental assessment practices to help content area teachers in their evaluation of their ELL progress.

The goals of this resource are broader than many standard books on writing assessment, which focus on evaluating an individual’s ability to create an effective piece of writing for a particular purpose. Assessing Writing, Assessing Learning seeks to support teachers, administrators, program directors, and funding entities who want to make the best use of the resources at their disposal to understand what students are learning and why and then take actions based on what they have learned. It also seeks to provide a common basis for communication among all the interested parties—the writing professionals, the people who identified the need for the program, and the students.

The book has sections on planning, tools (different ways of collecting data and links to instruments), and reporting (examples provided). Each section includes a discussion of issues and advice for working through the issue along with numerous examples, plus a list of resources to consult to learn more. The final chapter provides worksheets that may be reproduced and used to help those in charge of setting up and delivering a writing program to think through the issues presented. A glossary of terms is also included.

Assessment in the Second Language Writing Classroom is a teacher and prospective teacher-friendly book, uncomplicated by the language of statistics. The book is for those who teach and assess second language writing in several different contexts: the IEP, the developmental writing classroom, and the sheltered composition classroom. In addition, teachers who experience a mixed population or teach cross-cultural composition will find the book a valuable resource. Other books have thoroughly covered the theoretical aspects of writing assessment, but none have focused as heavily as this book does on pragmatic classroom aspects of writing assessment. Further, no book to date has included an in-depth examination of the machine scoring of writing and its effects on second language writers.

Crusan not only makes a compelling case for becoming knowledgeable about L2 writing assessment but offers the means to do so. Her highly accessible, thought-provoking presentation of the conceptual and practical dimensions of writing assessment, both for the classroom and on a larger scale, promises to engage readers who have previously found the technical detail of other works on assessment off-putting, as well as those who have had no previous exposure to the study of assessment at all.