This guide offers updated shopping tips to people visiting China. It explains what to buy (from porcelain, jade and pearls to silk, antiques, carpets and custom-tailored clothing), how to deal with local merchants and get the best prices, and where to find the best stores, markets and shopping districts - all in a handy pocket-sized format. It also provides tips on finding airfare, hotel and dining bargains.

Increasing college completion rates is important not only for institutions of higher learning, but also for the nation. Success in the first year and persistence to second year are vital to increasing these completion rates. One aspect of the first-year experience is placement into math, reading and writing courses. A majority of college freshman are placed using standardized placement exams that determine if they take pre-college or college-level courses. Directed self-placement (DSP) is an alternative placement method that is being utilized in lieu of standardized placement exams at a small selection of institutions within the U.S. A secondary analysis was conducted to understand the relationships among DSP, student persistence and success. Specifically, analyses were conducted to understand how previous performance (high school GPA and ACT scores) related to student choice, persistence and success. Participants were from one private Midwestern university (N = 2,760). T-tests were conducted and effect sizes were calculated as well as a logistic regression, chi-square test of independence, and an ordinal regression. The results of the analyses provided evidence that previous performance, specifically high school GPA and ACT score were related to the DSP choice. It was also found that there is a relationship between DSP choice, student success, and persistence in preparatory and college-level writing courses. High school GPA and ACT score were found to be predictors of success in the first writing course. The ACT score was found to not be significantly related to persistence through course, but high school GPA was found to be significantly related. These findings underscored the need to explore alternative methods of placement beyond standardized placement exams.

When Daniel J. Royer and Roger Gilles of Grand Valley State University spearheaded an effort to devise a program allowing schools to better assess their first-year students' writing abilities, all the while allowing students' to choose what classes they take, the result was a new method of placement called Directed Self-Placement. A little over a year ago, however, I began to interview students at SIUC and to speak with representatives from schools across the country about the unique problems posed by assessment and placement. In conjunction with my library-based research, I have taken the data from my empirical research and concluded that while DSP has been able to solve some of the dilemmas that can be created by placing students into classes based solely on unreliable performance measures, it has introduced a whole new set of troublesome situations that can occur when students fail to use this tool responsibly. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Broad generalizations about "people today" are a familiar feature of first-year student writing. How Students Write brings a fresh perspective to this perennial observation, using corpus linguistics techniques. This study analyzes sentence-level patterns in student writing to develop an understanding of how students present evidence, draw connections between ideas, relate to their readers, and, ultimately, learn to construct knowledge in their writing. Drawing on both first-year and upper-level student writing, the book examines the discourse of students at different points in their education. It also distinguishes between argumentative and analytic essays to explore the way school genres and assignments shape students' choices. In focusing on sentence-level features such as hedges ("perhaps") and boosters ("definitely"), this study shows how such rhetorical choices work together to open or close opportunities for thoughtful exchanges of ideas. Attention to these features can help instructors foster civil discourse, design effective assignments, and expose and question norms of higher education.

For undergraduates following any course of study, it is essential to develop the ability to write effectively. Yet the processes by which students become more capable and ready to meet the challenges of writing for employers, the wider public, and their own purposes remain largely invisible. Developing Writers in Higher Education shows how learning to write for various purposes in multiple disciplines leads college students to new levels of competence. This volume draws on an in-depth study of the writing and experiences of 169 University of Michigan undergraduates, using statistical analysis of 322 surveys, qualitative analysis of 131 interviews, use of corpus linguistics on 94 electronic portfolios and 2,406 pieces of student writing, and case studies of individual students to trace the multiple paths taken by student writers. Topics include student writers’ interaction with feedback; perceptions of genre; the role of disciplinary writing; generality and certainty in student writing; students’ concepts of voice and style; students’ understanding of multimodal and digital writing; high school’s influence on college writers; and writing development after college. The digital edition offers samples of student writing, electronic portfolios produced by student writers, transcripts of interviews with students, and explanations of some of the analysis conducted by the contributors. This is an important book for researchers and graduate students in multiple fields. Those in writing studies get an overview of other longitudinal studies as well as key questions currently circulating. For linguists, it demonstrates how corpus linguistics can inform writing studies. Scholars in higher education will gain a new perspective on college student development. The book also adds to current understandings of sociocultural theories of literacy and offers prospective teachers insights into how students learn to write. Finally, for high school teachers, this volume will answer questions about college writing. Companion Website Click here to access the Developing Writers project and its findings at the interactive companion website. Project Data Access the data from the project through this tutorial.

Asao B. Inoue argues for the use of labor-based grading contracts along with compassionate practices to determine course grades as a way to do social justice work with students.

The first principled examination of social justice and the advancement of opportunity as the aim and consequence of writing assessment.