Abby Anderson notes, as I did, that secondary English teachers tend to mark mainly the mechanics on final drafts. (I said that college teachers do, too.) Also, she notes, as I did, that teachers who use the process approach may focus on mechanics on final drafts because other matters were worked on during earlier drafts. She also caught my implication that perhaps many teachers do not use the process approach and that focusing on mechanics in the final drafts is thus inappropriate. I don't know of any way to check how many writing teachers use the process approach. It would be difficult to determine, since I have observed that many who claim to use it actually don't. Two drafts may be better than one draft, but it's not the process approach. In any case, all of this illustrates the main point of my comment--that teachers, process approach or not, are not using holistic scoring in their day-to-day grading of papers. Thus it does not seem reasonable to blame holistic scoring for any decline in students' ability to use mechanics. If any decline occurs (which I doubt), the blame must lie elsewhere. Bill McCleary William J. McCleary Editor: Composition Chronicle Associate Prof. of English Viceroy Publications Coordinator of Secondary English 3247 Bronson Hill Road SUNY at Cortland Livonia, NY 14487 [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]