On Wed, 25 Dec 1996 10:36:04 -0500 Bill Murdick said:
>                                             I advise you to read
>Constance Weaver's latest and greatest book, GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT, in
>which these issues are discussed (including the research record to
>some extent), and in which you will find suggestions on how grammar
>can be brought into activities designed to improve sentence writing.
 
I could not disagree more with this advice.  Unfortunately, Constance Weaver's
text will become very popular in English Education courses across the US and
it will do a terrible disservice to the teaching about language for future
teachers.  Here are two of its major limitations on reporting research:
1) Weaver's discussion of the nature of Chomskyan linguistic theory is
seriously out-of-date and its major premise no Chomskyan accepts.  (Look at
her most recent citation of a work about the nature of language and consider
that she bases her entire discussion about "deep structure" on an article
written in 1968.  2) Weaver's discussion on the nature of first language
acquisition is just as seriously flawed.  I believe her most recent source
is 1979, her last text on grammar.
 
I don't think that anyone who teaches the research paper would accept a paper
whose major sources are over 20 years old, especially when important changes
in the field have occurred in those 20 years old.  Consequently, I don't think
a text written in 1996 which doesn't acknowledge important changes in theory
in that last 20 years can be considered the "greatest."
 
Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University, [log in to unmask]
 
For the teaching of style, I would recommend Martha Kolln's Rhetorical Grammar.