ENHANCING STYLISTIC DEVELOPMENT IN NON-NATIVE ENGLISH-SPEAKING UNDERGRADUATES THROUGH QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

For non-native writers of English, simple sentences are the key to clear, orderly prose. These kinds of 'beginner' patterns serve the student well for college prep and TOEFL programs and even to some extent for first-year university composition; however, when students move on to higher levels of composition, in courses such as argumentation and research, the simple sentence cannot be the only stylistic tool in the writer's box. Developing a variety of stylistic patterns is critical not only to sound better but also to demonstrate fluency and control over the language. This paper will explain how students can use computer technology to analyze and quantify their own prose style against the prose style of lower and higher levels of writing. Bar charts and graphs were en vogue in composition courses when computers were new and thriving in the late 80s and early 90s, but these days it is rare for students to think of quantitative analysis when it comes to writing and rarer still for composition courses to incorporate the teaching of style, that indispensable yet neglected topic in most writing courses.