According to Stangl (1994), Jalongo (2002), Richards and Miller (2005) and a host of other authors regarding publishing in educational journals, understanding the audience for an article is of utmost importance. Huff (1999) notes that an author must understand the audience for whom s/he writes. While much of this understanding of audience comes down to suitable topics (Silverman, 1982), articles must also fit the style of the journal to which it is being presented (Olsen, 1997). With this in mind, the purpose of this study is to characterize the writing style of academic writing in education. This research will involve exploring and analyzing various education and research journals, and through an analysis of individual education articles, delineating the writing style for academic writing in education. By looking at the various components of writing style, a writing style or various writing styles found in scholarly writing in education was determined. It was found that there is a definite style in academic writing in education with two other distinct subsets--journals associated with specific associations and journals with a purely quantitative focus. It is suggested that specific curriculum and instruction in writing style be added to the current study of research.

The study was undertaken: (a) to categorize the contents of educational computing articles using a taxonomy developed by Knezek, Rachlin, and Scannell (1988), (b) to examine the trends in educational computing subject matter addressed in community/junior college journals between 1977 and 1991, and (c) to identify and analyze specific characteristics of contributing authors and their employing institutions which might explain writing and publication biases.