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In writing science summaries, student writers frequently borrow language fragments from source texts. While taking a text's ideas verbatim is commonly considered a failure in writers' expected use of their own words or even plagiarism, imitating "linguistic chunks" from skilled speakers is also an effective practice in language development. This study argues for the need to investigate textual borrowing (TB) from a developmental perspective. A total of 956 U.S. upper-elementary and middle school L1 students were administered a reading comprehension test, a written summary task, and a receptive academic language assessment. Multiple indices were generated to capture TB frequency, length, and one particular function of TB (i.e., definitions). Results revealed that 68% of summaries contained at least one incidence of TB. As expected, both TB frequency and length were negatively associated with reading comprehension and academic language skills. However, students in higher grades demonstrated significantly more and longer TB in comparison to their younger counterparts when summarizing the same passage. In addition, the frequency of borrowed word strings and the ratio of definitional borrowing were positively associated with summary writing quality, and the latter association was found to be stronger for students with higher academic language skills. Implications for pedagogy and future research are discussed. [This is the online version of an article published in "Reading and Writing."]

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert