In order to meet the second condition, that the analysis should lead to 
direct improvements in a revision, even the measurements which do correlate 
with essay quality need to be used with some caution.  Research which 
studies the relationship of revised essays to holistic scores should provide 
more accurate guidance in this area, but our initial findings suggest some 
starting points.  Reducing the percentage of abstract words and spelling 
errors can be accomplisehd directly and with measureable effect on essay 
quality; however, students should not expect that direct changes in word 
length, sentence length, or readability will improve an essay.  The 
correlation of average word length to quality, for instance, cannot be 
directly addressed in revision.  Substitution of lexical units for the mere 
sake of length would change the data but not, necessarily, the quality of 
the revised draft.  Perhaps indirectly, through active experience of reading 
and practice in writing which increase active vocabulary, a student could 
meaningfully raise his or her average word length from the low mean (4.3) to 
the high limit of 5.0.  The fact that these measurements can be improved 
only indirectly, suggests the overall importance of scribal fluency.  Since 
sentence length, word length, and readability are all measurements of 
scribal fluency, the results of this study seem to suggest that more 
classroom time should be spent on improving scribal behavior than on 
practicing those discrete grammatical and stylistic elements which do not 
correlate significantly with essay quality.