Interviews with 28 sexual murderers were subjected to grounded theory analysis. Five implicit theories (ITs) were identified: dangerous world, male sex drive is uncontrollable, entitlement, women as sexual objects, and women as unknowable. These ITs were found to be identical to those identified in the literature as being present in rapists. The presence of dangerous world and male sex drive is uncontrollable were present, or absent, such that three groups could be identified: (a) dangerous world plus male sex drive is uncontrollable; (b) dangerous world, in the absence of male sex drive is uncontrollable; (c) male sex drive is uncontrollable in the absence of dangerous world. These three groups were found to differ in motivation: (a) were motivated by urges to rape and murder; (b) were motivated by grievance, resentment and/or anger toward women; (c) were motivated to sexually offend but were prepared to kill to avoid detection, or secure compliance.

This study compared 58 sexual murderers and 112 rapists who were about to undergo treatment in prison for their sexual offending behavior. The two groups were compared on background, personality, offense, and victim characteristics. The sexual murderer group were less likely to have been involved in a relationship at the time of their index offense, generally attacked older victims, and had higher self-esteem. The rapist sample were found to have more violent previous convictions and scored higher on measures of historical deviance (nonsexual), paranoid suspicion, and resentment. No differences were found on the personality or clinical syndrome scales of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III. However, the rapist sample had significantly higher mean scores on the Paranoid Suspicion, Resentment, and Self-Esteem subscales of the Antisocial Personality Questionnaire. Future research should compare the two groups on dynamic or changeable factors to determine differential treatment needs.

A qualitative analysis of interview data with 41 rapists determined that five implicit theories (ITs) underlie rapists' offense supportive beliefs/feelings/motives: (a) dangerous world (DW)-where men have feelings of generalized anger and/or resentment toward others; (b) women are dangerous-where men hold a set of attitudes that are hostile toward women; (c) women as sexual objects (WSO)-where women are seen as primarily sexual objects; (d) male sex drive is uncontrollable-where sexual urges are seen all consuming; (e) entitlement-where men feel that they can do exactly what they want. Consideration of whether DW or WSO ITs were present or absent indicated that three main groups could be identified: Group 1: violently motivated-presence of DW and/or absence of WSO; Group 2: sexually motivated-presence of WSO and/or absence of DW; Group 3: sadistically motivated-presence of DW and WSO. These results are discussed in terms of treatment needs of rapists.

As communication in both formal education and workplaces is more and more mediated by onlind content managements systems, it is possible to simulate online within professional education the systems of genres that characterize professional work. Our research group has been designing, teaching with, and researching online, multimedia, fictional case studies for professional education, which dynamically represent the genre systems and communicative practices of organizations. The theoretical underpinnings of the simulation and the pedagogy lie in a New Rhetoric or activity approach to genre. A qualitative analysis of students’ responses suggests that this approach may successfully address problem of the lack of transfer of genre knowledge from formal schooling to professional work.

English language learners are frequently unable to benefit from the prevailing process-writing approaches due to a lack of grammar and vocabulary knowledge relevant to academic writing. This paper describes how the need for explicit grammar instruction as part of preparing students to write can be addressed by using a collection of learner texts and transforming that collection into an online grammar resource for intermediate nonnative speakers (NNS) of English. Drawing on research in grammar and writing, the use of learner texts, and online interactivity, we outline the development and the prototype of the Internet Writing Resource for the Innovative Teaching of English (iWRITE). We discuss how the judicious use of advanced technology (e.g., XML) facilitated the implementation of iWRITE, an example of one possible approach to embodying aspects of second language acquisition (SLA) theory while taking advantage of the Web's potential for interactivity.