A study was designed (1) to test whether adult writing is superior to adult speech in terms of organization and content and (2) to assess college students' ability to discriminate between passages differing in quality. Written and spoken passages that compared and contrasted two entities were elicited from college students and adult professionals. Both written and oral versions of each passage were constructed and presented to college students, who rated the content and organization of 12 of these passages without knowing how or by whom they had been produced. Although composition instructors rated the passages written by professionals as higher in quality and better organized than the other three passage types (adult-oral, student-oral, and student-written), this difference was not detected by undergraduate students, who tended to prefer passages that had been produced orally. The modality in which a passage was presented to students did not affect quality judgments; students who read passages assessed the passages no more strictly than did students who listened to passages. (RL)