A study was conducted to determine the current status of and trends in writing instruction in the Illinois public community colleges. A survey sent to the colleges sought information on admissions, writing courses, course placement, graduation/completion requirements, in-service training for instructors, technical assistance, public service, and general information. Responses from 42 colleges revealed: (1) 82% of the responding colleges administered some form of test to place students in composition classes; (2) about half of the colleges reported that the writing skills of entering students had remained constant over the past 10 years, while half reported declines in skill; (3) the mean number of writing courses offered per college was eight, and all but one of the colleges offered at least one remedial/developmental writing course; (4) the most common in-service support for writing instructors was through financing attendance at workshops, seminars and conferences, and through tuition reimbursements for graduate study; and (5) research on writing in the community colleges took the form of evaluation of special courses or delivery modes, follow-up studies of remedial writing students, and studies of the predictive validity of placement tests. Appendices include the survey instrument, examples of in-service training programs and public service programs, and a list of materials written by faculty members. (HB)