Latent semantic analysis (LSA) is an automated, statistical technique for comparing the semantic similarity of words or documents. In this article, I examine the application of LSA to automated essay scoring. I compare LSA methods to earlier statistical methods for assessing essay quality, and critically review contemporary essay-scoring systems built on LSA, including the "Intelligent Essay Assessor," "Summary Street," "State the Essence," "Apex," and "Select-a-Kibitzer." Finally, I discuss current avenues of research, including LSA's application to computer-measured readability assessment and to automatic summarization of student essays. (Contains 2 figures and 6 footnotes.)