Examines the evidence for both the linguistic and rhetorical hypotheses about writers' planning and presents new research on episodic patterns within the writing process itself. Uses protocol analysis to look at the content and nature of writers' plans. (HOD)

Intended for junior high and high school writing instructors, this booklet provides prewriting activities designed to help students master the thinking strategies essential to effective written communication. The first portion of the booklet discusses theory and research on the role of thinking strategies in writing and gives an overview of the…

Invention is a dynamic, recursive process influenced by the rhetorical situation of audience and purpose, the writer's long-term memory, and the text which has already been produced at any given moment. Most heuristics are concerned with the generation of ideas, that is, content oriented. However, the relationship of form-oriented planning to the…

A study was undertaken to observe the prewriting processes of four high and four low writing apprehensive college students and to explore any composing patterns that seemed characteristic of the two groups. During the study, each of the eight participants attended at least four 90-minute sessions that were designed to document the complex…

As a by-product of a study concerning how university level writers develop new genres of discourse, a study was undertaken to examine what factors or dimensions affect the composing process of university writers. Six undergraduate students at Carleton University in Ottawa participated, making available to researchers information about how they…

Presents results of an informal study indicating that (1) external contingencies that force writing productivity regardless of mood seem to facilitate rather than impede the appearance of creative ideas for writing, and (2) productivity precedes creativity. (HTH)

Investigates the effects of question type (general or specific) and question position (prior to or following writing) upon measures of conceptual elaboration in writing. Results indicate that writers can benefit from questions following initial writing that enhance conceptual elaboration of base-level ideas during writing revision. (HOD)

Examines recent research that uses protocol analysis to determine the cognitive processes used by writers in planning their work. (FL)

An effective model for analyzing revision processes in writing needs to synthesize what research has shown about the process, the strategies involved, and what is known about students' revision strategies. Development of such a model also requires recognizing that (1) a relationship exists between reading and writing in the revision process, (2)…

A study was conducted to determine the efficacy of two prewriting strategies--outlines and rough, rather than polished, first drafts--in lessening the writer's workload. Eighteen college students were assigned a persuasive business letter writing task in control, outline, rough first draft, and polished first draft conditions. The letters were…

After a short introductory chapter to this literature review on composing processes, the second chapter examines research that covers the timing and content of planning, planning subprocesses, employing planning strategies, and instruction in planning. Studies in the third chapter are divided into two sections, oral and written discourse…

Subjective engagement and cognitive skills are important for various aspects of writing skills. For the work of writing to be efficient, the student must be able to function in both a rhetorical and productive situation, defined in terms of subject, function, and audience. The processes of writing--defined as planning, translating, and reviewing…

Intended to show teachers how their approaches to the teaching of writing reflect a particular area of research and to show researchers how the intuitions of teachers reflect research findings, the articles in this book are classified according to three approaches to writing: processing, distancing, and modeling. After an introductory essay that…

A study focused on how the writer's knowledge of the language and use of a prewriting strategy for planning ideas affect the quality and efficiency of the writing. Three hypotheses were developed about how knowledge and strategy might influence writing performance: (1) independence (predicts that knowledge and strategy will independently improve…

The "informal process" for writing reports, which incorporates the mechanics of textbook theory but emphasizes the composition process, may be more successful for teaching fifth graders how to write reports than the traditional approach. This process recommends a number of nontraditional teaching methods. Student choice of topic should…