This paper provides additional discussion and interpretation of the original findings of a study examining the development of writing skills across college years. The paper focuses on six interpretive problems from the mass of primary data in an attempt to clarify issues and block off false interpretive trails. The paper discusses: (1) the departures from purely random selection in forming the research groups; (2) the cross-sectional design of the study, with no control of possible cohort effects; (3) the validity of impromptu writing samples; (4) the openness of the writing prompt; (5) the high ratio of variables to subjects, with identification of 14 factors which account for 77 percent of total variance; and (6) the investigation of writing products only, while rhetorical intentions and compositional processes remain inferential. The paper concludes with a discussion of the dangers and benefits associated with empirical, multifactorial, exploratory, and developmental interpretation of writing. (39 references are attached.) (KEH)