After my father's death, writing became a tool to alleviate my suffering. Using evocative autoethnography, I examined if written, first-person storytelling that leaned on expressive writing techniques could help me actively process and effectively move through my complicated mourning. My data consisted of 41 stories (published as "The…

When responding to a writing task, writers spend a significant amount of their time not writing. These periods of physical inactivity, or pauses, during writing provide observable and measurable cues as to when, where, and how long writers halt to plan and/or revise their texts. Consequently, examining writers' pausing patterns can provide…

This paper reports on a qualitative study that explored the veridicality (i.e., the completeness and accuracy) of think-aloud protocols (TAPs) in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) writing and illustrates how retrospective verbal reports (RVRs) compensated for TAPs in understanding online revision. Forty-three Chinese sophomores, upon writing…

A teacher's response is a key element in students' motivation and achievement in college writing courses. The area of Written Corrective Feedback (Ferris, 1999; Truscott, 1996) has been extensively studied in second language (L2) writing scholarship, but that research, to date, has not elucidated why individual instructors respond to students'…

Despite the growing interest in investigating the pedagogical application of Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) systems, studies on the process of AWE-supported writing are still scant. Adopting activity theory as the framework, this qualitative study aims to examine how students incorporated AWE feedback into their writing in an English as a…

Ethnographers are particularly interested in writing. They have paid particular attention to the practices of making field notes and to the ways in which their public texts represent those that they have encountered and studied. To date there has been less attention paid to the kinds of writing that used to make sense of experiences in the field.…

Researchers regularly deal with ethical considerations when writing up their research. However, such considerations are rarely addressed in existing research ethics literature. Here, the focus tends to be on ethical considerations that arise in relation to research proposals and "protocols," that is, during the "process" of…

This study investigated the cognitive processes underlying pauses at different textual locations (e.g., within/between words) and various levels of revision (e.g., below word/clause). We used stimulated recall, keystroke logging, and eye-tracking methodology in combination to examine pausing and revision behaviors. Thirty advanced Chinese L2 users…

This article features a discussion of what contemporary research tells us are the most significant factors that individually and collectively serve to thwart the writing development and performance of students with LD. Support is drawn from recent research syntheses, as well as individual studies. I begin with an overview of skillful writing and…

This article reviews theories and research on revision in second-language (L2) writing. It examines how and what L2 writers revise, compares the revision practices of skilled and unskilled L2 writers, and suggests instructional practices to help learners improve their L2 revision skills.

The article presents findings from a research project that investigated young, fluent writers' revision practices. The project adopted a qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews based on the students' written scripts. This article focuses on a small sample of children and profiles the extent of their ability to reflect on their…

Writing researchers have developed various methods for investigating the writing process since the 1970s. The early 1980s saw the occurrence of the real-time computer-aided study of the writing process that relies on the protocols generated by recording the computer screen activities as writers compose using the word processor. This article…

Research suggests that basic writers are willing to edit but reluctant to revise their writing. In other words, they make surface-level changes to grammar, spelling, and punctuation but tend not to re-conceive content, structure, style, and cohesion. This paper argues that we need more instructional strategies that will help students understand…

Lexical access and retrieval are essential processes in fluent and efficient second language (L2) oral and written productive uses of language. In the case of L2 writing, attention to vocabulary is of paramount importance, although the retrieval of relevant lexis while composing in an L2 frequently entails different degrees of problem-solving…