The inhibiting effect of being conscious of the physical process of writing on the intuitive process of writing is discussed. (HTH)

Suggests that students keep writing logs (a record of problems and solutions, techniques, and strategies) as a way to develop conscious control of their writing processes. (RAE)

Investigates the writing experience of 40 eleventh graders and examines the social and pedagogical circumstances contributing to their limited concentration and motivation. Finds that emotion disrupts sustained and thoughtful attention to writing. Demonstrates the psychological toll of limited concentration, negative self-view, and limited…

Examines the student and professional discourse within the same field through a set of case studies written for a third-year course in financial analysis. Reports on the distinct social actions undertaken by student writers as compared with professional practices. Shows commonalities of student and workplace writing. (HB)

Notes that creating focus which leads to formulating a thesis is a task with which many writers have trouble. Describes a process model of conceptual development that helps students gain confidence in abstracting, conceptualizing, and formulating a thesis. (NH)

What pushes a writer over the edge of thought into text production--over what may be called "the writing threshold?" This is the moment when the thoughts in a writer's mind, the writing situation, and personal motivations create a momentum that results in a pattern of written words. There is evidence that not everyone crosses the writing…

The belief that writing can best be understood by understanding the mental processes that govern the production of discourse is questioned in this paper. Plato and Aristotle can form a theoretical base for rhetoric praxis that is democratic, diverse, and empowering. A reexamination of Plato's language underscores his belief that a person must know…

The act of communicating is not complete until the message is received and understood by the audience. This paper focuses on formulating messages for comprehensibility, in a discussion that is fundamentally applicable to all media. The ability to understand a verbovisual message depends on its readability, legibility, and its reading value.…

Tests were given to a nine-year-old boy to establish the constraints operating when he was writing poetry. The tests involved writing cloze tests on poems by poet Ted Hughes and on a poem the boy had written a year earlier. The boy was also asked to write a poem and then to discuss what he was thinking as he wrote. The following constraints were…

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…

Focusing on synthesis--the ability to recognize and create new ideas that subsume and relate to others--as one of the most sophisticated skills writers can attain, the articles in this journal present many ideas for teaching synthesis and a number of classroom approaches that combine the study of English with other fields. The following titles and…

This paper describes part of a course for college freshmen entitled "Computation, Reasoning, and Problem Solving," which uses the LOGO programming language to integrate computer programming skills, collaborative problem solving skills, and writing skills. Discussion of the computer programming component includes two of the LOGO problem…

Four twelfth-grade students of "distinct" personality types participated in a study of relationships between composing processes and use of cognitive strategies, of relationships between personality type and cognitive functioning, and of the effects of these interrelationships on composing. Personality profiles were drawn based on responses to the…

Drawing upon reading and text comprehension theories and the sociolinguistic studies of M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan, this paper builds theoretical links between the reading and writing processes. The major portion of the paper discusses the five language concepts that undergird both processes: (1) text processing in both reading and writing…

Two major factors have shaped writing research from the cognitive processing viewpoint. The first factor contains the strategic decisions about the course of such research, suggesting what is interesting and how best to proceed. The decisions made in regard to writing as a cognitive process have been to focus on the act of writing, to seek a…