Revision is recognised as a key and complex element of the writing process. Despite this, research shows that students find it difficult effectively to revise their own writing due to a lack of metacognitive awareness and understanding of the processes they undertake when writing. The first part of this inquiry studies nine students' understanding…

Analyzes think-aloud protocols with native speakers of English learning French or German. Shows that as the writer's experience with the language increases, fluency increases, the average length of strings of words proposed between pauses or revision episodes increases, the number of revision episodes decreases, and more of the words proposed as…

Uses on-line protocol analysis to contrast the effects on the writing process of knowledge taught in three instructional treatments: models, general procedures, and task-specific procedures. Finds that the task-specific group integrated their ideas purposefully, thought critically about the concepts being defined, and appeared to establish a…

A study investigated the composing process to examine why different types of instruction have different effects on composing products. The study contrasted three treatments: (1) presenting students with models (the traditional method); (2) the general procedures approach stressing freethinking process; and (3) a method stressing task-specific…

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…

A case study of writing behavior illustrates the potential rift between writers' awareness of audience perspective and their application of this knowledge. Twelve students (four each, aged 9, 13, and 18) in the San Diego, California, school system were asked by their teacher to write two letters about memorable places they had visited--one to a…

This study is the eighth in a series of reports from the Reading-to-Write Project, a collaborative study of students' cognitive processes at one critical point of entry into academic performance. This report examines the initial reading strategies that a group of participating students used to begin a reading-to-write task and the impact of those…

To evaluate composition programs based on peer feedback, a study compared the improvement in written composition skills of two sets of eighth grade students in 11 classes at eight Dutch schools. The control group was enrolled in teacher feedback programs, the experimental group was enrolled in peer feedback programs. Students wrote a discursive…

Using J. Dewey's "reconstruction of experience" concept of revision, a study employed ethnographic methods to investigate the effects of computer assisted writing instruction on students' revising processes. Primary subjects, eight sixth-graders, completed a structured revision task on their compositions, with varying degrees of computer…

Describes a two-year study of one college student's efforts to produce appropriate content area writing in different disciplines. Using observation, interviews, composing-aloud protocols, and text analysis, evaluates the student's performance according to the Gricean rubric of conversation. Concludes that success was affected by unarticulated…