This study examines the potential to use non-expert, crowd-sourced raters to score essays by comparing expert raters' and crowd-sourced raters' assessments of writing quality. Expert raters and crowd-sourced raters scored 400 essays using a standardised holistic rubric and comparative judgement (pairwise ratings) scoring techniques, respectively.…

Grouping individuals according to a set of measured characteristics, or profiling, is frequently used in describing, understanding, and acting on a phenomenon. The advent of computer-based assessment offers new possibilities for profiling writing because aspects can be captured that were not heretofore observable. We explored whether writing…

Keystroke logs provide a comprehensive record of observable writing processes. Previous studies examining the keystroke logs of young L1 English writers performing experimental writing tasks have identified writing processes features predictive of the quality of responses. Contrarily, large-scale studies on the dynamic and temporal nature of L2…

Recent studies on written word production aim at studying how information is transmitted between central (linguistic) and peripheral (motor) processes. Neurocognitive models propose that the interface between both types of processes would rely on a frontal writing center (i.e. the GMFA or "Exner's area"). However there is still debate…

Purpose: Unlike formalist and functional approaches to literacy and teaching writing, a languaging theory approach centers on the dynamic and interpersonal nature of writing. The purpose of this study was to determine students' ability to engage in explicit reflection about their languaging actions in response to their personal narrative writing…

This study addresses the current debate about the beneficial effects of text processing software on students with different working memory (WM) during the process of academic writing, especially with regard to the ability to display higher-level conceptual thinking. A total of 54 graduate students (15 male, 39 female) wrote one essay by hand and…

In Section 1 of this article, the author discusses the succession of models of adult writing that he and his colleagues have proposed from 1980 to the present. He notes the most important changes that differentiate earlier and later models and discusses reasons for the changes. In Section 2, he describes his recent efforts to model young…

Many theoretical models of reading assume that different writing systems require different processing assumptions. For example, it is often claimed that print-to-sound mappings in Chinese are not represented or processed sub-lexically. We present a connectionist model that learns the print-to-sound mappings of Chinese characters using the same…

How do beginning and skilled writers compose a text in the course of time? To gain insight into the temporal aspects of planning and translating activities during writing, this article examined writing in real time and analyzed pause time patterns in writing in relation to linguistic characteristics of the written product. Fourth-grade children…

Suggests ways to make adults comfortable about the writing process: (1) recognize that adults want more involving lessons; (2) recognize their varied experiences; (3) enable writers to show that experiences will add to understanding of classes; (4) assess writing samples in nonthreatening ways; and (5) indicate that learning to write is a…

The author discusses communication improvement strategies for personnel professionals. These include (1) thinking clearly, (2) focusing on audience response, and (3) categorizing to help readers relate ideas. (CH)

Outlines a theoretical perspective to account for how the writing that adults produce and use appears to get done, what it seems to be, and how it apparently functions in contemporary culture. Argues for a conceptualization of writing that is predicated on broader and more realistic understandings of text and writing than have generally informed…

Explores some of the possibilities of writing that the author realized from working with women writers and describes how, as a result of this work, she has revised her thinking about writing and the teaching of writing. (RS)

In an effort to identify some factors that interfere with effective writing in adult writers, a three-page questionnaire was administered to 165 adults, most with technical degrees, who worked in the Washington, D. C., area. Respondents were top to middle management personnel who spent a significant portion of their time on the job writing and who…

The Women Speak writing project explored the use of writing as therapy for homeless women at an urban drop-in center. By sharing experiences, a sense of empowerment began. Nursing students and faculty were challenged to rethink the traditional clinical relationship that gives highest priority to the needs of students and faculty rather than the…