Problems in developing writing often comes from creative processes in developing ideas to write. Outlines are often recommended as a tool to help students organize their thoughts and structure their writing. This study aims to find out students' perceptions and the challenges the students encountered when writing an exposition text using provided…

Writing in a second language is complex, and complicated, mainly because of by the addition of new resources and norms (new structural elements of the new language, new rhetorical conventions, and some other things). Teachers therefore, whether they like it or not, have to select the most appropriate teaching methods and strategies in their…

Much research has been completed that focused on the role of drafting strategies in first language (L1) writing, but its role in second language (L2) writing is missing. The present study investigated the impact of outlining and free writing strategies on L2 academic writing in terms of overall quality, as well as more specifically in terms of…

Cognitive models of the writing process make a distinction between the functions of planning and translation: the first to generate ideas, the second to represent these ideas in written linguistic conventions. For many writers however, ideas do not always appear to precede the act of writing, rather they appear to be discovered through it. This…

This study reports on an investigation into writing strategies of Malaysian university students learning English as a second language. Qualitative data were collected from 21 undergraduate university students aged 19 to 21. The students interviewed reported using a variety of writing strategies. It was also found that all of the participants…

This study sought to explore the effect of teaching prewriting strategies through different methods of input delivery (i.e. conventional, web-based, and hybrid) on EFL learners' writing quantity. In its quasi-experimental study, the researchers recruited 98 available sophomores, and assigned them to three experimental groups (conventional,…

This article offers a first-person account of an academic writing workshop from the perspective of a participant. What is significant is that the workshop combines traditional and creative writing approaches to the teaching of academic writing. This provides new insights into a process of academic writing that can have a significant effect on the…

Two experiments examined whether text quality is related to online management of the writing processes. Experiment 1 focused on the relationship between online management and text quality in narrative and argumentative texts. Experiment 2 investigated how this relationship might be affected by a goal emphasizing text quality. In both experiments,…

Previous studies on the effect of planning on language production have revealed that planning does have a positive effect on language performance in terms of fluency, complexity, and accuracy. The present study was an attempt to investigate the effects of pre-task, on-line, and both pre-task and on-line planning on fluency, accuracy, and…

Of the vexed issues confronting teachers of the first-year writing sequence, none is more frustrating than that of getting students to write in the drafting stages. And not just "to" write, but to write the right thing. The solution that the Composition literature offers to the problem of fluency and content development is process. That…

There is considerable concern that the majority of adolescents do not develop the competence in writing they need to be successful in school, the workplace, or their personal lives. A common explanation for why youngsters do not write well is that schools do not do a good job of teaching this complex skill. In an effort to identify effective…

Analysis of questionnaires completed by 715 undergraduate psychology students identified four patterns associated with writing term papers: (1) a minimal-drafting strategy; (2) an outline-and-develop strategy; (3) a detailed-planning strategy; and (4) a "think-then-do" strategy. Detailed-planning and think-then-do strategies appeared to result in…

This study examined 27 current college textbooks on rhetoric and composition to determine the emphasis placed on invention and the organization of invention material. Results revealed that the average percentage of material devoted to invention was 11%, the lowest percentage in an individual text was 1% and the highest was 32%. The standard…

This article presents a three-stage writing process designed to enhance the writing skills of gifted students, increase their engagement in the subject matter, and provide a greater degree of understanding of the content area. The stages are referred to as prewriting, writing, and rewriting. (JDD)

Research on learning disabilities in students is reviewed, and classroom techniques for college instruction to support writing among these students are suggested. They include making an extra effort for clear classroom communication, dealing with errors in writing mechanics, helping students achieve coherence, giving hints for planning and…