This special issue is devoted to describing and evaluating new methods for analyzing online writing processes in a second language (L2). As all the contributors have stated, the aim is to identify the cognitive processes underlying writing. The ultimate aim is to employ observations and experimental manipulations of these processes to build…

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 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…

Describes two studies that investigated the editing strategies used by college basic writing students as they corrected sentence-level errors in controlled editing tasks. Indicates that, in both studies, students showed two clearly different editing strategies: a consulting strategy and an intuiting strategy. (JD)

Describing the variables of composition, offering researchers a methodology with which to investigate how the variables interact in specific writing strategies, and suggesting how teachers might make use of the variables of revision to help students learn successful writing strategies appropriate to a business setting, this book reports a research…

Presents the results of an investigation of the cognitive and grammatical activities carried out by beginning and advanced college students during pauses in their writing. (HOD)

A study analyzed the revision practices of 25 children in a third grade classroom, half of whom received LOGO instruction, to determine if the revision practices inherent in LOGO programing sponsor revision practices in the composing of autonomous texts of young children. It was hypothesized that the revision strategies in LOGO, both engendered…

Based on interviews with university faculty, describes the impact of word processing upon their writing habits. (HOD)

This report examines the composing processes of expert writers to determine which cognitive processes in expository writing produce an opportunity for a creative response. The first section considers how the ill-defined nature of many writing problems and the cognitive processes experts use to solve these problems interact to provide an…

Reports on a four-year study of the process of journal writing in an elementary school. Assesses student behavior as well as actual writing. (FL)

Explains how a year of observing two successful novelists write and revise on the computer provided a number of ideas that are encapsulated in the concept of a fluid text or the writer's conscious avoidance of a text that becomes static or fixed. (HOD)

A study was conducted to determine whether there is a relationship between problem discovery and the assessed originality of the written product, and to determine whether problem-solving behavior is observable in student writers. Results indicated a relationship between problem finding and the originality of the product. (HOD)

To determine whether teacher intervention in the form of experimentally manipulated variables would significantly change the level of students' dispositional writing apprehension, a study evaluated the effects of two classroom interventions--one apprehension-producing (AP) and one apprehension-reducing (AR). Four situational variables were…

Case studies of the writing habits exhibited by anxious and nonanxious writers in workshops to reduce writing apprehension and in regular literature/composition classes have revealed how certain aspects of the composing processes of anxious writers differed from those of nonanxious writers. Some of the common problems were the lack of structured…

Describes the revision strategies of basic and competent twelfth-grade writers as they wrote for their teachers and their peers. (HOD)