In order to design effective instruction and feedback for synthesis writing on both writing processes and products, a clear insight into synthesis writing processes underlying a high-quality synthesis text is crucial. That is why this study, as one of the first, examines the use of sources during synthesis writing processes, and its effect on text quality. The writing processes of 294 Dutch secondary students (grade 10-12) were logged using keystroke logging software Inputlog. Two different synthesis text genres were investigated of which three source-related process measures were analysed: the relative time spent in the sources, the transitions per minute between the sources, and the transitions per minute between the synthesis text and the sources. First, the study explored the effect of temporal distribution and genre (argumentative or informative synthesis) on the writing process, providing insights into the distribution of source-related writing activities over the process intervals and the possible influence of genre on this distribution. Secondly, the individual source-related process measures were linked to text quality. Thirdly, via polynomial regression analyses, the various source-related activities and their temporal distribution were taken into account in an integrated way to identify patterns of effective source use. These patterns vary across genre and explain a considerable amount of variance in the data (24.6% for argumentative synthesis texts, 16.2% for informative synthesis texts). Our findings can be used to develop process-oriented feedback, giving students an insight into their synthesis writing process.

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In this study we examine process configurations in synthesis tasks. We study whether these configurations are students traits or vary within students per task. In a national survey with a representative sample of 658 Dutch upper-secondary school students, we collected writing tasks, registered students’ writing behaviors (via keylogging) and their task perceptions and assessed the quality of their texts. Each participant completed two informative and two argumentative synthesis tasks. Writing process configurations were based on a preselected set of writing behaviors that proved to be related to text quality: time spent on sources and production activities, switching between sources and between sources and text production, and speed of production; with reference to the phase in the process (first, mid, final part). Latent profile analyses distilled four process configurations, some of which were more likely to occur with the informative genre. One process configuration, that is, “Fast text production,” was related to qualitatively higher text quality scores than the others. Additionally, at the age of 16–18 a writing process configuration is not a student trait: in most instances, we observed two or more task configurations within students. Writers' task experiences such as topic knowledge and topic interest predicted the occurrence of certain process configurations which could indicate adaptivity. The finding that writing configurations of writers vary even between similar tasks has important implications for the generalizability of (synthesis) writing research on the basis of a single writing task and process per student.

This intervention study aimed to test the effect of writing process feedback. Sixty-five Grade 10 students received a personal report based on keystroke logging data, including information on several writing process aspects. Participants compared their writing process to exemplar processes of equally scoring (position-setting condition) or higher-scoring students (feed-forward condition). The effect of the feedback on writing performance and process was compared to a national baseline study. Results showed that feed-forward process feedback had an effect on text quality comparable to one grade of regular schooling. The feedback had an effect on production, pausing, revision, and source use, which indicates that it supported participants in self-regulating their writing process. Additionally, we explored the students’ perception of the feedback to get an insight into its strengths and weaknesses. This study shows the potential of writing process feedback and discusses pedagogical implications and options for future research.

Synthesis writing is a common activity in both upper-secondary and higher education (Raedts et al., 2017;Van Ockenburg et al., 2019), as the act of synthesizing is the highest cognitive operation for comprehension, useful in academic and workplace contexts (Leijten et al., 2014). Producing synthesis texts is considered to be an important learning task in education because of its epistemic value. Synthesis tasks have a high learning potential as the reading, rereading, integration, organization and elaboration of different source texts calls for knowledge transformation (Solé et al., 2013;Spivey & King, 1989). Independently of the field of study, all students will write multiple types of synthesis texts during their academic career. Students find it challenging, which is not surprising given the cognitively demanding nature of the task (

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Teachers of academic writing across European languages meet every two years for a conference to share research findings, pedagogical approaches, and to discuss new and old challenges. Having access to such a community is of course an asset. This collection grows out of the 10 th conference of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW) in 2019. The EATAW conferences and the publications from them, exemplify how drawing on, and contributing to, the collective wisdom of colleagues is essential to our professionalism. Given the range and quality of the research presented at the conference, the call for papers was a joint one with the Journal of Academic Writing (JoAW), and the special issue from the conference (https://publications.coventry.ac.uk/index.php/joaw/index) was published in December 2020.There is a natural overlap in topics and research approaches between the two publications but the contribution of a collection like this is the extended studies it allows. Chapters are twice as long or more than the article-length publications available in the special issue. The research areas and interests are very similar but the scope possible in the collection chapters is simply not an option in the special issue. There is also, possibly, a slight change of character between the JoAW articles and the collection chapters. Since the collection is a much slower publication, the findings, conclusions, and recommendations communicated in the collection chapters are slightly less time sensitive. One shared denominator in the chapters is the element of discussing models, approaches, and frameworks more than individual results. Needless to say, this is a difference of degree only.The 2019 conference explored the theme "Academic writing at intersections-Interdisciplinarity, genre hybridization, multilingualism, digitalization, and interculturality," and the contributions to this collection focus on the sorts of choices we face as teachers of academic writing and, indeed, as writers who seek publication as we stand at various intersections. Intersections explored in the chapters include our use of technology. It is true most of us increased the use of technology in the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 academic years, and we got better at using different platforms and applications. We Zimmerman