The Composing Process of College Students Writing from Sources

Abstract

This protocol study identifies college readers' purposeful behaviors when writing from sources, determines whether these behaviors cluster at identifiable stages in the reading-writing process, and determines whether proficient and less able readers' processes are the same. The results showed that the subjects did not approach the task of writing from sources in the same way. All subjects referred to the reading sources as they composed, but they consulted them at different points in the reading-writing process. Overall the better readers engaged in more planning than the less able group. Findings show strong associations between reading level and use of study-skill reading strategies, postreading-prewriting strategies, and composing strategies.

Investigating the Processes of Reading-to-Assess among Dutch Legislators

“…However, there are three differences between the reading-to-write tasks studied previously (e.g., Kennedy, 1985;Spivey & King, 1989) and the reading-to-assess tasks investigated here. First, the professional reading-to-assess process is characterized by an interaction between texts and the extensive background knowledge and expertise of the reader.…”

“…At the same time, we need to study the way strategic choices of readers are influenced by text that is read. Another application area for our approach lies in investigating the degree of integration of the different activities constituting reading-to-write processes (Kennedy, 1985;McGinley, 1992;Spivey & King, 1989). For instance, it is an important question whether the points of interests and reader issues emerging during the reading stage of these processes correspond with the topics around which the subsequent writing process is organized.…”

Peer Review Comments Provided by High- and Low-Proficiency L2 Learners: A Comparative Study

“…Although the variation in quantity and quality of comments can be attributed to writing ability, reading ability is also a possible factor (Delaney, 2008). As pointed out by Kennedy (1985), reading-to-write performance can be affected by the reading ability of learners. The elaboration of the content of writing may be restricted when limited by reading competence.…”

“…Particularly, reading ability has been found to be a key factor that affects reading-to-write performance. For example, the amount of notes and the sophistication of the content of the notes are influenced by reading levels of the learner (Kennedy, 1985). According to Connor and Krammer (1995) and Delaney (2008), less proficient L2 learners can have difficulty in writing or reading-to-write tasks because they tend to lack the necessary vocabulary and grammar at the sentence level or reading comprehension and writing competence at the discourse level.…”

Eye and Pen: A new device for studying reading during writing

“…Investigations of this topic have focused above all on revision (reading in order to assess the text produced so far- Butterfield et al, 1996;Hayes et al, 1987) and the summarizing of documents (reading and analyzing sources in order to develop text content-M. L. Kennedy, 1985;McGinley, 1992;Nash, Schumacher, & Carlson, 1993). A variety of methods have been used, including comparing the writing performance of poor and proficient readers (McCutchen, Francis, & Kerr, 1997); analyzing the strategies adopted by writers in order to draw on either the text produced so far or the sources, by filming the writers' activity (O'Hara, Taylor, Newman, & Sellen, 2002) or by recording concomitant verbalization (Breetvelt, van den Bergh, & Rijlaarsdam, 1996); eliminating or altering visual feedback using invisible ink or masks in order to record the effects on the quality of the text (Dansac & Passerault, 1996;Hull & Smith, 1983;Olive & Piolat, 2002); and controlling access to sources so that the writer has to stop writing in order to view sources on a computer screen (Dansac & Alamargot, 1999).…”