The development of understanding through writing

PhD ceremony: Ms. V.M. Baaijen, 16.15 uur, Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

Dissertation: The development of understanding through writing

Promotor(s): prof. C.M. de Glopper

Faculty: Arts

Veerle Baaijen’s thesis uses keystroke logging and measures of idea change to explore individual differences in writers’ subjective experience of discovery. It examines how these vary depending on the way writing is planned. Baaijen reports a range of novel findings with potentially important implications for theories of writing and for writing instruction. The results suggest that discovery is associated with distinctive keystroke patterns corresponding to different cognitive processes and is systematically related to the way in which old and new ideas are produced during writing. Writers’ tacit beliefs about writing are strongly related to the quality of their writing, and appear to moderate the effectiveness of outlining as a writing strategy. Overall, there is no direct relationship between writers’ experience of discovery and the quality of what they write, and there are strong individual differences in the processes associated with producing high quality text. Baaijen argues that these findings provide broad support for a dual process model of writing.