Using Computer - Generated Protocols to Study Writers ' Planning Strategies

Research has shown that extensive planning is typical of skilled adult writers (Bridwell-Bowles, Johnson, & Brehe, 1987; Flower & Hayes, 1981b). Yet word processors tend to discourage high level planning (Haas, 1989). In this research, we used the Writing Environment, a computer-based authoring tool that encourages planning, to study the strategies of adult writers. Nine graduate students and eight technical writers used the Writing Environment to write technical reports, while the computer recorded their activities. Analysis of computer-generated protocols revealed that subjects spent a large proportion of their time on the organizational structures for their reports and that these structures were quite elaborate. Subjects varied widely ·in the extent to which they completed their plans before they wrote. Surprisingly, the overall quality of the reports, as rated by two judges, was negatively related to time spent planning. Some writers apparently spent too much time on complex organizational structures and too little time composing text. Writers' Planning Strategies Using Computer-Generated Protocols to Study Writers' Planning Strategies People who study writing agree that planning is a good thing: that mature writers plan more than immature writers; that writers who use outlines write better compositions than writers who compose without outlines; and that expert writers plan more than novice writers. Yet research on word-processors has shown that writers who use computers plan less than writers who use other methods. Standard word processing programs encourage sentence-level composing and editing while discouraging more global planning and revising. The purpose of the research reported here was to introduce an authoring tool that facilitates planning and to study the planning strategies of adult writers as they composed a technical report using that tool. Studies of PlannineHow researchers study planning depends on how they define it. 2 Planning entails mental processes such as generating ideas and setting goals. It also involves the physical process of recording those ideas and goals. Some researchers have focussed on written plans, while others have been more interested in the cognitive processes involved in planning. Research on written plans. The ability to generate written plans seems to develop relatively late in childhood. Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) noted a dramatic difference between the written plans of children 10 to 14 and those of college students. The children's plans were almost identical to their final texts. In spite of explicit training, children failed to engage in "conceptual planning" as distinct from "content generation," to use Bereiter and Scardamalia's terminology. Left to their own devices, even high school and college students rarely produce written plans. Detailed studies of the writing habits of high school and college students have shown that although these students have been taught outlining and are often required to turn in outlines at school, they do not find written plans useful and do not choose to create them unless required to do so (Emig, 1971; Mischel, 1974; Pianko, 1979; Stallard, 1974). But observations of experienced adult writers have shown that they often spend a large proportion of their time creating elaborate written plans, sometimes in the form of outlines and sometimes in the form of notes, lists and diagrams (Berkenkotter, 1983; Bridwell-Bowles, Johnson, & Brehe, 1987; Selzer, 1983). Kellogg has used both observational and experimental studies to demonstrate that planning helps adult writers. In a survey of science and engineering faculty, he found that those professors who made greater use of written plans were more productive (Kellogg, 1986). In experimental studies, Kellogg also asked college students to write short business letters or essays with or without outlining (Kellogg, 1987, in press). The subjects Writers' Planning Strategies who outlined first produced significantly better texts than those who began writing immediately. 3 Thus several lines of evidence support the conclusion that written plans are typical of mature, successful writers and lead to better written products. Research on mental plans. Recent concern with the writing process, as opposed to the written product, has caused many researchers to focus on mental rather than physical plans (Faigley, Cherry, Jolliffe, & Skinner, 1985; Hagge, 1987; Hairston, 1982). To study mental planning processes, they have used think-aloud protocols, generated when writers verbalize their thoughts as they compose (Swarts, Flower & Hayes, 1984). On the basis of think-aloud protocols, Flower and Hayes (1981b) have argued that planning is central to adult writing. They have defined a broad variety of cognitive activities as planning: goal-setting, audience analysis, idea generation, organization, analysis of the rhetorical problem, and more. Whereas earlier models of writing conceived of planning as a separate stage that precedes writing and revising, Flower and Hayes argued that planning is distributed throughout the writing process. Furthermore, they claimed that written plans reveal only a small proportion of the planning that goes on inside writers' heads (Flower & Hayes, 1981b). An especially important aspect of planning, according to Flower and Hayes, is elaboration of the rhetorical problem presented by the writing task. Drawing an analogy between writing and problem solving, they pointed out that writers differ in their internal representation of the writing assignment. On the basis of think-aloud protocols, Flower and Hayes (1980) have claimed that expert writers spend more time defining the task than novice writers. Defining the task includes such activities as describing the audience, deciding what effect the text should have on that audience, devising a strategy for achieving that effect, etc. (Flower & Hayes, 1980; see also Stotsky, 1990). Supporting the claim that good writers plan more than poor ones, Carey, Flower, Hayes, Schriver, and Haas (1987, cited in Hayes, 1989), found a significant positive relationship between both the quantity and the quality of planning clauses in think-aloud protocols of adult writers and the quality of the final texts they produced. Thus research on think-aloud protocols has corroborated research on written plans: expert writers plan more than novices and writers who plan more tend to produce higher quality text. The effects of word processors on writing. In most of the research on planning, writers have used paper and pencil to compose. During the past Writers' Planning Strategies