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PSY 365
Lecture 16: Expertise in Writing
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What counts as success? | Most writers get many, many rejection for each "hit" -Most books sell <500 copies (Publishers' Weekly) -Deliberate Practice? -Maximal adaptation? |
| Troubles with Studying Writers: Heterogeneous category | Journalists can't write scientific papers, and scientists can't write journalism -different standards of clarity, styles |
| Troubles with Studying Writers: Audiences vary a lot | The public needs simple, engaging -scientific reviewers need someone who anticipates their critiques and addresses them -who knows what poets need -There are prizes but no "Elo Rankings" |
| Stages of Writing (Hayes and Flower, 1980) | 1. Planning-formulating the ideas 2. Text Generation-writing down sentences 3. Revising-rereading and improving the text |
| Kellogg showed that time spent planning was a good predictor of | essay quality-much more than writing time |
| Time spent revising matters more as text gets longer | College students rarely revise: Levy and Ransdell showed they spent about 10% of writing time on revision |
| Vocabulary: Grobe (1981): had lots of 5th, 8th, and 11th graders write stories and rated them for quality | Found that using diverse words was important for essay quality and explained about half of the variance -use of diverse words is a proxy for vocab. -Expert writers probably have much larger vocabularies than non-writers |
| "Word Bursts": writing of sentences occurs in "bursts" of words that are separated by pauses (Chenoweth and Hayes, 2001) | Graduate students wrote in 10-12 word bursts -Undergraduate wrote in 5-6 word bursts -Part of expertise in writing is being able to produce longer, more coherent sentences |
| Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987): Major book on writing development in kids. -One aspect of expertise is how knowledge is generated during writing. B and S compared: | Knowledge Telling -Knowledge Transforming |
| Knowledge Telling | typical of novice/child writers, whatever pops into your head, you write down. Cue memory using the topic and already written text |
| Knowledge Transforming | typical of more advanced writers, using writing to actively change one's knowledge and produce something new. Not just a more advanced 12-yr. old; relates content knowledge and rhetoric in a more complex way. |
| Coherence: Writers must learn through practice how to establish coherence | Local coherence -Global coherence |
| Local coherence | each sentence must follow the previous one meaningfully |
| Global coherence | the entire text must be structured to present one's point |
| Haswell (2000): Compared papers by juniors in college vs. freshman | Coherence was higher, with better ideas -Also higher vocab. and longer papers! |
| Why Grad Students Fail: Lonka et al. (2014): Recruited 664 Finnish Ph. D students and gave questionnaires on writing productivity and beliefs -Why were grad students higher or lower in productivity? Productivity was worse when reporting: | Procrastination: (r= -.59)-waiting, needing deadlines -Perfectionism: (r=- .23)-obsessing, feeling its not done yet -Productivity increase when writing was viewed as a process of knowledge transforming where feedback is helpful (r= .13) |
| Deliberate Practice in Writing: Kellogg (2018): Surveys reveal writers... | Write almost every day, seek feedback from peers, find it hard/effortful, not fun, only write a few hrs. daily to avoid burnout (manage rest) |
| Reading as Practice: Expert writers reported having read a lot in interviews (Piirto, 2002) | We don't know much -we don't know if that's necessary (writers think it is) |
| Print exposure predicts | writing skill as much as r= .61 in 5th graders (Craig, 2013) |
| UNCG MFA writers report that they read to discover stylistic techniques and "forms" for writing, and then practice those techniques | More "active" reading than just "for fun" |
| The More-Than-Ten Yr. Rule: Unlike sports and music, 10 yrs. is often not enough to reach world-class level and compete in writing | One must consistently produce new things over a long period of time |
| Kaufman and Kaufman (2007): Writers averaged 10-12 yrs. after their first novel to publish their best novel. | Used a book listing novels chronologically and peer-nominated "best" novel for 225 contemporary writers |
| Feedback?: Wirtz (2025) studied 10 strong writers to understand how they wrote and used feedback | MFA students reported using feedback from writer peers during critique sessions to guide revision -Echo Writing |
| Echo Writing | writing the same idea completely over again to see if you can do it better-a kind of self-generated feedback |
| Knowledge Crafting?: Kellogg (2006, 2018) argued that beyond knowledge telling and knowledge transforming comes another stage | Knowledge crafting involves representing who your audience is and trying to anticipate their comprehension, emotional reactions, thoughts and interest level -the tactics are specific to the form of writing |
| Hyland (2001) found that academic writers predict | critiques, and explicitly address them in their writing |
| Aull and Lancaster (2014): Compared 4000+ Freshman essays, 615 advanced undergrad/early grad. student essays, and professional journal articles, from natural sci, social sci, and humanities -Counted several types of words: | -Reformulations: make reading easier and signal change of direction -Boosters: emphasize directly -Hedges: soften a claim |
| Reformulations example | "in other words", "in fact" |
| Boosters example | very, extremely, highly, significantly, |
| Hedges example | I imagine, could, might, seemingly |
| Aull and Lancaster (2014): Results | Freshman used boosters way more than advanced and pros -Advanced and pros used hedges more than freshman -Advanced used reformulations more than pros than they did freshman |
| Writers' stance matters | Better writers hedge more, point out contrasts and drop the yucky adverbs -reflects thinking about the audience reaction |
| Bridwell-Bowles et al. (1987): 2 styles of writers among published grad. student writers | -Beethovians -Mozartians -Anecdotal reports from interviews suggest that professional writers also fall into these camps |
| Beethovians | "discoverers"-write rough first draft to find out what they have to say, and then revise, revise, revise |
| Mozartians | "executors"-plan extensively before writing anything |
| Kellogg (1986): Data from 126 productive science faculty. Most reported writing an | "unpolished" first draft, while a few tried for a "good" first draft -this was uncorrelated with productivity -Evenly split on "mental outlining" vs. "written outlining": people who frequently created written outliners were slightly more productive |
| Random stuff from Kellogg (1986): Stuff that didn't affect scientists' writing productivity: | Drinking coffee, smoking, walking, daydreaming |
| Stuff that did affect scientists writing productivity | working in a quiet place (r=.21) -exercise (r=.25) |
| Managing Emotions: many writers report entering ____ states where they feel pleasantly challenged and exhilarated (Perry, 1996) and often report intrinsic motivation to write (Kellogg, 2018) | flow |
| However, writers also report writers ____, characterized by dysphoria, impatience, perfectionism and evaluation anxiety (Boice, 1994) | block |
| Professional writers thus both enjoy writing and | tolerate negative feelings (Kellogg, 2006) |
| Writers seem to fit the deliberate practice and maximal adaptation framework | They read a lot and write a lot -They get feedback from others and think about the audience -However, the evidence here is weaker |
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