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- Title
Individual differences in undergraduate essay-writing strategies: A longitudinal study.
- Authors
Torrance, Mark; Thomas, Glyn V.; Robinson, Elizabeth J.
- Abstract
Analysis of questionnaire responses describing the writing processes associated with a total of 715 essays (term papers) produced by undergraduate psychology students identified four distinct patterns of writing behaviour: a minimal-drafting strategy which typically involved the production of one or at most two drafts; an outline-and-develop strategy which entailed content development both prior to and during drafting; a detailed-planning strategy which involved the use of content-development methods (mindmapping, brainstorming or rough drafting) in addition to outlining, and a ``think-then-do'' strategy which, unlike the other three strategies, did not involve the production of a written outline. The minimal-drafting and outline-and-develop strategies appeared to produce the poorest results, with the latter being more time consuming. The detailed-planning and ``think-then-do'' strategies both appeared to result in better quality essays, although differences were small. We analysed the writing strategies for a subset of these essays produced by a cohort of 48 students followed through the three years of their degree course. We found some evidence of within-student consistency in strategy use with on average two out of every three of a student's essays being written using the same type of strategy. There was no evidence of systematic change in writing strategy from year to year.
- Subjects
ENGLAND; BIRMINGHAM (England); ENGLISH college students' writings; UNIVERSITY of Birmingham; INDIVIDUAL differences; STUDENTS
- Publication
Higher Education (00181560), 2000, Vol 39, Issue 2, p181
- ISSN
0018-1560
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1023/A:1003990432398