Writing models
Introduction
This paper documents my failed attempt to use reflections of my writing
experiences to find a critical fault in the Flower and Hayes model of
the writing process. First I chose two extreme writing situations (writing
a song and answering a maths question) that do not fit Flower and Hayes'
model as described in Module 3 of the MATA course [Williams and Radjewsca
(1999)] and by Flower and Hayes themselves [Flower and Hayes (1980)].
Then I modified the structure of the Flower and Hayes model (shown in
Figure 1) so that it could account for these extreme situations and noted
the limitations in the original model that called for the changes (it
gives no account of the relationship between the author's mental representation
of the text and the physical representation of the text). Finally I looked
for a writing situation from my work as a technical author (maintaining
a global Intranet site) in which these limitations could be critical.
I found that, in spite of the limitations, the Flower and Hayes model
could account for the real work situation.
Figure 1: The structure Flower and Hayes writing model [Flower and
Hayes (1980) p.11]
Exploring the model: Writing a song
My first writing situation is one particular experience of song writing.
Cycling home one night I was thinking about the common theme for blues
songs, "if you leave me it would be terrible", and I decided
to twist it into "if you leave me it would be wonderful". During
the course of the cycle ride, which took about an hour, I wrote Riverside
Blues (the lyrics can be found below in Appendix A).
Structure of the writing model
There is a fundamental difference between this scenario and the ones
studied by Flower and Hayes (1980), I could not write down my ideas as
I rode so the whole writing process was done mentally. There was no "TEXT
PRODUCED SO FAR" in my task environment.
Figure 2 shows a writing model for this type of writing, the differences
between this and Figure 1 are: "TEXT PRODUCED SO FAR" has become
"TEXT COMPOSED SO FAR" and moved into "THE WRITER'S LONG
TERM MEMORY" and "READING" in the reviewing writing subprocess
has been replaced with "RECALLING".
Figure 2 - A model for writing "Riverside Blues"
Task environment - Writing assignment
The external factors that formed the writing assignment included: blues
songs and my own experiences (topic); the Penny Theatre open stage, and
other musicians that I know (motivating cues); and the people who go to
listen to the open stages (audience).
The writer's long term memory - Background knowledge
This is equivalent to the whole of "The writer's long term memory"
in Flower and Hayes' model, it included: my knowledge of life and of what
constitutes a typical blues song and blues clichés (knowledge of
topic); my knowledge of what people will expect from a blues song and
will find humorous (knowledge of audience); and my familiarity with the
form of twelve bar blues songs (stored writing plans).
The writer's long term memory - Text composed so far
This is the lyrics of the songs which I memorised as I wrote.
Planning - Generating
I looked for ideas that would fit together to tell a story of someone
in an unhappy relationship, for pairs of rhyming words and for phrases
with the right metre.
Planning - Organising
Even though the song is so short, I arranged it into a story with a definite
beginning, middle and end.
Planning - Goal setting
As I wrote the song I set myself goals of adding features that would
add variety to it without breaking away from the typical structure of
a blues song.
Translating
I translated the ideas, rhyming words and phrases into a series of propositions
express in rhyming pairs of lines.
Reviewing - Recalling
The lyrics that I revised were recalled from my memory, as opposed to
being read from a physical representation of the text.
Reviewing - Editing
Once the lyrics had been recalled from my memory I was able to decide
how they needed to be changed, and then to commit the required changes
to my memory.
Exploring the model: Answering an undergraduate maths question
The second writing situation is answering an undergraduate maths question.
I, like many of my fellow students, found it impossible to pursue even
a moderately difficult line of mathematical reasoning without writing
it down as I went along. One of my essential skills as a mathematician
was manipulating complex mathematical expressions by breaking the tasks
down into a series of simple abstract symbol manipulations. The process
would typically be something like:
- Write the first expression by copying or deducing it from the question;
- Start a new line with either the symbol for "equals" ("=")
or for "implies" ("");
- Identify a component of first expression and either copy it as is
or change it and write the new version to the new line;
- Repeat step 3 until a new version of the statement has been written
down;
- Repeat steps 2 to 4 until a expression that answers the question has
been written down.
It is worth noting that this technique uses a writing process that is
very close to knowledge telling typically used by children to write simple
stories [described by Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scadamalia (1987) and
by Mike Sharples (1999 pp. 22-23)].
Structure of the writing model
The one minor change I needed to make to Flower and Hayes' model was
to add a feed from "TEXT PRODUCED SO FAR" into "GENERATING"
to take into account they way that each written expression was based on
the one before.
Figure 3 - A model for answering a maths question
The writer's long term memory
This included my knowledge of mathematical methods and theorems (knowledge
of topic), my knowledge of what examiners would look for in my work (knowledge
of audience) and my knowledge of how to write a mathematical proof (stored
writing plans).
Task environment - Writing assignment
The external factors that formed the writing assignment were the subject
of mathematics (topic), the examiners who would be marking my work (audience)
and the degree coursework, lectures and exams (motivating cues).
Task environment - Text produced so far
This was the mathematical expressions I wrote down.
Planning - Generating
The ideas for each expression were generated from the expression written
immediately before or from the question being answered.
Planning - Organising
I applied a standard structure that I was familiar with through my experience
in maths, so very little effort was need to decide how to organise any
given question.
Planning - Goal setting
My goals were to answer the question quickly and accurately.
Translating
The content of each expression was translated into a new expression until
the question was answered.
Reviewing - Reading and editing
The complex nature of the expressions made reading them for reviewing
purposes difficult. When I got stuck in the writing process or wrote an
expression that could not be right (for example, one that was inconsistent
with the question) I would read through my work looking for mistakes and,
if I found one, go on to editing. Often, though, I'd fail to find the
mistakes and start the writing process again from scratch.
Reviewing - Editing
Sometimes I would be able to correct the mistake that I found in the
existing text, but more often I would correct its first occurrence and
then completely rewrite the rest of the work.
Testing the model: Maintaining a global Intranet site
The first writing situation shows that a writer has a mental representation
of the text and that that representation can form an essential part of
the writing process. The second writing situation shows that the physical
representation of the text can be similarly essential. I will now apply
these findings to a normal writing situation taken from my work as a technical
author.
My company has an Intranet website that can be accessed by employees
from all our offices worldwide and I am a member of the team responsible
for maintaining it. We use a content management tool to let designated
people outside the Intranet team create and update Intranet pages. As
a result sometimes I have to update pages that I am familiar with but
which have been modified without my knowledge, so the physical representation
of the text will have changed but my mental representation won't have.
Given that Flower and Hayes' model makes no reference to a mental representation
of the text, can it account for this scenario? What happens when I try
to edit text, which differs in its mental and physical representations?
When this happens, no matter how familiar I am with the page, I will
still need to read the text before I can edit it (if only to locate it)
and then I will spot that the text has been updated by somebody else and
update my mental representation accordingly. So when I come to type the
new text it will always be based on the same text as in the physical representation.
Insofar as I always read the existing text before typing revised text
I can say that I always read the text before editing it, so I can apply
Flower and Hayes' model in its original form. However, interpreting the
model in this way means that it does not distinguish between occasions
when I know what I want to change the text to before I read it and occasions
when I have to read the text before I can decide how to change it.
Conclusion - Evaluation of the Flower and Hayes model
On the basis of my introspections and taking Flower and Hayes' model
as "a first approximate description of normal composition than can
guide research and afford a valuable starting point in the search for
a more refined model" (Flower and Hayes 1980 p.10) I cannot fault
the model. The model needed some refinement to explain the feature of
my two unusual writing situations, but when I looked at my normal work
as a technical author Flower and Hayes' original version of the model
sufficed.
The "more refined model" will need to give a much fuller account
of how physical and mental representations of text are used in writing
processes, probably as part of a more general account of how the writer
uses long term memory (including the mental representation of the text)
and external sources of information (including the physical representation
of the text). This is becoming increasingly important as technology makes
the physical representation of the text more dynamic. For example, the
AutoCorrect tool in Microsoft® Works Word Processor corrects certain
spelling, typing and grammatical errors as you type. The text you are
reading now is different from the text I typed, and I will not know exactly
what has been transcribed to my computer screen until I read it myself.
Where do situations like this fit into the writing model?
Deborah McCutchen argues that the fluent sentence generating processes
of skilled writers allows them to make more extensive use of their long-term
memory resources, including "earlier text choices (stored in [a long-term
memory] text representation)", than novice writers [McCutchen (2000)
p. 21]. Accepting this, I would expect that the more skilled a writer
is the more she will recall her text from memory instead of reading it,
so the greater the effect of any differences between the mental and physical
representations will be. One way to investigate this would be to look
at skilled and novice writers working in an unfamiliar writing environment
with a dynamic physical representation of the text (for example, people
using word processors with AutoCorrect for the first time), if I am right
then the skilled writers will be more aware of the changes in the text
than the novice writers because it will a greater impact on their writing
processes.
Bibliography
Bereiter, C. and Scardamalia, M. (1987) The psychology of written
composition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc
Flower, L. S., and Hayes, J. R. (1980) "Identifying the organization
of writing processes", in Gregg and Steinberg (eds)(1980), pp. 3-30
Gregg, L. W. and Steinberg, E. R. (eds) (1980) Cognitive processes
in writing, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc
McCutchen, D. (2000) "Knowledge, Processing, and Working Memory: Implications
for a Theory of Writing", Educational Psychologist, 35(1), pp.
13-33
Radjewsca, R and Williams, N. (1999) MA Technical Authorship module
2.1: Approaches to communication and linguistics, Sheffield Hallam
University
Sharples, M. (1999) How we write: Writing as creative design,
Routledge
Appendix A: Riverside Blues
I've been thinking 'bout you baby, you're always sitting on my mind.
I've been thinking 'bout you baby, you're always sitting on my mind.
If you leave me now woman, that would be just so kind.
I've been paddling in the river wondering how I got mixed up with you
I've been paddling in the river wondering how I got mixed up with you
I've been here so long my feet have turned cold and blue
I've been scaring all the fish,
Throwing stones out at a frog,
There's a terrified otter hiding underneath the log.
I've been thinking 'bout you baby, your picture's burned into my head.
I'm gonna leave you now woman and make do with a stone cold bed.
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