Students' interpretations of their academic writing tasks has been a central concern in the cognitive-based writing research due to the prominent role such decision-making plays in determining students' subsequent thinking and composing strategies and ultimately in shaping their textual quality. Without a comprehensive understanding of how L2…

A pilot study explored how to teach students to write thoughtfully, and also how to teach computers to recognize and interpret the kinds of thinking that appear in such writings. First, a taxonomy of mental processes was found, next the linguistic expressions (clues) that indicate the processes were hypothesized, and then a professionally-written…

Experiments conducted with freshman composition students suggested that (1) the repeated use of a control stimulus passage does not result in increased syntactic complexity; (2) both overt and covert cues elicit more complex writing than do no-cue situations; and (3) the effect of overt cues seems to be retained, at least across a short duration.…

Analyzes above and below average readers' informational reports, which synthesize both source texts and writer-generated materials. Concludes that general reading ability and success at synthesizing overlap, and that success at synthesis may be related to cognitive factors associated with comprehension, such as sensitivity to text structure. (RS)