On screen: The composing processes of first-year and upper-level college students

Abstract

This naturalistic study focuses on the writing processes first-year and upper-level college students develop when they compose on screen. Eight composition classes were studied—four first-year classes (two that integrated word processing and two that did not) and four upper-level classes (two that integrated word processing and two that did not). From the students in these classes, we collected pre- and postcourse questionnaire responses, first and final drafts of essays, and informal writing-process reports. Analysis of these documents suggests that when the first-year students composed on screen, they developed a tendency to expand their writing processes and that when the upper-level students composed on screen, they tended to collapse their processes. The findings of this study suggest that in interacting with a computer, first-year and upper-level students can learn and adopt differing types of writing strategies and, in doing so, begin to conceptualize written text in new ways.