Writer profile as a modulating variable of processes involved in written composition in undergraduate students

Abstract

The two most well-defined writer profiles that have been found in writing research are planning and revising. In this study we analyse writing strategies and writing profiles of undergraduate students, and their influence in solving hybrid tasks; in this study took part 142 undergraduate students enrolled in three different university studies. To identify writer profile, students completed a Spanish version of Questionnaire Concerning their Planning and Revising Tendencies. We used two different hybrid tasks: summary and synthesis; we assessed in both tasks reading and writing process, level of underlined or take notes strategies, kind of draft and ideas generation. The results show that over 60% of students have a mixed writer profile with similar scores in both strategies, planning and revising, but they reported a higher level use in revising strategy. Likewise result show that the processes and strategies used by students are more complex depending on the difficulty of the task; while writing strategy that has greater influence is planning.