Knowledge of the writing process has been of great importance to many

writers. Through multiple studies their goal was to figure out how texts were
composed and the cognitive process behind producing a text. Paul Prior is a
Professor of English and the Center for Writing Studies at the University of Illinois.
Mike Rose is a nationally recognized American education scholar and is noted for his
significant contribution to the study of literacy and for his insights into the struggles
of working-class America. Currently, Rose is Professor of Social Research
Methodology in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.
Sondra Pearl is a professor of English at Herbert Lehmann College and founder of
the New York City Writing Project. All established professionals have completed
studies where they were able to grasp the production of a text.
Paul Prior studied the writing process by examining writers inner thoughts,
perceptions, feelings, and motives for writing and the external influences that affect
the writing process. Prior used the Think aloud Protocol that allows the writers to
have access to their stream of consciousness by listening to their own thoughts
through a recording during the process of writing. He also had participants of his
study use a process log, which is used to keep track of the writers readings,
discussions, and feelings of the work they are in the creation of a text. Prior stated
that the only way to understand where a text cam from is to trace the history of the
text. When we trace such histories, we are studying not cognition alone or social
context alone, but rather the intersection of the cognitive and the social in activity
that is distributed across individual acts, collaborative interactions, and many
socially and historically developed tools (Paul Prior, Tracing Process: How Texts
Come into Being, Writing About Writing, Wardle & Downs, 520).
Mike Rose studied the cognitive process of ten students, five students who
experience writers block and five students who are proficient writers. Those who
have writers block is because of their cognitive process that pivots in on the
strategies of writing that were taught to them in their previous years of education.
The basic strategies such as grabbing the readers attention, always making three
points in an essay, creating outlines, and only using grammatically correct sentences
actually impede on the writing process. The more proficient writers cognitive
process focuses more on what they want to write and functional problem solving
skills than the general guidelines. It is easier to write using heuristics than
algorithms because using heuristics allows the writer to have an open mind during
the writing process. Composing calls for open, even adventurous thinking, not for
constrained, no exit cognition (Mike Rose, Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the
Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writers Block, Writing About Writing,
Wardle & Downs, 543). The debilitated rules should be suppressed by more
practical rules without any emotional restraint. Rose concluded that students could
get over their writers block by changing their cognitive process by having more one
on one session with him to redirect their thought process during writing.
Sondra Pearl studied a group of writers that were usually ignored in studies,
the basic writers. Pearl wanted to have a better understanding of how basic

writers write, how their writing processes are able to be analyzed, and how a better
understanding of their writing process can show how writing was taught in school.
During Pearls study she aimed at observing the students written products, their
composing tapes, and their responses to the interview. Pearl was able to find a
common composing process with all of the subjects: prewriting, writing, and editing.
Pearl concluded that the teachers need to distinguish the components that inhibit
the writers before the teachers teach them new ways on how to write. Introducing a
new method will only confuse the students who are already struggling (Sondra
Pearl, The Composing Process of Unskilled College Writers, Writing About Writing,
Wardle & Downs, 635).
These existing studies have established that a writers process is capable of
being dissected, however; no one has executed a self-study of their own writing
process. By completing a self-study it allowed me to be more honest with my own
thoughts because having someone listen to my thoughts would of stopped me from
saying them.
In my self-study of my writing process I used a computer to record myself
while I read an article and wrote a response to it. I would press record and begin
reading, any thoughts that came into my mind were stated aloud. Once I started
writing I continued to say my thoughts out loud. Once the assignment was done, I
watched the video and recorded all of my thoughts. I came up with categories
depicting what each thought represented, for example if it was an opinion or just
recalling information. I went through the list of all my thoughts in order to find
common sequences that occured during my reading and writing process. When I
examined my thoughts from reading the article, I discovered that an opinion was
followed by either a question or by recalling information that was previously stated.
I can conclude that I stated my opinion a lot because I felt differently from what the
article was saying. After an opinion was stated I would ask a question based off the
information that I read or I would go back in the text to recall previous information.
These basic skills were taught to me throughout earlier education and I continue to
use them today. They are important skills for me that help me comprehend what I
am reading. After examining the results from writing about the article I noticed that
I would plan then write then criticize what I had just written. This would put a stop
in my writing process, I should just continue to write all my ideas down. When the
texts is done, that is when I should go back and criticize what I wrote. Maybe it
makes sense or it could lead me to a better idea. All of my ideas should be
considered when producing a text. Other times I would recall information, plan, and
then write. I feel like this sequence is helpful to me because recalling information
from the article will help me figure out what to write and how I want it written. This
study has shown me how to write a paper successfully. I should have a plan of what
I want to write, then I should write everything down so later I can go back and fix
anything that is not up to my standards.