Joseph Lewis Fall 

2022 
English 1301 
Dr. Frances Johnson 
29 September 2022

Mastery of Writing Requires Advanced Cognitive Abilities

Writing is a complex activity that in order to master one needs to have a complete and

deep understanding of themselves (Bazerman & Tinberg, 2015). For them to have this they need

years of practice, advanced metacognition, along with an understanding of their emotions. The

purpose of this synthesis is to explain that writers need to be able to have a complex thought

process about their writing to truly master writing itself.

Writing itself is always a cognitive action (Dryer, 2015). Writing begins before a person

starts to write (Dryer, 2015). Questions have to be asked and answered before words are written

down so that the narrative, structure, and flow of ideas are able to be comprehensible to the

reader (Dryer, 2015). However, sometimes the way a person writes a narrative does not fit into

the structure of what they are writing (Dryer, 2015). To avoid confusing the reader the writer

must use their cognitive abilities to think through what they are writing in order to make it match

the goal they made when writing (Dryer, 2015).

To obtain the complex cognitive abilities to master writing, years of practice are needed.

Over these years skills will be developed that will increase a writer's cognitive function to the

point of mastery. Doing an activity for the first time requires the brain to form new neural

connections (Dryer, 2015) that take time to become a mastered skill or a habit (Anson, 2015).

However, while forming these habits performance in other areas of the brain is reduced (Dryer,

2015).
Joseph Lewis Fall 2022 
English 1301 
Dr. Frances Johnson 
29 September 2022

Habits are able to expand a writer's abilities to the point where they do not have to think

about an action (Anson, 2015) to do it. This allows them to use their mind to be able to focus on

other parts of their work, increasing their cognitive abilities.

Writers unknowingly use thought processes and writing styles they are well versed in

when writing outside of their comfort zone (Anson, 2015). This leads to problems when the

writer needs to do something new or wants to expand their skills. A way to fix this problem is by

using metacognition (Taczak, 2015). Metacognition is thinking about the thought process itself

and why we made the choices we made (Tinberg, 2015). By using metacognition writers can

become aware of the way they are writing and subconsciously do so that they are able to

overcome them. However, cognition and metacognition come together when reflecting (Taczak,

2015) which is done throughout the writing process. To properly reflect a writer needs to

systematically remember past writing experiences to use them in the needed situation (Taczak,

2015). A writer that has the ability to utilize metacognition along with reflection is able to

transfer the skills they have developed from one genre of writing to another. Having that skill

will drastically improve a writer's ability to create work in different fields of writing.

There is another type of complex mental process at work that adds an additional element

to cognition (Bazerman & Tinberg, 2015). It is called embodied cognition which uses the mental

process, physical and affective aspects of writing instead of only using mental processes like

cognition. The physical part is how your body reacts to writing such as tension in their body

while the affective part is how a person's emotions change what they are writing (Bazerman &
Joseph Lewis Fall 2022 
English 1301 
Dr. Frances Johnson 
29 September 2022

Tinberg, 2015). It stands to reason that how a person’s emotion would affect their writing is

different for everyone. That is when a writer must use metacognition to figure out how and why

their emotions and physical state are influencing what they do.

In conclusion, in order for a person to master writing, they need to have advanced

cognitive abilities to produce a piece of writing that matches their goal for writing (Dryer, 2015).

To avoid subconscious decisions in their writing a writer must use metacognition (Tinberg,

2015) and reflect on what they wrote to improve their work (Taczak, 2015). Forming habits is

beneficial to a writer by increasing their cognitive abilities. Emotions can influence the way a

person writes (Bazerman & Tinberg, 2015).

Joseph Lewis Fall 2022 
English 1301 
Dr. Frances Johnson 
29 September 2022

Anson, C . (2015). Habituated Practice can Lead to Entrenchment. In L. Adler-Kassner &

E. Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know, classroom edition: Threshold concepts of writing

studies (pp. 77-78). University Press of Colorado.

Bazerman, C. & Howard, T. (2015). Writing is an Expression of Embodied Cognition. In

L. Adler-Kassner & E. Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know, classroom edition: Threshold

concepts of writing studies (pp. 74-75). University Press of Colorado.

Dryer, D. (2015). Writing is (Also Always) a Cognitive Activity. In L. Adler-Kassner &

E. Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know, classroom edition: Threshold concepts of writing

studies (pp. 71-74). University Press of Colorado.

Taczak, K. (2015). Reflection is Critical for Writers’ Development. In L. Adler-Kassner

& E. Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know, classroom edition: Threshold concepts of writing

studies (pp. 78-79). University Press of Colorado.

Tinberg, H. (2015). Metacognition is not Cognition. In L. Adler-Kassner & E. Wardle

(Eds.), Naming what we know, classroom edition: Threshold concepts of writing studies (pp. 75-

76). University Press of Colorado.