Effects of word processing on text revision

Revising is an evaluating and editing process that is an essential part of text production. Is text revising facilitated by the use of word processors? After examining the related research, it is difficult to conclude with certainty that the use of word processors is always effective in improving writers' revising skills, or that their use necessarily leads to the production of higher quality texts. Their effectiveness depends on a large number of parameters (computer equipment, writing skills, task execution conditions) which psychologists are now starting to measure

Design activities: how to analyze cognitive effort associated to cognitive treatments?

Working memory issues are important in many real activities. Thus, measuring cognitive effort (or mental load) has been a main research topic for years in cognitive ergonomics, though no consensual method to study such aspect has been proposed. In addition, we argue that cognitive effort has to be related to an analysis of the evolution of cognitive processes, which has been called "time processing". Towards this end, we present and discuss paradigms that have been used for years to study writing activities and, in experiments reported in this paper, for studying design activities, such as computer-graphic tasks or web site desig

Narrative and descriptive text revising strategies and procedures

Forty-eight children and forty-eight adults of contrasting degrees of expertise made a series of corrections in order to improve a text (narrative or description) in which three within-statement errors and three between-statement errors had been inserted. Subjects used a simplified word processor (SCRIPREV) which recorded all movements of linguistic units. The purpose of this research was to study revising strategies by examining the correction-sequencing procedures implemented by these subjects. The procedures, which were coded in the form of time series, were compared to the time series of model revising procedures (i.e. effective ones) representing three strategies based on certain predefined functional principles (linguistic level, execution order). The adults used two of these strategies. The Simultaneous Strategy for the narrative, and the Local-then-Global Strategy for the description. The children used the Local-then-Global Strategy for the narrative, but did not use any identifiable procedure to revise the description, which they did not manage to totally improve in the expected manner

Students' drafting strategies and text quality

The study reports an analysis of the drafts produced by two groups of students during an exam. Drafts were categorized as a function of some of their graphic features (e.g. their length), and of their different planning strategies used for their production (e.g. note draft, organized draft, composed draft). Grades obtained by the students on their essays related to the different categories of drafts. Results show that 2/3 of both groups of students made some kinds of draft. Drafts mostly consisted of note drafts or long composed drafts. Very few consisted of organized drafts. However, students that wrote these latter drafts obtained the best ratings. Drafting strategy was homogeneous for half of the students who used one category. The other half successively used two drafting modes. In that case they mostly associated writing with jotting down notes or with some marks of organization. Here, again, students who organized, even partially, their drafts obtained the highest grades. Very few corrections were brought to the long drafts and they concerned the surface (spelling or lexicon), not the content or the plan. This research shows that only a limited number of students used an efficient drafting (organized draft) even though such a strategy is generally associated with the highest ratings

Effect of screen presentation on text reading and revising. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

Two studies using the methods of experimental psychology assessed the effects of two types of text presentation (page-by-page vs. scrolling) on participants' performance while reading and revising texts. Greater facilitative effects of the page-by-page presentation were observed in both tasks. The participants' reading task performance indicated that they built a better mental representation of the text as a whole and were better at locating relevant information and remembering the main ideas. Their revising task performance indicated a larger number of global corrections (which are the most difficult to make)

The triple task technique for studying writing processes : on which task is attention focused ?

The triple task technique measures the time and cognitive effort devoted to specific writing processes by combining directed retrospection with secondary task reaction time (RT). Writing a text is the primary task and rapidly detecting auditory probes to index cognitive effort is the secondary task. The third task is retrospecting and categorizing the contents of working memory at the time of each probe. The present paper reviews studies on the reactivity and validity of the technique. Further, one recent criticism of the method's validity is tested here: namely, that the primary task for the experimenter is not the primary task for the writer, thus distorting the time and effort measurements. We found that time and effort allocated to planning, translating, executing, evaluating, and revising was the same when the writer was encouraged by instructions to focus either on the speed of responding or the accuracy of retrospection instead of the text itself. Because writing requires sustained thought and attention to produce a cumulative product, it is apparently difficult to make text production anything but the primary task. The triple task technique offers a useful alternative to pause analysis and verbal protocols for investigating the functional features of writing

Revising strategies for different text types

Forty-eight children and forty-eight adults of contrasting degrees of expertise made a series of corrections in order to improve a text (narrative or description) in which three within-statement errors and three between-statement errors had been inserted. Subjects used a simplified word processor (SCRIPREV) which recorded all movements of linguistic units. The purpose of this research was to study revising strategies by examining the correction-sequencing procedures implemented by these subjects. The procedures, which were coded in the form of time series, were compared to the time series of model revising procedures (i.e. effective ones) representing three strategies based on certain predefined functional principles (linguistic level, execution order). The adults used two of these strategies: the Simultaneous Strategy for the narrative, and the Local-then-Global Strategy for the description. The children used the Local-then-Global Strategy for the narrative, but did not use any identifiable procedure to revise the description, which they did not manage to totally improve in the expected manner

Parler, rédiger: présentation d'un outil d'analyse syntaxique et de quelques résultats

Le psychologue peut analyser la production langagière en étudiant trois types de phénomènes et leurs interrelations : 1) les conditions contextuelles dans lesquelles la production émerge, 2) les processus et connaissances mis en oeuvre pour réaliser la tâche langagière, 3) les caractéristiques du produit langagier. Dans le travail de psychologie expérimentale présenté ci-après, l'organisation syntaxique de corpus oraux et écrits a été caractérisée e quantifiée afin de repérer les déterminants de situation (destinataire, thème) et les contraintes fonctionnelles (cadence de production, possibilité d'autocorrection) qui provoquent des variations dans la structuration syntaxique. Si l'on appelle "système de production", un ensemble articulé de contraintes fonctionnelles qui conditionnent la nature et le déroulement de l'activité d'élaboration d'un texte lors de son ajustement à une situation de communication donnée, les résultats obtenus ont permis de conclure, pour les deux modalités de production (parler, rédiger), à l'utilisation de deux systèmes différents. Leur communauté fonctionnelle n'enlève rien à leurs différences qu'il n'est pas réaliste de négliger ou de réduire à quelques contraintes périphériques de type phonologique ou calligraphique. D'ailleurs, avec de nouvelles méthodologies qui permettent d'étudier, en temps réel, le déroulement même de l'activité (particulièrement de l'activité rédactionnelle, Piolat, 1990), la mise en évidence des différences fonctionnelles entre la production par écrit et la production par oral est encore plus patente

Comment étudier le coût et le déroulement de la rédaction de textes ? La méthode de la triple tâche : Un bilan méthodologique

How can the process and cost of writing texts be studied? The triple task methodology This methodological note has three goals. The first is to describe the various uses of the triple task paradigm (writing; quick reactions, think aloud protocols) proposed by Kellogg (1986, 1987b) and Levy and Ransdell (1994, 1995). The dependent variables related to this paradigm are examined. The second aim is to evaluate the validity of the paradigm by measuring the task's reactivity and that of verbalisation. The third goal is to offer a short review of findings related to the use of the paradigm. We conclude by showing the efficacy of the triple-task paradigm for the investigation of text writing

Activation des processus rédactionnels et qualité des textes

The relations between the processes of planning and revision and quality of texts produced by adults are explored by referring to experiments using various methods (guidance of the activity, drafts analyses, cognitive effort tasks) and starting from three questions. The first one relates to the impact of these two processes on text quality: Is it necessary to plan and to revise in order to write good texts? The second question relates to the implementation of these processes: how to help writers in better exploiting them during writing. The third question relates to the writers adjustment "to situate" their activity: Do they have ready-made solutions to produce certain types of texts and not others? If so, do they engage differently in the task? How do they coordinate these processes which allow a control by anticipation (planning) and a posteriori (revision). The main results show that (1) certain ways of planning and of revising are more effective than others and (2) depending on the writing context, writers must carry out tradeoffs between the implementation of the processes and their respective costs: They can use either planning or revision to reach comparable results. Finally, it remains difficult (1) to specify the linguistic dimensions that must be taken into account for assessing text quality and (2) to develop objective indexes which better account for the trade-offs between the cost of planning and of revision and the quality of the texts