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

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

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)

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

Contextes de production et justification écrite d'un point de vue par des enfants âgés de 10 à 13 ans

This study investigates both qualitative and quantitative production of sentences produced by 113 writers between 10 to 13 year of age for justifying points of views. Eight different production contexts were constructed from the modalities of three factors (familiarity with the topic, acceptance of the to be defended thesis and consensual opinion), such as they appear for example in sentences like "eating candies is good because..." or "going on a trip is not good, because...". The results clearly showed than from ten years of age children were able to justify whichever point of view and its opposite by referring to specific information which are largely shared. However, the number and the nature of the arguments varied as a function of contexts. Children write more arguments when they have to defend a view which conform a consensual opinion, whereas they diversify their arguments by supporting points of views which do not conform a consensual perspective. The lack of practice with the activity constitutes in both cases a favorable condition. Within the framework of developing aids for school training and argumentative writing, our findings show that it is possible to use with non expert writers either context which favor quantitative production or contexts which bring to a qualitative diversification of arguments

SCRIPTKELL : a tool for measuring cognitive effort and time processing in writing and other complex cognitive activities

We present SCRIPTKELL, a computer-assisted experimental tool that makes it possible to measure the time and cognitive effort allocated to the subprocesses of writing and other cognitive activities, SCRIPTKELL was designed to easily use and modulate Kellogg's (1986) triple-task procedure,.which consists of a combination of three tasks: a writing task (or another task), a reaction time task (auditory signal detection), and a directed retrospection task (after each signal detection during writing). We demonstrate how this tool can be used to address several novel empirical and theoretical issues. In sum, SCRIPTKELL should facilitate the flexible realization of experimental designs and the investigation of critical issues concerning the functional characteristics of complex cognitive activities

Effet du traitement de texte et des correcteurs sur la maîtrise de l'orthographe et de la grammaire en langue seconde

Deux recherches ont permis d'évaluer les performances d'élèves de seconde qui s'entraînaient à rédiger en anglais avec ou sans ordinateur. Parallèlement, des enquêtes par questionnaire ont permis de cerner les représentations des élèves sur l'utilisation des correcteurs. Ces deux recherches ont montré, à des degrés différents, que l'usage de l'ordinateur a un effet bénéfique sur la production écrite des élèves en langue seconde. 11 apparaît particulièrement que les élèves bénéficient différemment de l'outil informatique selon le type de logiciels qu'ils utilisent, et selon le type de textes qu'ils doivent rédiger

Réorganisation de texte par des enfants de 11 ans : Effet de la longueur des textes, du niveau de compréhension des élèves et de leur maîtrise du schéma textuel

The main goal of this work is to determine the difficulties involved in the recomposition of argumentative text by eleven years old children. The role of text length was examined in Experiment 2. The effect of the comprehension level in reading was evaluated in Experiment 3 and the mastery of prototypical schema was tested in Experiment 4. Experiment 1 was realised to collect the pro and contra arguments used in Experiments 2 to 4. The textual (text length) and individual characteristics (comprehension in reading and mastery of prototypical schema) seem to explain the difficulties faced by the eleven years old children when reorganising an argumentative text

Charge mentale et mobilisation des processus rédactionnels : examen de la procédure de Kellogg

The method used by Kellogg (1987) requires that the writer performs a concurrent task followed by a supplementary task. The subjects must react to auditory signals during writing (the recorded RT's express the weight of the subject's cognitive effort) and then qualify (directed retrospection) the ongoing writing activity (planning, translating or reviewing). The goal of experiment 1 is to test the role of bips distribution (15, 30, 60 sec) on the cognitive load. Experiment 2 tests how the retrospective task (retrospection with training, without retrospection vs. Kellogg's retrospection) affects the cognitive effort. The results show that the bips distribution as well as a training on retrospection had effects on RT's but not on the activation of writing processes. Contrary to Kellogg's findings, RT's are not different for the three writing processes. Writers distribute their cognitive resources as a function of the tasks' constraints: writing, quick reaction and retrospection. It is concluded that Kellogg's method must be revaluated as an appropriate tool for measuring the cognitive effort involved in the various writing processes