Journal of Writing Research Feb 2025 OA PDF

Sentence-centric modeling of the writing process

Malgorzata Anna Ulasik ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences ; Cerstin Mahlow ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences ; Michael Piotrowski University of Lausanne

Abstract

Linguistic modeling of the writing process has gained in importance in recent years. Existing models, both from a linguistic perspective focusing on syntactic analyses as used in natural language processing and from writing research, are insufficient to actually linguistically explain what authors do when writing and revising. Writing is linear in time, but writers are free to move to any point in the text produced so far whenever they want, thus producing specific parts (e.g., sentences) in a non-linear fashion. However, the final product is a linear sequence of sentences. We therefore can interpret writing texts as a sentence-driven process. In this new framework, this article proposes a model of the production of sentences during writing. This sentence-centric model builds on existing considerations of transforming sequences, bursts and revisions, and takes into account aspects of linearity and non-linearity on the sentence level. We present a working implementation (available as open source software) and show which information can be gained by the resulting analyses in a small case study.

Journal
Journal of Writing Research
Published
2025-02-01
DOI
10.17239/jowr-2025.16.03.05
CompPile
Open Access
OA PDF Diamond
Topics
qualitative research
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