Written Communication Jan 2011

A Time Use Diary Study of Adult Everyday Writing Behavior

Dale J. Cohen University of North Carolina Wilmington ; Sheida White National Institute for Education ; Steffaney B. Cohen University of North Carolina Wilmington

Abstract

The present study documents everyday adult writing by type of text and medium (computer or paper) in an in vivo diary study. The authors compare writing patterns by gender, race/ethnicity, educational attainment, age and working status. The study results reveal that (a) writing time varied with demographic variables for networkers, but these variations disappear for workers; (b) all demographic groups spent more time writing documents than prose; (c) most demographic groups spent an equal amount of time writing using computers and paper, but younger and higher educated groups spent more writing time on the computer, while older and less educated groups spent more time writing using paper than the computer; and (d) workers spent more time writing using computers than paper. Implications of the study findings are discussed, and suggestions for future research are also given.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
2011-01-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088310381260
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
digital rhetoric race and writing gender and writing
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (3)

  1. Tham et al. (2026)
    The User Experience of Virtual Reality for Longitudinal Writing: A Diary Study …
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Lindenman et al. (2024)
    A Taxonomy of Life Writing: Exploring the Functions of Meaningful Self-Sponsore…
    Written Communication
  3. Rumsey (2018)
    Holding on to Literacies: Older Adult Narratives of Literacy and Agency
    Literacy in Composition Studies

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CrossRef global citation count: 7 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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