Written Communication Jul 1990

Cognitive Correlates of Explanatory Writing Skill: An Analysis of Individual Differences

KATHERINE E. ROWAN

Abstract

Explaining difficult ideas to lay readers is an important and frequently needed writing skill. When explaining, writers must recognize and overcome the confusions that lay readers may experience in learning abstract concepts. To date, there has been little study of this demanding writing skill. Consequently, this article identifies a particular class of explanatory discourse and proposes working hypotheses about the types of knowledge likely to be associated with skill in this genre. These hypotheses are explored through a study of individual differences in explanatory writing skill among 169 college students. The results of the study showed that variations in the accuracy and adaptiveness of the students' explanations were partially accounted for by measures of topic knowledge, social cognition, and discourse knowledge. A discourse knowledge index and a topic knowledge index were correlated with explanatory writing skill. Cognitive complexity, a measure of social cognition, was associated with adaptiveness in explaining but not accuracy. These findings suggest that explanatory skill is a function of several types of knowledge and that it may be as dependent on discourse or rhetorical knowledge as it is on topical expertise.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1990-07-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088390007003002
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
rhetorical criticism genre theory discourse analysis
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (4)

  1. Kline et al. (2008)
    Procedural Explanations in Mathematics Writing: A Framework for Understanding C…
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  2. James (2008)
    The Influence of Perceptions of Task Similarity/Difference on Learning Transfer…
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  3. Chambliss et al. (2003)
    Fourth Graders Composing Scientific Explanations About the Effects of Pollutant…
    Written Communication
  4. Rowan (1991)
    When Simple Language Fails: Presenting Difficult Science to the Public
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

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CrossRef global citation count: 11 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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