The study was conducted to determine whether there is a relationship between problem-discovery and the assessed originality of the written product, and to determine whether problem-finding behavior is observable in student writers. This relationship was examined at two stages: the problem-formulation and problem-solution stages. Two groups of middle school writers, a high creative group and a low creative group, participated in the study. Results indicated a relationship between problem-finding and the originality of the product. The creative group scores were higher, though not always significantly, than the noncreative group scores in a direction one would predict based on correlational research done with artists. The way a student approaches a writing problem is directly related to the originality of the product.

Incoming freshmen are typically required to write essays which are then holistically rated to determine composition course placement. These placement essays vary not only in topic, but also in the way the topic is structured. Two topic structures are most commonly used: Open (students draw on their own knowledge) and Response (students read a given text and respond to it). It has been established that students perform differently on topic structure itself. To investigate this effect, one topic was used but presented as (1) an Open topic structure, (2) a Response topic structure with one reading passage, and (3) a Response topic structure with three reading passages. The essays, written by college freshmen, were holistically rated for quality and analyzed for fluency, total error, and error ratios. The results indicated that the structure of the topic made a difference in quality, fluency, and total error, but not in any error ratio. These results suggest that, for placement testing, one should first decide which types of students one wishes to identify because each topic structure distinguishes low, average, and high ability students differently.