A number of studies have found that writers produce text in bursts of language. That is, when creating a text, writers produce a few words, pause, produce a few more words, pause, and so on. Chenoweth and Hayes (2003) hypothesized that language bursts occur when writers translate ideas in to new language. This study tested this hypothesis against the following two alternative hypotheses: (a) Language bursts are caused by proposing new ideas rather than by translating ideas in to written language and (b) language bursts depend on the form of the input to the writing process rather than on the translation process. The study employed an editing task in which participants were required to translate a written language input. The alternative hypotheses led to contradictory predictions about writers' performance in this task. The study also explored the impact of working memory restrictions on task performance.

Generally, researchers agree that that verbal working memory plays an important role in cognitive processes involved in writing. However, there is disagreement about which cognitive processes make use of working memory. Kellogg has proposed that verbal working memory is involved in translating but not in editing or producing (i.e., typing) text. In this study, the authors used articulatory suppression, a technique that reduces working memory to explore this question. Twenty participants transcribed six texts from one computer window to another, three of the texts with articulatory suppression and three without. When participants were in the articulatory suppression condition, they transcribed significantly more slowly and made significantly more errors than they did in the control condition. Implications for Kellogg’s proposal are discussed.

This study explores the connection between writing and working memory, specifically the role of the subvocal articulatory rehearsal process (or inner voice). The authors asked the 18 participants to type sentences describing 24 multipanel cartoons. In some conditions, the participants were required to repeat a syllable continuously while writing. This activity, called articulatory suppression, interferes with the articulatory rehearsal process. Results indicated that interfering with the articulatory rehearsal process (or inner voice) interferes with writing by slowing the rate of writing, increasing mechanical errors, changing the temporal microstructure of text production, and increasing the perceived difficulty of the writing task. The authors applied their model of written text production to provide a theoretical account for these results.

This study explores the relation between fluency in writing and linguistic experience and provides information about the processes involved in written text composition. The authors conducted a think-aloud protocol study with native speakers of English who were learning French or German. Analysis reveals that as the writer's experience with the language increases, fluency (as measured by words written per minute) increases, the average length of strings of words proposed between pauses or revision episodes increases, the number of revision episodes decreases, and more of the words that are proposed as candidate text get accepted. To account for these results, the authors propose a model of written language production and hypothesize that the effect of linguistic experience on written fluency is mediated primarily by two internal processes called the translator and the reviser.

This article describes an assessment carried out in collaboration with the administrators of a large freshman English course. The assessment team worked with instructors to identify course goals and to design tasks that the instructors felt would fairly assess the extent to which the students achieved the goals. Students who did and did not take the course were both pre- and posttested on five central goals: critical reading, argument identification, differentiation of summary and paraphrase, understanding of key terms used in the course, and practical strategies for writing academic papers. Results of the assessment failed to indicate any substantial improvement on any of the five course goals for students who took the course. These results contrasted with positive outcomes obtained by the same assessment team with introductory history and statistics courses. The article concludes with reflections on why instructors may fail to recognize that their courses are not working.