THE WRITING STRATEGIES OF GRADUATE RESEARCH STUDENTS IN THE SOCIAL-SCIENCES

A 35-item questionnaire concerning writing habits, experiences of writ ing and productivity was sent to 228 full-time, U.K. domiciled, social science research students. One hundred and one complete responses wer e received. Cluster analysis was used to identify three distinct group s of students in terms of the strategies they used when writing: ''Pla nners'', who planned extensively and then made few revisions, ''Revise rs'', who developed content and structure through extensive revision, and ''Mixed Strategy'' writers, who both planned before starting to wr ite and revised extensively as part of their writing processes. The Pl anners reported higher productivity than both the Revisers and Mixed S trategy Writers. Planners and Revisers did not differ significantly in how difficult they found writing to be; Planners found writing less d ifficult than did the Mixed Strategy Writers. We conclude that working from a plan can be an effective writing strategy for some, but that p lanning is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for writing success.