HOW INITIAL PLANS MEDIATE THE EXPANSION AND RESOLUTION OF OPTIONS IN WRITING

Effects of a period of planning prior to writing (''pre-writing'') and of the writing medium on the content and quality of writing were exam ined in two between-subjects experiments. In Experiment 1, subjects wr ote short narratives either immediately after instruction or following a 5-minute pre-writing period; half of each group used pen and paper; the other half used a word processor. Both pre-writing and word proce ssing resulted in more changes to text content, resulting in compositi ons that were judged as more sophisticated and creative. Experiment 2 demonstrated that pre-writing using a written outline decreases conten t revisions compared to non-written pre-writing. Verbal protocols indi cated that non-written pre-writing was focused on content generation, whereas outlines were associated with more conceptual planning. To acc ount for these data we propose several additions to the Haves and Flow er (1980) cognitive model of the writing process. Both pre-writing and word processing are viewed as expanding the alternatives to be consid ered, i.e. ''option expansion''. During writing the options are resolv ed during pauses and through changes to text content, i.e. ''option re solution''.