BECOMING A SELF-REGULATED WRITER - A SOCIAL COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Becoming an adept writer involves more than knowledge of vocabulary an d grammar, it depends on high levels of personal regulation because wr iting activities are usually self-planned, self-initiated, and self-su stained. We present a social cognitive model of writing composed of th ree fundamental forms of self-regulation: environmental, behavioral, a nd covert or personal. Each of these triadic forms of self-regulation interact reciprocally via a cyclic feedback loop through which writers self-monitor and self-react to feedback about the effectiveness of sp ecific self-regulatory techniques or processes. Well known writers' pe rsonal descriptions of ten major self-regulatory techniques are recoun ted, and empirical studies demonstrating the effectiveness of these se lf-regulatory techniques are discussed. We conclude that writing self- regulation is a complex system of interdependent processes that are cl osely linked to an underlying sense of self-efficacy, and we discuss i mplications of the proposed model of self-regulatory processes and sel f-beliefs for guiding future research and developing innovative writin g instruction. (C) 1997 Academic Press.