Individual differences in undergraduate essay-writing strategies: A longitudinal study

Analysis of questionnaire responses describing the writing processes associ ated with a total of 715 essays (term papers) produced by undergraduate psy chology students identified four distinct patterns of writing behaviour: a minimal-drafting strategy which typically involved the production of one or at most two drafts; an outline-and-develop strategy which entailed content development both prior to and during drafting; a detailed-planning strateg y which involved the use of content-development methods (mindmapping, brain storming or rough drafting) in addition to outlining, and a "think-then-do" strategy which, unlike the other three strategies, did not involve the pro duction of a written outline. The minimal-drafting and outline-and-develop strategies appeared to produce the poorest results, with the latter being m ore time consuming. The detailed-planning and "think-then-do" strategies bo th appeared to result in better quality essays, although differences were s mall. We analysed the writing strategies for a subset of these essays produ ced by a cohort of 48 students followed through the three years of their de gree course. We found some evidence of within-student consistency in strate gy use with on average two out of every three of a student's essays being w ritten using the same type of strategy. There was no evidence of systematic change in writing strategy from year to year.