1/28 Annotation

A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing

The author ask what guides the decisions writers make as they write?"

Lloyd Bitzer: speech always occurs as a response to a rhetorical situation

So writing is not a rational choice but more like a painting process?

When you write, you put your goals on your text, with the smaller goals supporting the bigger one.

If text is like a child, then:

Prewriting: pregnant, Writing: giving birth, Rewriting: education

How cognitive writing is different than traditional writing? One is more non-linear?

“Study a writer in action” Think out loud.

3 major elements

the task environment

the writer's long-term memory

the writing processes

“people only solve the problems they define for themselves” This is very true. It’s like I can only ask a question if I can develop a question in this situation.

the writer's knowledge + writer's plans for dealing with the rhetorical problem

retrieving relevant information from long-term memory

Organizing is much more than merely ordering points.

Goals should be created by the writers themselves.

Even when the planning process represents one's thought in words, that representation is unlikely to be in the elaborate syntax of written English.

I think a better way to capture thought is to draw and paint it out, not everything can be described/translated by text.