Expert writing – divine inspiration or hard work?

A mystical air has surrounded writing and story-telling ever since the song goddess of the ancient Greeks. Still today many believe that really good writing is always fluent and straightforward. But how do they really do it, the experts? This project aims to use keystroke-logging to study the cognitive processes behind text production of expert writers (authors and journalists).

A mystical air has surrounded writing and story-telling ever since the song goddess of the ancient Greeks. Still today many believe that really good writing is always fluent and straightforward. But how do they really do it, the experts? This project aims to study the cognitive processes behind text production of expert writers (authors and journalists). In doing so, we will use a) keystroke logging for a longitudinal study, and b) keystroke logging in combination with eye-tracking for an experimental study. The experimental data will be compared with written data from children and non-expert adults, collected in previously projects investigating the process and development of writing. This comparison will help to build a theory of the development of writing, from early school age, to the expert performance.

The project will specifically address the following issues: 1) quantitative and/or qualitative differences regarding linguistic criteria between texts (the product) by expert and non-expert writers; 2) quantitative and/or qualitative differences in the process of writing between expert and non-experts; 3) what the differences look like and how can they be explained. The results will make an important contribution to the fundamental knowledge about expertise and problem solving, and help in describing the different developmental stages of writing. Last, but not least, it will have crucial implications for writing instruction.