Abstract
Many teachers hoped that word processing would encourage students to take greater risks and make more structural changes in their writing. Unfortunately, research has shown this has not been the case. To revise at the structural level, novice writers need to develop skills closer to those that expert writers possess — the abilities to detect, diagnose, and remedy problems within their writing. This article suggests that integrating generic word processing functions with revising strategies can help students develop these skills. The methods described in this article help novice writers establish a repertoire of revising strategies that, while not expert, certainly move them beyond the novice stage. At the same time, these methods encourage students to rely less on peer and teacher intervention for detecting, diagnosing, and remedying structural problems. Students begin to internalize revising strategies that they can use independently.
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Erna Kelly is an Associate Professor of English and the Technical Writing Internship Director at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Her research interests include computers and writing, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature, and emblem books. One of her more recent publications, “Processing Words and Writing Instructions,” appeared in Writing At Century's End, New York: Random House, 1987.
Donna Raleigh heads the Academic Computing Center's User Services unit at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She teaches courses in the Computer Science and the English Departments and researches the effects of writing with a word processor. In May, 1989, she presented “The Effects of Word Processing Experience on the Revising Strategies of Inexperienced Writers” at the Fifth Computers and Writing Conference.
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Kelly, E., Raleigh, D. Integrating word processing skills with revision skills. Comput Hum 24, 5–13 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00115025
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00115025