TR 32. Foundations for Creativity in the Writing Process: Rhetorical Representations of Ill-defined Problems
By: Linda J. Carey, Linda Flower
Publication: National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report
Date: June 1989
Summary: This paper examines the composing process of expert writers working in expository genres. Taking a problem-solving perspective, the authors address the concept of creativity in writing as it is embedded in ordinary cognitive processes.
Excerpt
Creating tests and sub-goals could have the result that a writer only deals with the isolated local problems and loses sight of the larger context. For example, meeting the goal to introduce some new technical terminology could interact with a more global goal to maintain a chatty, informal tone. Experts try to maintain this part/whole balance in part by invoking global tests. For instance, towards the end of the protocol of one of our expert writers, after he has made a number of local revisions, the writer decides to "read (his text) over and see what it sounds like" to test for a potential whole text problem: "I have a feeling there is still a shift in tone. The first paragraph is more formal and it gets less formal as it goes along." Thus the problem-solver is able to shift back and forth from representing local problems to seeing their global effects.
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