Generating ideas in writing

David Galbraithd.galbraith@staffs.ac.uk

Centre for Educational Psychology ResearchStaffordshire University

Introduction

• Writing as discovery

• Two ideologies – Classical art of invention– Romantic self-expression

• Dual process model

Writing as problem solving (Hayes, 1996; Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1987)

• The thinking behind the text– Retrieval of content from long-term memory– Manipulation in working memory

• Knowledge telling v knowledge transforming– Adapting to external rhetorical constraints

• Problem solving all the way down?– Text production as local planning– Passive output process

Descriptions by expert writers (selected from Murray, 1978)

• W. H. Auden. Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.

• Robert Bolt: Writing a play is thinking, not thinking about thinking.

• E. M. Forster: How do I know what I think until I see what I say?

• Wright Morris: The language leads, and we continue to follow where it leads.

Self-monitoring(Snyder, 1987; Gangestad & Snyder, 2000) • High self-monitors

– are "particularly sensitive to the expression and self-presentation of relevant others in social situations and use these cues as guidelines for monitoring (that is regulating and controlling) their own verbal and non-verbal self-presentation".

– Assume that they are more likely to direct their writing towards rhetorical goals (external constraints).

• Low self-monitors’

– “expressive behaviour is controlled from within by their affective states (they express it as they feel it) rather than moulded and tailored to fit the situation".

– They are more likely to express their ideas directly as they unfold (internal constraints).

New ideas as a function of self-monitoring and mode of writing

Galbraith (1992, 1996)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Notes Prose

Low SMHigh SM

Knowledge transforming during planningGalbraith, Hallam, Olive & le Bigot (2009)

• 96 low and high self-monitors writing article about pros and cons of legalising cannabis.

• Three phases– listing ideas (phase 1) (5 minutes)– constructing outline (phase 2) (10 minutes)– writing article (30 minutes)

• Secondary tasks loading on different components of working memory during phase 2– Control– Visual– Spatial– General interference

Number of new ideas added in phase 2

Mean rating of text quality

Relationship between idea change and text quality

• R=.44, p<.001 (16% of the variance)– Greater similarity between list and outline

(LSA)– More new ideas– More rhetorical groupings in outline

• Reorganisation of existing content within new global structure that satisfies rhetorical constraints (knowledge transforming)

Cohmetrix analysis• Text quality correlated with 4 objective features

(R = .51, p <.001)– elaborated text– logical argument– global coherence– anaphoric reference (negative)

• All secondary task conditions showed higher levels of anaphoric reference

• Low SM more locally coherent text than high SM• Spatial condition less two-sided argument

Summary

• Knowledge transforming predicts text quality

• Disrupting outlining reduces text quality• Spatial component of working memory

required to represent content as distinct ideas

• Low and high self-monitors differ in how they produce text (local coherence)

Galbraith, Torrance & Hallam (2006)

• 96 low and high self-monitors writing an essay discussing whether the use of violence to achieve political aims can be justified.

• 3 writing conditions– Rough draft – Outline planned – Control

List ideas & rate relationships before writingWrite

List ideas & rate relationships after writing

Mean number of new ideas as a function of self-monitoring and writing condition

Mean harmony before and after writing as a function of writing condition and self-monitoring

Conclusion for text production

• Dispositionally guided writing, free from external constraints, leads to generation of novel content, coherently related to existing content

• Rhetorical organisation disrupts conceptual coherence of text

Dual process model(Galbraith, 2009)

• Knowledge-retrieval process

– Retrieval of ideas from explicit memory store (hippocampus)– Manipulation of ideas in working memory to create rhetorically appropriate global

model– Dependent on spatial component of working memory– Leads to creation of single knowledge object in episodic memory (but not

understanding)

• Knowledge-constituting process

– Synthesis of ideas within semantic memory (neo-cortex)– Dispositionally guided text production– Sequential process, not dependent on spatial component of working memory– Leads to formulation of ideas corresponding to writer’s implicit understanding of

the topic

A simple feedforward network• Units sum up input

activation and pass it on to next layer

• Superpositional storage– Fixed weights

represent knowledge and guide processing

• Contextually specific synthesis of output in response to input

Knowledge-constituting process

• Writer’s disposition = fixed connections between features in a high dimensional semantic space (internal constraints)

• Ideas created by constraint satisfaction within network (content synthesis)

• Successive utterances produced by inhibitory feedback from output to disposition (self-movement of thought)

Conclusion

• 2 different kinds of process– Explicit organising process to adapt to external

constraints– Implicit organising process guided by internal

constraints• Both processes required for effective writing• Fundamental conflict because processes are

optimised under opposing conditions• Self-concept influences conflict-management

strategy– Low SM prioritise knowledge-constituting – High SM prioritise knowledge-transforming