The Study:
Carol Berkenkotter, in 1981, met Donald M. Murray at the Conference on College Composition and Communication meeting, where she proposed to Murray the idea to be a subject of her naturalistic study. In this study, she wanted to go the unconventional route for comprehending the writing process. Berkenkotter, in her study, sought out a problem of how there were no reports of researchers studying writers in a natural setting. Instead, it was typically in laboratories. At that time, researchers were observing young children in the classroom– Although those recent studies paved the way for those seeking new insight into the writing process, Berkenkotter felt that it was missing something. It had a “gap,” if you will, and she sought to differentiate her study to find that so-called gap. So, given the opportunity to examine a professional writer in his natural environment, with no “real-time” limit, was the perfect study here. The study took 62 days, and within that span, Murray, our professional lab rat here, wrote three writing pieces, transcribing his thoughts on a tape recorder whenever he was writing. It was from June 15th until August 15th, and Berkenkotter split the study into three stages, which we discuss later in this blog. The data/results from the study were shown in a table figure: For each writing piece Murray composed, the percentages of how much time Murray spent planning, evaluating, revising, and editing were tabulated.
Three Stages:
In the first stage, Murray would turn his tape recorder whenever he was working on his study, and, at times, he would keep it running if necessary. Opposing traditional writing studies, the subject was not in one setting here. Murray would turn the tape recorder on wherever and whenever he had a thought. He would record in the car, at the doctor’s office, restaurant, and his university office– Berkenkotter notes, “I accumulated over one hundred and twenty hours of tape.” In the second stage, Murray went to Berkenkotter’s university and was asked to write for an audience, subject, and purpose, all within an hour. Lastly, for stage three, Berkenkotter visited Murray at his home for two days and observed him as he revised a professional journal.
Results
As noted in the earlier section, the data in this study were the amount of time Murray spent on planning, evaluating, revising, and editing as he composed his writing. For the first piece Murray composed, “Journal of Basic Writing,” the data displayed that he spent 45% planning, 28% evaluating, 3% revising, and 24% editing. In the second writing, “College Composition and Communication,” he spent 56% planning, 21% evaluating, 3% revising, and 20% editing. In the final writing, “Editorial for Concord Monitor,” he spent 35% planning, 18% evaluating, 0% revising, and 47% editing. From the data I just described, we can conclude that Murray allocated most of his time to planning before he started writing. When I saw the numbers, I was shocked to realize that he did not revise often. However, Murray assured in his section of this study that planning was similar to revising. The planning process played a vital role in helping Murray compose a piece of writing. Realistically, this will not be the same for everyone, which is a good thing. Murray had two types of planning: “Process goals” and “Rhetorical goals.” Process goals were sub-plans that would help with the overall writing process, so essentially, small sub-goals, while rhetorical goals were how Murray assessed his writing to find ways to connect with the audience.
Thoughts
From reading this study, of course, being in an unknown territory, it was fairly complex to follow, but after a few reads, I comprehended the objective- more or less. It was fascinating to read about this because, I suppose, as an aspiring writer seeking improvement, it would be cool to learn where some of these percentages would fall if it were me as the lab rat here (or you if you are as fascinated by this as me). Granted, we have not read a lot about studies of the writing process quite yet, but it is exciting to know the development of writing studies. Typically, these studies would be young children in a classroom setting, but this was different. Also, I enjoyed how Murray had a section to describe how he felt about the study. Overall, the study was informative and a good read, especially if you wish to understand the thought process of Murray when writing. In that previous sentence, it would have been wrong of me to say “the thought process of most professional writers” because it would be silly to think all writers would fall within this percentage. Murray states, “I would be depressed if I am the model for other writers… there must be a glorious diversity among writers.” I think when I read this, I was thinking about comparing my “guesstimate” numbers to Murray’s data. Of course, I do not have any real data now, but soon, I should, and I wish to find out how I write. The only real note I can say is that Murray reminds me of George Dila’s article about avoiding a poor draft. Revisit my last blog post for context. I think Dila and Murray compose relatively similarly, as they are slowly planning and editing as they write.
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