A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing

1981/12/01 by Linda Flower, John R. Hayes · 3,511 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · #Discourse Analysis in Language Studies #Language, Metaphor, and Cognition #Rhetoric and Communication Studies #Process (computing) #Cognition #Writing process #Psychology #Linguistics #Sociology #Mathematics education #Computer science #Philosophy #Programming language

paper · doi:10.2307/356600

published in College Composition and Communication 32(4), 365 (National Council of Teachers of English)

openalex publication_date 1981/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

There is a venerable tradition in rhetoric and composition which sees the composing process as a series of decisions and choices.1 However, it is no longer easy simply to assert this position, unless you are prepared to answer a number of questions, the most pressing of which probably is: What then are the criteria which govern that choice? Or we could put it another way: What guides the decisions writers make as they write? In a recent survey of composition research, Odell, Cooper, and Courts noticed that some of the most thoughtful people in the field are giving us two reasonable but somewhat different answers:

Citations

• The Cognition of Discovery: Defining a Rhetorical Problem

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