Writing knowledge and writing process: A case study of four aspiring engineering students' composing processes

摘要

This descriptive exploratory study investigates what aspiring engineering students have internalized about a process approach to writing and how they apply this rhetorical knowledge in writing situations beyond the required freshman composition course. Using student interviews and written artifacts, I examine students' understanding of writing process and the factors that influence their composing processes with the ultimate goal of improving the teaching of a process approach to writing across disciplines and contributing to existing conversations on knowledge transfer. The interviews give students the opportunity to reflect upon their writing practices at different levels and for different courses, subject areas, and disciplines and to consider the contexts which influence their approach to writing. Students' written products, on the other hand, can reveal the characteristic features of their composing processes and how often and for what purpose students actually employ a process approach to writing. Understanding how students conceptualize, internalize, and articulate writing as a process is an essential step towards revealing how and when writing knowledge transfer occurs in academic contexts.;This study is timely because composition as a discipline is currently engaged with issues of knowledge transfer particularly as they relate to writing. In addition, technical communication and engineering as disciplines are searching for ways to improve the communicative demands of the engineering professions, colloquially referred to 'soft skills,' in part because of Engineering Criteria (EC) 2000 established by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).