A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing

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: