Bannister, Linda

Writing Apprehension and Anti-Writing a Naturalistic Study of Composing Strategies Used by College Freshmen

1992 0-7734-9832-X
A study of the influence of writing apprehension on individual composing strategies, particularly in the planning component of the process. Two groups of freshmen composition students (high-apprehensives and low-apprehensives) served as subjects. The study reveals that apprehension associated with the forging of ideas elongates planning, while apprehension associated with the fear of evaluation results in postponement and compression of planning. The period of avoiding writing to nurture ideas is "anti-writing". Previous research suggests that alleviating writing apprehension is a necessity, but this study demonstrates that apprehension associated with planning -- anti-writing -- is very valuable.