RUNNING HEAD: THE STUDY OF A STUDENT FOR A STUDENT
The Study of a Student for a Student
Alexander Foster
Oakland University
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Abstract
I am an Oakland University student participating in an autoethnography paper. Autoethnography
is a form of self-reflection where a writer studies his or her writing process through recording
themselves. In 1979, Sondra Perl conducted a read aloud protocol composed of five unskilled
college writers and studied their writing styles. Carol Berkenkotter followed Perl’s research in
1981, only studying one published writer and studying his writing styles as well. I engaged in a
study myself. I recorded myself while summarizing Berkenkotter’s and Perl’s studies. I found
many results from my research that I did not expect to find. My writing process turned out to be
a little different than I guessed it would. I did not spend nearly as much time as I thought I would
have on rereading material. My study can be used by researchers to give to teachers to help their
students. Teachers can teach younger writers improve their writing styles by not making
mistakes that I made within my paper.
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The Study of a Student by a Student
Many people conduct studies on other people, animals, or other objects. Autoethnography
pertains to the study of you by you. Answering such questions as “How do I write?” and “What
do I do effectively or ineffectively?” is the research done during autoethnography.
Autoethnography is basically a self-evaluation of how one writes. It helps to gain a better
understanding of what one needs to improve on while writing and what one does well.
Autoethnography dates back to 1979, Sondra Perl studied unskilled writers behavior that were in
college. Perl found very little that was random about their writing approach. One studies himself
by voicing every single thought, no matter how crazy or random they might be, and recoding
them. Even recording your phone calls, distractions, and random thoughts all helps when going
back to study the recording.
Literature Review
Sondra Perl took on the challenge of working with unskilled workers to help college
professors improve unskilled writers’ writing process. In Perl’s study, “The Composing
Processes of Unskilled College Writers” (1979), Perl researched five unskilled college writers
and focused on how they write and how teachers can improve their writing process being taught
in schools (pp. 192). Each student met with the researcher for five 90-minute sessions. Four
sessions were devoted to writing with the students directed to compose aloud, and to externalize
their thinking processes as much as possible, during each session (pp. 194). Perl made a coding
of what the students were doing while writing (pp. 196). Behaviors of students were depicted
graphically to show their duration and sequence (pp. 197). A major finding of this study is that
all of the students studied displayed consistent composing processes (pp. 204).
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Carol Berkenkotter took a page out of Perl’s book by starting her own research similar to
Perl’s. Berkenkotter stated in her study “Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a
Publishing Writer” (1981) that “If we are to understand how writers revise, we must pay close
attention to the context in which revision occurs.” (pp. 218). With that being said, Berkenkotter
chose to study a skilled writer by the name of Donald Murray to study his writing process.
Berkenkotter conducted a study where she listened to him daily while recording his thoughts
aloud as he worked on two articles, including a short story, and an editorial. Berkenkotter paid
close attention to the setting in which Murray was writing in and the kind of task Murray
composed (pp. 218). Also, Berkenkotter allowed Murray to see what he noticed about his own
writing process.
Berkenkotter’s study took place in three stages over a period of 62 days (pp. 219). For the
first study, Murray took a tape recorder when he left in the morning to record his thoughts aloud
whenever he was working. During the second stage, Berkenkotter gave Murray the task of
recording himself for only an hour in a laboratory setting instead of his own environment. On
these tapes, Murray compared his composing in his normal environment versus in a laboratory
setting (pp. 220). During the third stage, Berkekenkotter visited Murray at his home for two days
to observe him thinking aloud as he performed his writing task (p. 220).
In her study, Berkenkotter was primarily concerned with the writer’s planning, revising,
and editing activities (pp. 222). Berknekotter made plenty of observations during her study about
Murray. The data the Berkenkotter collected showed that up to 45%, 56%, and 35% of the
writer’s activities were concerned with planning (pp. 222). The study of Murray showed
professional writers spent the majority of their time planning.
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Berkenkotter and Perl’s studies gave me an idea of what an autoethnography is all about.
I can relate to many of the aspects of Berkenkotter’s study on Murray, pertaining to writing in a
set environment. I usually like on a quiet area of a library but taking one out of their comfort
zone can affect their writing process. I can also relate to Perl’s research studying unskilled
college writers considering I am a college writer. In Perl’s research, Perl noted “there is very
little that is random…in what they have written.” (pp. 204) meaning unskilled writers still follow
the same protocol when writing. I too follow the same process when writing no matter what the
subject matter is. The research I did is similar to Perl’s and Berkenkotter’s, only I recorded
myself and studied myself. I studied myself by recording myself voice all my thoughts aloud so I
can study my writing process and see what I do well and what I need to improve on.
Methods
During the course of doing my research, I recorded myself five times, two which were
audio only and three of which were audio and video. All five of the recordings took place on my
desk in my bedroom on my laptop. My first recording was early in the morning with only my
brother at my house so there was little outside distractions that could have affected me. I set up
my phone’s front camera by leaning my phone on my computer so that the front camera was
facing me, that way I was able to get an audio and visual recording to also study my motions. My
other three recordings were audio only with my family, which were possible distractions.
Throughout my writing process, I didn’t have as many distractions as I thought. My main
distraction was the camera. I was really focused on whether or not I was loud enough for the
camera to hear me and the camera angle. I even had to stop my first recording to see if I was loud
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enough for the camera. I think the fact that I was recording myself also helped me stay on task
because it kept me away from playing on my phone as much.
I ran into a few hardships while recording. Speaking my every thought aloud took some
time to get adjusted to. A lot of time during my recording was silence from reading but other
times I may have forgot to voice my thoughts. Also about half way through my first recording,
my jaw began to hurt from talking so much. Through voicing my thoughts, I realized I have a lot
more random thoughts than I expected to have. I began to have thoughts about topics that were
completely unrelated to Perl and Berkenkotter’s research.
While writing my summary and answering my question, I feel like I spent too much time
rereading the text. I found myself going back and reading the text the majority of the time when I
studied my recordings. Next, I had to write the transcript of my recordings and also code them. I
had many codes already in mind because Perl put codes in her research that I could relate to.
After I made my transcript and coded it, I began to notice some things about my writing that I
had not noticed before. I noticed that I do a lot more planning than I expected.
Results
After conducting my experiment and studying my transcript, I learned something new
about my writing process. First, what I noticed immediately while I was coding my transcript
was a lot more “Wr” (writing) codes at the end of the transcript in recording #5 than at the
beginning of my transcript in recording #1. I was doing more writing in fifth recording because I
felt like I was pressed for time. I knew that I wanted to be done with the assignment soon
because the deadline was approaching so I began to kick it into gear and speed up my thought
process to finish in time. But during the first and second recordings, I was doing a lot of
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brainstorming, planning, and rereading of the text with less writing. A lot of random thoughts
were in the first recordings because of the time remaining that I had to complete the assignment,
I was being lackadaisical.
Also, before I started to record myself, I guessed what percentage of my time would be
spent on the codes that I made up for myself. I guessed that 35% of my time would go to writing,
20% would go to rereading material, 30% would be thinking and random thoughts, 5%
brainstorming, 6% commenting, and 4% pausing. I was accurate with about only two of guesses.
Throughout my writing time, I spent 4% pausing and 5% brainstorming, which is what I guessed.
I spent only 14% of my time writing and only 3% of my time rereading material, which was a lot
less than I expected. Planning was also something that I did not expect to see much of but
surprisingly, I spent 7% of my time planning.
Discussion
The information that I received from my research means a lot. Researchers can use this
information for comparison to high school writers to compare writing styles of a college
freshman to a high school senior. Researchers can study the bad aspects of a college freshman’s
autoethnography and go back to lower education, high school seniors, to teach them what a
college freshman lacks in. Higher education students, such as graduate students, can also use a
college freshman’s paper to be shown not what to do at that specific level. Also, there were
limitations to my writing. I am not a scholarly writer nor am I a published writer. In order for this
to be a close to perfect paper, it would have to be reviewed by more than just two people. Having
more eyes reviewing your paper gives it a better chance at finding mistakes that one person may
have overlooked.
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Reference Page
Perl, S. (1979). The composing processes of unskilled college writers. In E. Wardle & D.
Downs (Eds.), Writing About Writing. (pp. 191-217). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin.
Berkenkotter, C. (1981). Decisions and revisions: the planning strategies of a published writer. In
E. Wardle & D. Downs (Eds.), Writing About Writing. (pp. 218 – 230). Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin.
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Appendices
Appendix A
Summary of Perl’s research
Perl chose to study writers that were not necessarily the best writers to provide teachers with a
better understanding on how to improve writing problems of students. Perl used Tony, a 20 year
old ex-Marine, as her lab rat in her experiment. Perl researched three major questions, (1) how
do unskilled writers write? (2) Can their writing processes be analyzed in a systematic, replicable
manner? And (3) What does an increased understanding of their process suggest about the nature
of composing in general the manner in which writing is taught in the schools? Results in the end
showed that the student’s approach was nothing out of the ordinary.
List of Tony’s problems:
- Tony never wrote more than two sentences before he began to edit, interrupting his composing
rhythm.
- Tony spent more time prewriting and writing in the extensive mode, he produced fewer words.
- Tony reflected a low level of generality.
- Ideas in essay were not fully developed.
- When asked questions not pertaining to his experiences and being asked to discuss concepts, he
experienced difficulty. He came across more pauses and a slower thought process.
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- Most time spent proof reading instead of changing, rephrasing, adding, or evaluating the
substantive parts. When he was editing his paper, he was looking at minor mistakes such as
additions and deletions and vocabulary.
- Grammar issues.
I have trouble fully developing my ideas when writing. I tried solving this problem by using an
outline, but outlines usually do not work that well for me. Also, when rereading my papers and in
my editing mode I look at vocabulary mistakes and where I can add or delete words. It is hard for
me to find errors within my own paper. The peer editing process is the most helpful solution to
finding problems in my paper.
Summary of Berkenkotter’s research
Carol Berkenkotter was eager to learn more about understanding how writers revise their work.
Carol recorded Donald M. Murray in order to pay close attention to the context in which his
revision process occurs. Carol had Donald compose a thinking-aloud protocol where Donald
speaks all of his thoughts no matter how random or crazy they might seem while revising his
own work. Murray discovered many things while studying himself. Murray became aware of the
role that the audience plays in his thoughts. Murray also found he was able to work better on
familiar material than unfamiliar material.
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Question #1
My impression of Murray’s writing was that it is easy for him write about things that he had
interest in. In the article, it mentions that Murray dictated three pages of the fourth of eight
drafts. Writing eight drafts lets you know that Murray takes the revision process of his writing
very seriously. One of the many differences between Murray and I is amount of drafts that we
make. I usually make one draft and bring it to my class for peer editing, contrary to Murray’s
eight drafts. Murray also seemed to be very good at planning by writing plenty of notes in a
daybook and often referring back to them. I usually am not that good at planning. I don’t use
outlines because I never use them when I start my writing process; everything comes off the top
of my head. Murray and I do have similarities also. Berkenkotter mentions within the text that
Murray uses his wife as his partner in work who he gives his drafts to for editing. I also have a
work partner that I give all my drafts to during my revision process. It is nice to have a consistent
partner that edits your work because they can see you develop your writing skills over time.
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Appendix B
First recording
(pushes glasses up) Alright I took a couple notes down while I was writing, or reading
and um now I’m just about to put them together so I can write this summary (pause) of this
essay. (stops and pulls up sleeves) I want to start off by talking about why she ummm or is it a
he? Carol, could be either. I want to start off by saying why did Carol begin the essay so I want
to say that (typing) Carol Berkenkotter of course the computer will think that’s misspelled. Umm
began to oops I spelled began wrong to (pause) record (mumbling, reading the text) wants to
learn more or was eager to learn more was eager to learn more about understanding how
writer’s revise their work. (long pause) Carol (pause followed by typing) recorded Donald
Murray in order to place attention (burp) to the context which is revision process occurs (pause)
now I’m about to go through and talk about what he did I guess. The first few couple pages
weren’t that important I noticed while I was reading. (long pause) talking about how they met in
the beginning. (lots of mumbling) Carol had Donald (very long pause) compose a thinking aloud
protocol with Donald speaking I spelled Donald wrong all of his thoughts while revising his own
work. What is this? 53 words. I only wrote a couple sentences so far and I already have half
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of…anyway. (mumbling/reading) (eyes wandering on comp. screen) instead of with where
Donald where Donald speaks all his thoughts no matter no matter no matter how (scratches chin)
crazy they might seem while revising his own work. (pull up sleeves and takes a sip of water)
(mumbling) also takes video recorder wherever he goes. Second stage there’s three stages. I’ma
just kind of skip to the end since I already got like 63 words. (Silence) Stop recording to see if it
worked.
Recording #2
Alright still working on the summary or the little article or whatever, what else can I say
since I got 6/10 or 3/5’s of the words down. Ohh (points) part of the paper that says summary,
I’m pretty sure it has a summary. (mumbling/reading) Just skimming through things looking for
important things that I can write down so I can get this summary done by 10:45 which is in 10
more minutes. (mumbling) Oh I wrote notes down. This is why I don’t use the outline because I
always go back to the text and never use them. (Scratch on head) what was I writing?
(pause/mumbling) These notes really don’t have anything to do with the summary, its more
about comparing writing styles, the second question. (silence) umm I guess I’m gonna talk about
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some discoveries. (laughs) Murray discovered many things studying himself. I’m gonna save it.
Oh well actually, (silence/reading) Oh okay I can talk about the audience. Oh yeah good job!
Murray umm became aware of ummmmm the role of the role role that the audience plays in his
thoughts. (silence) articulated. (deep breathe/shakes head) (fixing camera angle)
(silence/reading) I think I got it. I’m gonna write this sentence that talks about the most
important…(fixes camera) I’ll put my brush here to stop it. It’s still moving it…wow. (reading) I
don’t know how to put that though (stretch and deep breath) (silence) lets see Murray’s protocols
(silence) my brother not even out the bed yet he usually out the bed by ten thirty. He looking
lazy. Anyway. I got a metric conversion factor table under my glass. I really need this for my
chemistry class. I really need that. (mumbling) dang its 10:35 and I’m still not done. All I had to
do was write a paragraph with 100 words and I’m still not done. I took like twenty minutes on
this. Or more. Anyway, I need to hurry up. Demonstrated that material he was able to what does
articulate mean, what are synonyms for that. Articulate his thoughts a lot quicker than he
(silence) now I got 99 words. (silence) my jaw starting to hurt I don’t like talking man. I hate
talking too much because my jaw start hurting. (long silence) this is actually distracting me from
my work, this camera, I’m too focused on this and I’m not even focused on my work. He
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demonstrated that I shouldn’t have deleted that man (deep breath plus sigh) I’m going to redo all
of this. Back to where I started. Oh I got to look up some track times. (Stop recording because
phone ran out of recording time and played on my phone some.)
Recording #3
Was easy for him oh I lost my train of thought, easy for him to…write about things that
he had interest in. in the article in mentioned that Murray dictated eight drafts. (scratches head)
(mumbling/typing) I’m looking for something about Murray and his wife working together and I
don’t see it. Oh yeah I have it on my phone.
Recording #4
Alright I’m going to try to answer this question…as I read. Alright, recursiveness, I don’t
know what that means and I lost where I was at. Oh here I am, I’m going to write these things
down like bullet points and then put them in paragraph form. I’m going to write this down even
though they already said it. (reading/mumbling) Alright I got it, tony (pause) never wrote more
than two sentences before he went to edit. Interrupting his composing rhythym. I’ll write the
page down too so I can refer to it, I’ll write the first one down too even though they already
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wrote it. (reading) so it was no room, I’m rereading this again so I can…I’m just going to say
that Tony’s composing process was so full that it was little room left for improvement or change.
Here’s a table about what he was writing and I don’t know what this is talking about. I’m not
going to even look at it. (reading/slience) okay tony produced fewer words when prewriting than
writing. Writing time. (reading/mumbling) tony produced more words in his time…(typing)
strategies. My brother’s name is tony (mumbling)
Recording #5
Alright my camera ran out of space to record, now I have to use this voice memo. Alright
where was I at, writing down everything that umm Tony did bad so I can umm put it in
paragraph form, I just have it in paragraph form now. (reading) Reflected low level of generality,
I don’t know what that means. Tony reflected a low level of generality, know what I’m saying,
(reading) Ahhh! Ideas in essay were not really developed as they tend to do this also this is on
page 12 so I can refer to it if I need to. Huh? Hi Mom. Homework. Homework. Okay.
(mumbling) When asked questions pertaining to his experiences and being asked to discuss
concepts from difficult experienced, had hard time writing about things he did not know about.
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(reading) More pauses and slower thought process page 12. (mumbling/reading) Most time spent
proof reading instead of changing, rephrasing, adding, or evaluating the substance parts.
(pause) lets see. I already read that. (reading) Oh here go a list right here, what he was talking
about. Oh so basically when he was editing his paper he was looking for minor mistakes such as
additions and deletions and vocabulary instead of major issues. (reading) okay grammar issues, I
never really have those. (mumbling) oo oh wow. Mannnnn. (reading) alright alright alright, I’ll
read the summary, this can be the part I use for the summary, yeah for Tony, my brother.
(reading) that didn’t help me. Dang man there’s more, I don’t want to read the rest of this. Oh my
God, I think I have enough for what I want to talk about. But now I feel like one of those guys
we were reading about, just doing enough to get an A. I have trouble I misspelled trouble I have
trouble fully developing my ideas when writing. I tried to solve this problem by I got a text
message, I’ll look at this real quick. Anyway, staying more on topic. I try to solve this problem
by using an outline but they usually don’t work that well for me. What else can I say?
(mumbling) (laugh at my brother).
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Appendix C
Table 1
1. Commenting [txt] – Sighing making a comment or judgment about the topic.
2. Pausing [()] – Period of no thoughts
3. Distraction [D] – getting off task by an outside source or thought
4. Questioning [Q] – Asking a question
5. Planning [PL] – Talking about what will come next in the writing process
6. Stray thought [{}] – Thought process veering off path to topics unrelated to the paper
7. Brainstorming [@] – Thinking of ideas on how to incorporate your thoughts into the
paper
8. Thinking [?] – All thoughts that are in my head whether random or paper related
9. Recouping [Rc] – Getting back on track from random thoughts and distractions
10. Silence [S] – No words being said at the moment but maybe thoughts are still being
generated
11. Writing [Wr] – typing on the computer
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12. Rereading [Rere] – Rereading the text for information that I forgot or need to put in my
paper
13. Reading [R] – Reading the text for information
14. Losing place [X] – Losing place while reading
15. Writing burst [WB] – Excitedly finding out what you want to put into the paper after
brainstorming and thinking
16. Changing sentence structure [Ess] – Writing a sentence and rereading what you wrote to
go back to make changes within the sentence
17. Stuck [Stu] – the “ummm” in the coding where not sure what to write but have an idea.
Usually before a writing burst
18. Mumbling [M] – reading through the text but not saying every word or having thoughts
but not voicing them clearly
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Table 2
Recording #1
Rc – () – Rc - ? - @ - {} – PL – Wr – {} - ? – txt – () – M – Ess – () – () – () – PL - @ - () –
M – Wr – () – txt – Wr – Q – PL – M – Rere - ? – D – Ess – Rc – M – PL - @ - S – D – PL
Recording #2
Txt - @ - WB – M – PL – M – WB - ? – txt – Q – () – M – stu – S – PL – D – Wr – WB – S –
Rere- WB – Wr – stu – S – stu – Rc – D – S – WB – PL – D - ? – D – Rere – Stu – Rc – S – S
- ? – D – D - ? – M - ? - @ - PL – Wr – stu – Wr – S – PL – S – stu - ? – S – D - ? – Wr – txt
– Rc – ? – D – D
Recording #3
Wr – X – Wr – M – Wr – PL
Recording #4
PL – stu – X – PL - @ - R – M – WB – Wr – () - @ - R – Rere – txt – Wr – txt – stu – Q – {}
– R – S – Wr – R – M – Wr - ? – M
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Recording #5
Rc – X – PL – stu – Wr – R – WB – Wr – D – txt – M – Wr – Wr – M – R – Wr – () – Rere –
stu – WB – Wr – R - ? – M – txt – Rc - ? – R – stu - ? – Q – {} – {} – Wr – Wr - @ - {} – D –
Wr – Wr – Wr – Q - @ - {} – M – D
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Appendix D
On paper. To be turned in on Tuesday.