The Psychology of Writing: The Affective Experience

(Hardback)

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This timely work provides a new perspective on the study of writing. Alice Glarden Brand studies the affective aspects of writing, writer's emotional arousal, and processes. Current work in the field is dominated by the cognitive view, the intellectual process of writing. Brand argues that to be complete, theories of writing must include the affective component. Apart from research on writers' block and apprehension, almost no research addresses emotions in writing. Empirical studies of five groups are presented in the book--college writers, advanced expository writers, professional writers, student poets, and teachers of writing. Examined are the intensity and frequency of 20 emotional states experienced while writing. Representative case studies and writing samples enrich the reader's understanding of human feeling and written language. The Psychology of Writing begins with personal accounts of the emotions of literary figures. It then describes the affective bases of linguistic thought, with background on English education and the cognitive model of writing.dA chapter is devoted to the psychology of emotion. Next, an operational framework for the studies is outlined and the research program described. The reports of the five writing populations are followed by the conclusion in which the results are summarized and research opportunities are proposed. Educators, psychologists, and discourse specialists--all those concerned with the serious study of writing--will find The Psychology of Writing a significant work.

Reviews

." . . what I see as the main message of this important book of research: that even though we now stand in need of a kind of compensatory "affirmative action" focus on feelings in writing, we must not neglect either thinking or feeling; that feelings usually create and partly consist of cognitive acts; and that cognition usually comes intertwined with feelings."-From the Foreword by Peter Elbow
"The Psychology of Writing is a pioneering work in what may be an important area of writing research. It offers a starting place for anyone who is concerned with issues of how composing takes place. It offers possibiltites for more research, and it offers some practical suggestions for the writing classsroom. Alice Brand's careful, thoughtful work deserves a careful reading from the profession."-Walter S. Minot Rhetoric Review

Author Bio

ALICE GLARDEN BRAND is Director of Composition, State University of New York at Brockport. She is a writing and rhetoric specialist with particular interest in personality and writing, composing styles, and cognitive models of writing. She is also a practicing and published poet.