1. “CREATIVITY IN RESEARCH
AND RESEARCH WRITING
What support do students at different levels need?”
Olga Dysthe
Department of Education, University of Bergen, Norway
Workshop Estudis de Psicologia i Ciències de l’Educació, 23. Oct, 2013

2. Overview
• Purpose: Provide background and strategies for discussion
of how to teach writing at different levels
• Introduction: Why focus on ‘creativity’?
I. Three traditions in writing research
and their view of creativity in writing & writing strategies:
Rhetorical Cognitive Sociocultural
II. Examples of a program for teaching acad. writing
Undergraduate Graduate Postgraduate
iii. Research on postgraduate students’ writing practices

3. Creativity and/or reproduction in writing
• Creativity presupposes a strong knowledge base:
• Much writing at undergraduate level is writing-to-learn
• Students need strategies for writing from sources
• Strategies for developing own ideas are crucial
• It is easier for students to learn to borrow ideas & reproduce well
• Thinking is hard work – and so is writing
• Students today will go to jobs where innovation and
creativity is a must

4. The rhetorical tradition

5. The rhetorical tradition – classical
• Aristoteles, Cicero, Quintilian ….
ORAL: How to make a speech that can convince the audience
5 Phases
• 1) inventio: finding out and choosing what to write (content)
• 2) dispositio: structuring the text
• 3) eloqutio: stylistic forming of the text
• 4) memoria: memorizing
Rhetorical writing pedagogy (US):
1) learning through models: read good texts
2) very strict norms for text quality
Reproductive or creative?

6. The pentagon
as rhetorical strategy in academic thesis writing
• Rienecker & Stray Jørgensen: The Good Paper (2007) : the pentagon & «the
thesis as an argument» (use Toulmin’s argumentation model).
• W. Booth et al: The Craft of Research (2003)
1. Problem
formulation
2.
Purpose
5.
Methods
4. Theory
Concepts
3. Data
‘the
pentagon’

7. Rhetorical strategies for introduction to scientific articles
• John Swales: CARS-model
• Move 1: Establishing a territory
(Aspects of Article Introductions, 1981)
• Step 1 Claiming centrality
• Step 2 Making topic generalization(s)
and/or
and/or
• Step 3 Reviewing items of previous research
• Move 3: Establishing a niche
• Step 1A Counter-claiming
• Step 1B Indicating a gap
• Step 1C Question-raising
or
or
or
• Step 1D Continuing a tradition
• Move 2: Occupying a niche
• Step 1A Outlining purposes
• Step 1B Announcing present research
• Step 2 Announcing principal findings 1
• Step 3 Indicating research article structure
or

8. A rhetorical writing exercise: the cube
Topic:
What: The 6 sides of the cube: description, comparison, association,
analysis, use, argumentation
How: Write 2 minutes about your topic from each perspective:
1. Describe!
2. Compare!
3. Associate!
4. Analyze!
5. Area of use!
6. Argue for or against!
Why: The exercise helps you get ideas quickly on paper about your
topic by exploring it from different perspectives

9. Cognitive tradition – the lone writer
• .

10. Dysthe
Early cognitive process models of writing 1
Flower & Hayes (1981)
Strategies and techniques for generating ideas and text
Cognitive writing researchers saw retrieval of ideas &
knowledge from long-term memory as crucial
• Brainstorming
• Freewriting (”non-stop writing”)
• Brain mapping
• WIRMI: ”What I really mean is….”
• Satisficing - delay the perfect …
• Start writing where you are (what you know)
• Break the writing task into smaller pieces

11. Early cognitive process models of writing 2
Bereiter & Scardamailia (1987)
Knowledge telling and knowledge transforming
• Novice writers
• Expert writers
• ‘writer-based prose
• ‘reader-based prose’
• Writing as a rhetorical problem:
• Writing: telling what they know
• Cognitive overload is a major
problem (hinders retrieval)
• Strategies that reduce the
number of simultaneous
concerns
what the audience need to know
• View writing as a matter of
achieving communicative goals
• Planning important –both before
and during writing
• They transform what they know
to suit their goals and their
readers
• Strategies focusing on audience
expectation and knowledge

12. Peter Elbow: Freewriting’
‘Writing without teachers (1973), Writing with power
“Freewriting is a way to produce bits of writing that are
genuinely better than usual less random, more coherent,
more highly organized” (p 8).
“It is a way to end up thinking something you couldn’t
have started out thinking (p.15)

13. Technique for improving writing and for creativity at all levels?
• What? «Write for 10 min (Later 15-20). Don’t stop for anything. Og quickly
without rushing. Never stop to look back, to cross something out, to wonder
how to spell something, to wonder what word or thought to use, or to think
about what you are doing. … The only requirement is that you never stop.»
• «Freewriting must never be evaluated in any way. You may share it, but no
comment and no discussion»
• Why ?
• to counteract procrastination and writer’s block
• to improve productivity
• to foster creative thinking
Elbow: We are inculturated into avoiding mistakes, ‘getting it right’, and we
edit away unacceptable thoughts and feelings. Giving up control!
• By separating internal editing from production, we open up for unconscious
thoughts, for new ideas, for our own ‘voice’. «It is our own source of power»)

14. Freewriting – advice from Elbow
• Traditional advice: «Think first, then write» vs «Write to think»
• Use for finding topics, warming up, getting started, overcoming
procratination & writers’ block, dicovering new ideas, being creative
• The main usefulness not the immediate product, but the gradual effect on future writing.
• Keep a freewriting diary: just 10 min pr day
• Don’t be afraid of digressions! (Notice when it happened, where it took
you, how it connects to other thoughts. Next step: explore & reflect
• Do several freewrites. Pick out the good bits. Discard the rubble. Use as
starting points for more careful writing.
• Editing: finding out what you really want to say – the last step in the cycle
• «Cut away the flesh, and leave the bones’ (Throw lots away: ‘easy come, easy go’)
• Write many summaries
• Outlining at the editing stage is very useful (but not before starting to write)
• Encourage conflict, look for disagreements

15. Dysthe
(
Christian Koch: «A tool box for writing»
«How to juggle with one ball at a time»
1. Brainstorming
Unsensured ideas
3. Mindmap
a graphic structuration (or a
linear disposition)
2. Freewriting
a series of unorganized
short texts about questions
and problems relevant for
the topic
4. First draft
a continuous text which is a
preliminary version of the
finished text

16. Sociocultural tradition of writing

17. Socio-cultural perspectives on writing
• «A social-interactive view of writing underscores the quintessential
mutuality of written communication» (Nystrand, 1989, p 82)
• Language is not just a vehicle for thoughts already
produced, but a way of thinking (Vygotsky: Thinking and Speech)
• The writing process itself is social – writing is a constant
negotiation with the reader(s)
• Meaning is co-production with the reader (Bakhtin, 1985)
• «Message is not transmitted from the writer to the reader
but is constructed between them as a kind of ideological
bridge, is built in the process of their interaction»
• The discourse community influences the writer’s choices,
and thus the text is not just a result of the writer’s purpose

18. Bakhtin: Difference and confrontation as resource
• Bakhtin:
• Understanding and the development of knowledge
emerge through negotiation of meaning in the encounter
between different voices
• The learning potential is greatest when different points of
view confront each other
• Cultivate multivoicedness, resistance and confrontation ?

19. Practical implications of sociocultural
perspectives for writing strategies
• Students use social strategies at different points of the
writing process
• Writing groups (online groups or face-to-face)
• Prewriting strategies
• Dialogue/discussion with others (chat, e-mail,phone, face-to-face
while writing)
• Feedback strategies (in groups or dyads)
• Teachers use dialogical feedback practices
•

20. II. What intitutional support do student need
to improve their academic writing?
Examples of how we teach academic writing in our department

21. Dysthe 2010
Knowledge areas in disciplinary writing
What is the institutional responsibility ?
.
Subject Matter
Knowledge
Rhetorical
Knowledge
Writing Process
Knowledge
Genre
Knowledge
Discourse community knowledge
Beaufort (2004)

22. Dysthe 2010
A plan for academic writing from Bachelor to PhD
• Bachelor level:
• Introductory lecture about writing in Higher Education
• Course book: Dysthe et al: Writing to Learn. Writing in HE
• Writing-to-learn assignments in all courses
• Regular writing assignments w/teacher feedback
• Writing workshop in connection with Bachelor thesis
• Writing process, referencing & citation, genre, strategies, peer feedback
• Master level (campus & online)
• Teaching of specific topics in sem 1 or 2
• How to --- generate ideas (freewriting), write from sources, write introd., litt rev
• Writing groups – peer feedback
• PhD-level:
• Research Schools provide writing workshops on specific topics
• Writing groups

23. Undergraduates
What should the institution prioritise?
• Knowledge about the genres students are expected to write
• Writing assignments
• must be clear about genre expectations
• must list assessment criteria
• Reading-to-write: How to use sources in academic writing
• How to avoid plagiarism
• Develop good writing process habits: strategies
• Writing assignment that suggest specific writing strategies
• Peer feedback integrated in course
• Revision of first drafts to be handed in (learn to utilize feedback)

24. Plagiarism (vs creativity)
• Def: Unethical academic practice. To plagiarise is to give the impression
that you have written, thought or discovered something which you in
reality have borrowed from another person without giving due credit in
an accepted way
Ex:
1. Copying the work of others (cheating)
2. Reformulating others´ original ideas without reference
3. Use referece, but refer the content with only small changes
3 is the most common form of plagiarism. Help stud develop good habits
Advice: i.e. don´t have the source in front of you when you write.
Training: Assignments and specific feedback

25. Characteristics of our web-based master prog.
1. Core element: Students´ text production and feedback
2. Not rely on students´ own initiatives, but build active
participation into the course design
3. Students work in online groups of 5-6 (´creating
communities of learners´)
4. Regular assignments, peer and teacher feedback
5. Dialogic feedback – encourage creative thinking

26. Graduate & postgraduate students´ needs
1. How to write ‘good’ academic texts (that communicate with
readers
2. How to write regularly, - avoid or fight procrastination
and writer’s block
Rationale: If you don’t produce text, you don’t have a chance to become
creative in writing or improve your writing
3. How to use writing to foster creativity in research
(daring and original ideas; interesting interpretations /explanations /
combinations)
How to improve writing for publication?
5. How to give and utilize feedback
4.

27. Torrance & Torrance (1994)
Development of postgraduate writing skills
Four relevant research studies
• Survey of 228 full-time UK social science PhD students
– 34 % found writing highly stressful
– 27 % found writing frustrating
– 21 % thought the difficulties they experiences might jeopardize thesis
• Understanding writing problems of postgrad students
– Think-then-write approach vs develop thinking through writing approach
– Revision
• What writing strategies worked best for postgrad students?
– Definition of ‘writing strategy’: «the way in which a writer partition the
task of writing into more manageable components, and the sequence in
which these components are executed»
• Evaluation study of 3 conceptual approaches to writing instruction
– Product-centred course
– Cognitive strategies course
– Generative writing and shared revision course

28. Postgrads’ writing strategies & productivity
1)
2)
the stage when they took decisions about content & structure
number of drafts & revisions
A «PLANNERS» think-then-write, fewer drafts than B &C, revised for style &
clarity of expression
B «REVISERS» started writing without plan and clear ideas (reported that writing
clarified their ideas & understanding), more drafts than A, revised also for
content change
C «MIXED STRATEGY» planned content before writing, but wrote more drafts
than A & C and revised for content
Findings and interpretation:
•
A most productive (ratio of words to hrs of writing) – Strategy that suited
them
•
A & B both enjoyed writing & satisfied with product –Strategy that suited
them
•
C had great problems, less productive + anxiety No coherent strategies

29. What kind of writing course was most useful for
postgrad students?
• Product centered course (Rhetorical tradition)
– Structural features of academic texts
– Findings of linguistic research (i.e. Swales)
• Cognitive strategies course
– Strategies for developing their own thinking prior to, or independently
of, producing full text
– Tool-kit of cognitive strategies (Flower 1989) heuristics for generating
and structuring content
• Generative writing + shared revision course
– 1) pre-draft of text related to thesis using generative strategies Elbow,
1970; 1981;Wason, 1985) Freewriting, revising to working draft
– 2) reviewing and revising: peer comments to text; revision of a working
draft by experienced academic; ‘comment-as you-read’ (Johnston,
1978)

30. My own advice to grad & post-grad students about being
creative and productive in writing
My theoretical base is sociocultural, but I believe in combining strategies
from all traditions - when you need them
• Establish a regular schedule for writing every day - stick to it
• Use freewriting strategies to get started and for exploration
• Be conscious about what kind of a writer you are
• Organize a writing group - make it work for all participants
• Develop expertise in giving and utilizing feedback
• Learn to use disagreement and conflicting views (in the group
and in the literature you read) as hotbeds for new ideas and
creative thoughts
• Use revision as creative spaces for developing your ideas

31. Thank you for listening!

32. Dysthe 2010
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