The Why of Cognition: Emotion and the Writing Process

No number of studies of writer's block or apprehension make up for the lack of serious research on the role of affect in writing (Brand, Hot). The profession may concede that emotions motivate. But it also seems to believe that emotions have little to do with actual composing and less to do with revising. In this essay, on the other hand, I show that a realistic and complete psychology of writing must include affective as well as cognitive phenomena. It is easy to understand our respect for writing as an intellectual enterprise. Written discourse is considered a quintessential representation of thought. And, like thought, it can be identified by levels of sophistication, whether the writing model is based on function, physical science, or psychological distance between writer, audience, and subject. We assess cognitive maturity through such syntactic features as t-unit length and incidence of subordination; or such rhetorical features as elaboration of argument, versatility of diction, and critical thinking. It is in critical thinking, the capacity to identify, organize, and manipulate relationships systematically, that considerable isomorphism between writing and thought is found. Skilled critical thinkers transcend the printed word and the here and now. They arrange and rearrange. They decide what belongs and what doesn't. They make inferences. They exercise possibilities. They remember. They predict.