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Communications of the ACM - The MIT Press scientific computation series
Beyond the Gutenberg galaxy: microcomputers and the emergence of post-typographic culture
Beyond the Gutenberg galaxy: microcomputers and the emergence of post-typographic culture
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ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS)
CHI '82 Proceedings of the 1982 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
EMACS the extensible, customizable self-documenting display editor
Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN SIGOA symposium on Text manipulation
Evaluation of computer text editors
Evaluation of computer text editors
Human Problem Solving
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ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)
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This article reports two studies examining how the use of computer technology affects writers' processes and resulting written products. The first experiment, a partial replication of Gould's (1981) study, compared the efficiency and quality of 15 experienced writers' persuasive letters written in three counterbalanced conditions: pen and paper, standard personal computer, and advanced workstation. Analyses of time to compose and length of the resulting letters showed that when composing with the advanced workstations, writers wrote for longer periods of time and composed longer letters than when composing with pen and paper. Rate of composition (words per min) was similar in all three conditions. Scores for content quality, mechanics quality, and total quality were also collected and analyzed. Letters composed with the personal computer were poorer in content quality and total quality. There were no differences in mechanics quality. In the second experiment, 8 of the original 15 writers revised two of their letters in the medium with which they were composed. Think-aloud protocols collected while the writers revised their letters were collected and analyzed. When revising with pen and paper, writers planned more than when revising on-line; they also planned more before beginning their revisions. However, when revising in the computer conditions, writers reread their texts more and paid more attention to the medium than when revising on paper.