Flower and Hayes make a distinction in their piece on Cognitive Process that had never occurred to me, namely that what many of us call the writing process is really the stage process of the product completion. Aside from the somatic component of hitting a key or inscribing with a pen, the process is mentally interior (Moffet's Inner Speech, anyone?). By somewhat minutely describing the moment to moment activity of a writer in the midst of process they are using protocol analysis to do something that could really offend the intuitive, romantic writer.
They're using science, they're demystifying the process. They're aiming to destroy the art and replace it with a quantifiable account of the recursive, near-simultaneous acts a person goes through during the act of composing. If this positivist, experimental methodology is successful it could destroy the elitism of "talented writers." If they are able to isolate which manner of goal setting, monitoring and revision are most effective, it's feasible that anyone could become an effective writer.
Damn scientists.
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