Keywords: Writing Apprehension

"Cognitive Components of Blocking" by Robert Boice

"'Am I really that bad?’: Writing Apprehension and Basic Writers" by Mary Louise Buley-Meissner

"Writing Apprehension and Writing Competency" by John Daly

"Writing Apprehension in the Classroom: Teacher Role Expectancies of the Apprehensive Writer" by John Daly

"Putting the Situation into Writing Research" by John Daly and J. L. Hailey

"Writing Apprehension, Self-Esteem and Personality" by John Daly and Deborah A. Wilson

"Research on Basic Writers: Theoretical and Methodological Issues" by Karen L. Greenberg

"Involvement and Self-Awareness for the Basic Writer: Graphically Conceptualizing the Writing Process" by Hope A. Parisi

"Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer's Block" by Mike Rose

Boice, Robert. "Cognitive Components of Blocking." Written Communication 2 (1985): 91-104.

Boice identifies seven cognitive components of blocking in descending order of importance: work apprehension, procrastination, dysphoria, impatience, perfectionism, evaluation anxiety, and rules.

Buley-Meissner, Mary Louise. "'Am I really that bad?’ Writing Apprehension and Basic Writers." Journal of Basic Writing 8.2 (Fall 1989): 3-20.

This article argues for the use of the Measure of Writing Apprehension (MWA) test at the beginning and the end of each semester as a means of uncovering writing problems stemming from students' distrust of the entire writing process. A sample of the MWA and the scoring key is included in Appendix A.

Daly, John A. "Writing Apprehension and Writing Competency." Journal of Educational Research 72 (1978): 10-14.

This is the basic research which finds that low-apprehensive writers performed better on tests of writing skills than did high-apprehensive writers.

Daly, John A. "Writing Apprehension in the Classroom: Teacher Role Expectancies of the Apprehensive Writer." RTE 9 (1975): 242-49.

Daly shows that writing apprehension in students does affect teacher perception of the student. He found that female teachers tend to respond more favorably to such students. Still, high-apprehension female students were responded to the least favorably, while low-apprehension female students were responded to the most favorably.

Daly, John A. and J.L. Hailey. "Putting the Situation into Writing Research." In Beach, R. and L. Bridwell, eds. New Directions in Composition Research. New York: Guilford P, 1984. 259-73.

The authors draw a distinction between situational anxiety and dispositional anxiety. They find five factors which increase situational anxiety--perceived evaluation, novelty, ambiguity, conspicuousness, and previous experience.

Daly, John A. and Deborah A. Wilson. "Writing Apprehension, Self-Esteem and Personality." RTE 17 (1983): 327-42.

This article demonstrates that writing apprehension is inversely related to self-esteem, marginally related to personality measures, inversely related to math anxiety, and positively correlated with speaking, listening, and reading.

Greenberg, Karen L. "Research on Basic Writers: Theoretical and Methodological Issues." In Enos, Theresa, ed. A Sourcebook for Basic Writing Teachers. New York: Random House, 1987. 187-207.

Section IV (197-199) discusses the research done on writing apprehension and writer's block.

Parisi, Hope A. "Involvement and Self-Awareness for the Basic Writer: Graphically Conceptualizing the Writing Process." Journal of Basic Writing 13.2 (Fall 1994): 33-45.

Parisi describes a method for helping Basic Writing students overcome their anxiety by diagramming their writing processes.

Rose, Mike. "Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer's Block." CCC 31 (1980): 389-401.

Rose provides an analysis of writer's block as resulting from overly rigid rules, and suggests methods for changing those rules to allow for a more flexible writing process.