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The average numbers of bursts per task are presented in the first line of the table in Table 5.7. The lowest number of bursts was executed in the production process of the SE – an average of 188 bursts. In academic writing, the highest numbers of bursts were recorded in the note-taking conditions (L1N: 356, FLN: 359), while the lowest numbers of bursts occurred in the freewriting conditions (L1F: 329, FLF: 336). The comparison between the L1 and the FL within the same planning condition shows only marginal differences. Thus, with regard to the number of bursts needed for the production of the academic essays, the planning conditions were more influential than the language conditions.

As one might expect, the nature of planning by freewriting – which involves writing with as few pauses as possible and without revising – means that the number of bursts during this stage was higher in the note-taking condition (Table 5.7). Here, the participants took more time to think about the quality of the ideas that came to their minds before writing them down and when revising them (see Chapter 7.4.1).

SE L1N FLN L1F FLF

Total no. of bursts per task 188.00 356.00 359.00 329.00 336.00 Bursts (planning) 0.00 60.70 69.00 55.40 50.80 Bursts (essay formulation) 182.00 285.40 281.60 259.80 263.40 Bursts (revision) 18.33 14.00 11.29 17.13 27.00 Table 5.7 Number of bursts per task and in the writing subprocesses

Similarly, in the formulation process of the academic essays, fewer bursts were needed in the freewriting condition. This indicates that the participants’ fluency in formulating the L1F and the FLF was higher than their fluency in the L1N and the FLN; this in turn proves that the activation of the linguistic structures via freewriting had an enhancing effect on fluency, even after the freewriting stage was finished (Elbow 2000: 43). The participants were also able to produce more text in less time using a lower number of bursts. This may have been the result of less revising in the freewriting conditions compared to the note-taking conditions (see Chapter 7.1). It could also be that the writing processes did not slow down significantly, since parallel processing worked better and it was possible to activate and translate present knowledge into language more easily (Tynjälä, Mason and Lonka 2001: 10/11).

The average number of bursts in revisions is only analysed for the essays in which the participants made revisions after the formulation of the essay. As expected, the number of bursts in revisions was highest in the freewriting conditions, where participants also dedicated the highest proportion of the allotted time to revision: the average number of bursts in revisions was 17.13 in the L1F and 27.00 in the FLF. The average number of bursts was lowest in the FLN (11.29), where the smallest proportion of time was spent on revision. The fact that markedly fewer revisions were made in the L1F than in the FLF is noteworthy, since the participants had more time for revision in the former case than in the latter. Chapter 6.1 will show that the error rate was quite high in the participants’ L1, which suggests that the activation of formulation via freewriting and the reduction in monitoring had a negative effect on the awareness of errors, even after the actual formulation of the essay was completed, and no need for further revision was recognised.

Looking at the rate of bursts per minute (Table 5.8), one notes that it does not differ significantly between the academic essays across the two planning conditions and the two language conditions: the rate ranges between a low of 7.76 bursts per minute in the FLF condition and a high of 8.23 bursts per minute in the L1N condition. Again, the SE does not conform to this pattern, in that here 9.65 bursts per minute were executed.

SE L1N FLN L1F FLF Total bursts/minute 9.65 8.23 8.05 8.21 7.76 Bursts/minute (planning) 0.00 9.35 8.47 8.18 8.22 Bursts/minute (formulating) 10.35 9.56 9.58 9.92 10.31 Bursts/minute (revising) 6.87 3.82 7.15 5.73 4.44 Table 5.8 Bursts per minute

The numbers of bursts per minute in the planning processes (pl) are fairly consistent across the FLNpl (8.47), the L1Fpl (8.18) and the FLFpl (8.22), but they are distinctly higher in the L1Npl (9.35). In the note-taking condition, the pauses between the execution periods were used for conscious planning, for the mental evaluation of the plans and for the conscious search for content and structure of the essays, both in the L1Npl and in the FLNpl. However, in the L1, these pauses were shorter and the typing speed was higher.

Thus, one can say that the pause-executing strategy (Alves et al. 2007: 55) was more effective in the L1Npl than in the FLNpl. In the freewriting condition, no significant differences were found in this area.

Across all planning conditions, the number of bursts per minute was higher in the writing process of the essay proper (pe) than it was in the planning processes. This could be the result of various additional factors that play a role in the formulation process of academic essay writing. First of all, the participants were aware that the academic essays were the ones to be formally evaluated. Because of this, their internal monitors were more vigilant about ensuring that the writing would be of the highest possible quality – that is, their monitors were kept busy checking whether the content provided was relevant and the structure logical. The writers had to meet the demands of the academic genre as well as the readers’ expectations with regard to correctness and appropriate academic style (Bhatia 2010: 37, Curry and Lillis 2004: 683, Kennedy and Smith 2010: 21, Morita 2004: 577).

Because of this, the cognitive demands in the formulation process were higher than in the planning process, and the writing processes as a whole slowed down. At the same time, during formulation the participants were more self-critical with respect to wording and orthography than they were during the planning of the essays, and because of this, more revisions took place. The higher typing speed induced by freewriting led to more typing mistakes, which were detected more effectively and corrected more immediately than other errors (see Chapter 7.5). These processes led to a faster production of bursts and at the same time a higher rate of immediate revisions (see Chapter 5.5.1).

The bursts-per-minute rate in the final revision processes (r) differed markedly between the two planning conditions and the two languages. It was highest in the FLNr (7.15), followed by the SEr (6.87). In the L1Fr it was distinctly lower (5.73), while in FLFr it was 4.44 and in the L1Nr only 3.82. The high number of bursts per minute in the FLNr and the SEr could indicate that only quick proofreading with marginal revisions was performed (Bereiter and Scardamalia 1987: 22), whereas in the other conditions the writers took – or were given – more time for evaluating their texts and for producing better

alternatives to the passages they found unsatisfactory (see Chapter 7.6). As was shown by the percentage of time spent on revisions (Chapter 5.2.2), in these conditions, the writers either ran short of time for deeper revision (FLN) or did not perceive the necessity for it (SE).

In the L1N, the L1F and the FLF, the writers had more time for revisions, and the lower number of bursts indicates that they either evaluated the texts more consciously and revised more thoroughly or that they were more satisfied with the texts produced and therefore did not feel the need to make further revisions. This is analysed in Chapter 7.6.