Declarative Knowledge

Declarative Knowledge is explicit knowledge about facts, histories, ideas, topics, principles, and concepts.

Declarative Knowledge is the sort of knowledge you learn from school or textbooks, encyclopedias, scholarly journals, and trade magazines. Declarative Knowledge involves knowing that something exists (definitional knowledge) or is true or false (propositional knowledge)

Synonyms: Conceptual Knowledge; Definitional Knowledge; Explicit Knowledge; Propositional Knowledge; Descriptive Knowledge


Declarative Knowledge is knowledge of topics, facts and concepts. Declarative Knowledge is the Who, What, When, and Where of Information. It’s what you know about the world. As a society, we archive our Declarative Knowledge in encyclopedias, dictionaries, books, journals. It’s the knowing that as opposed to knowing how to do something (i.e., Procedural Knowledge.

In the context of Writing Studies, declarative/conceptual knowledge refers to explicit, formal knowledge about topics of interest to writers, including Composing Process, Collaboration, Editing, Genre, Information Literacy, Invention, Mindset, Organization, Research, Revision, Rhetoric, Style, Writing Studies and Writing with Sources.

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