Composing refers to

• the process through which thought finds its expression in words
• the process of exploration of what we know and what we feel about what we know through language. It is the process of using language to learn about our world, to evaluate what we learn about our world, to communicate what we learn about our world” (Murray 1972)

Related Concepts

• Information Ethics – Will AI Alter the Future of Academic Integrity?
• Plagiarism – Reimagining Authorship & Citation Practices in The Age of AI

Traditional Models of Composing

Over the last six decades, researchers in writing studies have examined the composing processes (aka as writing processes) of writers, asking them to vocalize their thoughts as they write—a method known as writing protocol analysis. Through these observations, they have developed multiple models of composing:

The Process Model

The Process Model frames writing as a series of recursive stages—prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing. Though often depicted as linear, this model recognizes that writers frequently return to earlier stages as their ideas evolve. Scholars like Peter Elbow (1973), Donald Murray (1985), and Janet Emig (1971) have contributed significantly to this model. Elbow’s work emphasizes freewriting and the importance of developing fluency without overemphasizing structure in the early stages. Murray describes writing as a process of discovery, while Emig’s research on writing processes highlights the recursiveness of composing.

The Problem-Solving Model

The Problem-Solving Model, developed by Linda Flower and John Hayes, presents writing as a cognitive problem-solving process. Writers are seen as addressing various rhetorical and cognitive problems, such as organizing ideas, tailoring messages to their audience, or clarifying arguments. Flower and Hayes’ work is foundational in conceptualizing writing as a cognitive task involving goal-setting, planning, and the role of the monitor—an internal mechanism that evaluates progress during composing. However, in later iterations of their model, they moved away from the monitor concept and introduced a more complex understanding of the writing process, focusing on how writers manage multiple levels of activity, including the task environment, working memory, and motivation (Hayes, 2012).

The Embodied Knowledge Model

This model highlights the nonrational factors involved in writing, emphasizing the role of felt sense, inner speech, and embodied knowledge. Scholars like Eugene Gendlin (1981), Sondra Perl (1980), and Lev Vygotsky (1962) have shaped this model. Gendlin’s work on felt sense posits that bodily awareness informs the writing process, guiding decisions intuitively. Perl’s research emphasizes the role of embodied knowledge and pre-verbal awareness in composing, while Vygotsky’s concept of inner speech shows how silent internal dialogue shapes thought and language.

The Psychological Model

The Psychological Model emphasizes the importance of managing emotions and mindset during writing. Writers often grapple with challenges like self-doubt, anxiety, and motivation, making this model distinct for its focus on the mental and emotional aspects of composing. Scholars such as Boice (1994) have explored how fear, perfectionism, and procrastination can hinder productivity, while offering strategies like setting small goals and using timed writing sessions to combat these barriers.

In the “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing” (2011), the Council of Writing Program Administrators, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Writing Project identify seven key habits of mind crucial for success in college writing:

1. Curiosity – fostering a desire to explore and question.
2. Openness – the willingness to consider new perspectives.
3. Engagement – showing commitment to learning and writing.
4. Creativity – using imagination to explore new ideas and solutions.
5. Persistence – the ability to stick with difficult writing tasks.
6. Responsibility – taking ownership of one’s work.
7. Flexibility – adapting to changing circumstances and feedback.

These habits are critical for managing the psychological demands of writing, helping writers build resilience and maintain motivation throughout the process. Research on flow states (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) further emphasizes the role of emotional regulation in achieving deep focus and productivity during writing tasks, allowing writers to overcome psychological barriers and engage fully with their work.

AI Models of Composing

The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the field of writing, introducing new dynamics in how texts are created and challenging traditional concepts of authorship and agency. In November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public, a conversational AI model capable of generating coherent and contextually appropriate text. This marked a significant milestone, making advanced AI accessible to a broad audience and sparking widespread interest in its applications for writing and creativity.

Following ChatGPT’s introduction, other major technology companies and startups accelerated the development of their own AI language models.

The advent of generative artificial intelligence has ushered in a new era of writing and creativity, challenging traditional notions of human agency, authorship, and the role of writing in learning and knowledge production. AI tools like ChatGPT have evolved rapidly, achieving remarkable feats such as scoring in the top 90th percentile on critical exams like the SAT and Bar Exam. As these technologies continue to advance, they are not only transforming how we compose texts but also how we think, learn, and express ourselves.

Rhetorical Processes

Academic and professional writers and speakers engage in rhetorical processes to inform their creative processes, including prewriting, inventing, drafting, collaborating, researching, planning, organizing, designing, rereading, revising, editing, proofreading, sharing or publishing. 

Rhetorical processes tend to cluster around two intellectual processes:

• Rhetorical Analysis
• Rhetorical Reasoning

Rhetorical Analysis

Rhetorical Analysis refers to

1. the practice of analyzing a rhetorical situation
   • The rhetorical situation refers to all of the elements in a setting, place, or time that a writer needs to consider when endeavoring to communicate with others:
     • Exigence — the driving force behind the call to write or speak. It’s the situation that prompts the need for communication, urging the speaker or writer to use discourse to respond to a particular matter
     • Audience — the specific individuals or groups (aka discourse communities) to whom the discourse is directed
     • Constraints — the effects of rhetorical affordances and constraints on communication, composing and style
2. a mode of reasoning that informs composing and interpretation.
3. a heuristic, an invention practice, that helps writers use to kickstart invention
4. a method of analysis used to understand and critique texts.

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Rhetorical Analysis

xx

Rhetorical Reasoning

Rhetorical reasoning, from the perspective of the writer or speaker, is the act of sorting through different rhetorical moves, and then deciding on a course of action, a rhetorical stance. Writers engage in rhetorical reasoning to determine the best way to respond to an exigency, a call for discourse.

Acts of rhetorical reasoning include

• considering potential rhetorical appeals, rhetorical devices, and rhetorical modes to use in a response to an exigency, a call for discourse
• researching media, genres, diction, and rhetorical stances to decide on how you need to shape and disseminate your message
• investigating how scholarly conversations on a topic have evolved over time
• identifying what the audience or community of practice knows and doesn’t know about the topic, and identifying gaps in knowledge claims.

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Rhetorical Reasoning

Composing Processes – Writing Processes – Creative Processes

The writing process refers to everything you do in order to complete a writing project. Over the last six decades, researchers have studied and theorized about how writers go about their work. They’ve found that the writing process can be seen in three main ways:

a series of steps or stages; (2) a cognitive, problem-solving activity; and (3) a creative, intuitive, organic, dialogic process that writers manage by listening to their inner speech and following their felt sense.

prewriting, inventing, drafting, collaborating, researching, planning, organizing, designing, rereading, revising, editing, proofreading, sharing or publishing.

Prewriting

Prewriting refers to all of the work you do before beginning to write.

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Prewriting

Invention

Invention may refer to the act of creating something novel, something that has never existed before. Or, invention may refer to solving problems in your day-to-day life.

• Is it plagiarism when writers ask Semantic Scholar, Consensus, or Consensus to summarize research on a topic, perhaps writing annotated bibliographies?

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Invention

Researching

Research refers to a systematic investigation carried out to discover new knowledge, test existing knowledge claims, solve practical problems, and develop new products, apps, and services.

• Is it plagiarism when writers use LitMaps or Research Rabbit to visualize scholarly networks of papers? What if they ask the AI to identify canonical texts, the evolution of scholarly conversations, and research gaps?

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Researching

Planning

Planning refers to a cluster of creative, intuitive processes and analytical, critical processes that writers employ BEFORE writing and THROUGHOUT THE WRITING PROCESS.

• Is it plagiarism when writers develop or use a chatbot to motivate themselves to engage in daily writing or to remind them of their writing schedule? The AI tool might send personalized prompts, offer encouragement, and help set daily or weekly writing goals, effectively acting as a virtual writing coach. Does relying on AI for motivation and time management impact the writer’s autonomy in the planning process? If the AI provides specific prompts or influences the direction of the writing, should this involvement be acknowledged? Where is the boundary between logistical support and creative input when using AI in planning?

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Planning

Designing

Design refers to much more than how something looks or works: Design is a powerful tool of communication that empowers writers, graphic designers, and product developers to reach their target audience at a viscera, visual level. Good design makes information easier to understand, more engaging, and more memorable. It creates emotional connections, influences perceptions, and shapes decisions.

• Is it plagiarism if a writer asks AI systems to plan headings for their documents, to evaluate whether the thesis is consistent and clear throughout the paper, to revise an inductive draft into a deductive argument? If the overall plan or structure is significantly influenced by AI, does this diminish the writer’s ownership of their work? Should the use of AI in planning be disclosed?

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Designing

Organizing

Organization refers to the arrangement of content (e.g., headings/subheadings, parts/sections of a text, ideas, arguments, stories, steps, evidence) into a deliberate order in speech, writing, and visual discourse. Organization refers to a writer or speaker’s efforts during composing to interpret and sort information in ways that are most likely to achieve their aims while being responsive to their audience’s mindset about the topic.

• Is it plagiarism if a writer uses AI tools to enhance the visual aspects of their work, incorporating concepts from design principles, elements of art, and information design. What if they employ AI software to generate color schemes (Color Theory), select appropriate typography, create infographics, or produce data visualizations to complement their writing. How does the integration of AI in design affect issues of authorship and potential plagiarism, especially when AI-generated visuals are a significant part of the communication?

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Organizing

Rereading

Rereading refers to the process of carefully reviewing a written text. When writers reread texts, they look in between each word, phrase, sentence, paragraph. They look for gaps in content, reasoning, organization, design, diction, style–and more.

• Is it plagiarism if a writer asks AI tools to read their drafts aloud to catch errors, awkward phrases, or soft spots? What if they use AI to engage in sentiment analysis or to compare drafts? Should these types of AI assistance be acknowledged, or do they dilute the writer’s engagement with their own text?

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Rereading

Revising

Revision — the process of revisiting, rethinking, and refining written work to improve its content, clarity and overall effectiveness — is such an important part of the writing process that experienced writers often say “writing is revision.”

• Is it plagiarism if a writer asks the AI to check on whether or not their ideas need to be developed, reorganized, or rewritten? If AI-driven revisions substantially alter the original text, does this affect authorship? Is there an ethical obligation to disclose the extent of AI involvement in the revision process?

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Revising

Editing & Proofreading

Editing, one of the final steps in the writing process, refers to the process of rereading a text word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence, in order to identify and eliminate errors and problems with the writing style. Editing is crucial to establishing a professional tone in school and workplace contexts.

• Is it plagiarism if a writer asks an AI system to check their style (e.g., brevity, coherence, flow, inclusivity, simplicity, and unity), syntax, and punctuation? When AI makes significant edits, at what point does the text cease to be solely the writer’s work? Should the writer acknowledge AI’s role in polishing the document?

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Editing & Proofreading

Style

Style, most simply, refers to how you say something as opposed to what you say. The style of your writing matters because audiences are unlikely to read your work or consider it seriously if they dislike its style.

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate an Appropriate Style Given the Rhetorical Situation

Clarity

Clarity refers to a judgment on the part of audience that a text is clear, lucid, and understandable. Clarity is a stylistic principle, an element of style. Communications that audiences consider to be lucid and understandable tend to be audience-sensitive: they account for what the audiences already knows about the topic and how the audience expects the message to be delivered (e.g., an appropriate voice, tone, persona, genre). Moreover, works that evince clarity tend to be associated with other prized elements of style, especially brevity, simplicity, flow, unity.

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Clarity

Brevity

Brevity in writing refers to a style of writing that is concise, terse, straight to the point, direct, and professional. Brevity is a highly prized style of writing in workplace contexts because it facilities clarity, which reduces wasted time and expensive litigation. Likewise, brevity is also prized in home and school settings: Readers, listeners, and users are in a hurry. They have a million distractions.

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Brevity

Coherence

Coherence refers to a style of writing where ideas, themes, and language connect logically, consistently, and clearly to guide the reader’s understanding. By mastering coherence, alongside flow, inclusiveness, simplicity, and unity, you’ll be well-equipped to craft professional or academic pieces that engage and inform effectively.

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Coherence

Flow

For writers, flow is a mind set, a sense that you feel creative and articulate. For students and aspiring writers, flow may also refer to stylistic principles related to coherence and unity,  For readers and writing teachers, flow refers to a style of writing that is smooth and logical, seamlessly transitioning from one idea to the next in a way that engages the reader and enhances their understanding of the text

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Flow

Inclusivity

Inclusivity – Inclusive language – refers to language that is respectful and sensitive to the perspective, values, and cultural practices of others. Inclusive language is language that is respectful and sensitive to ageism, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomics, and the values, beliefs, and symbolic practices of others.

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Inclusivity

Simplicity

Simplicity is a judgment made by people (e.g., readers & users) about whether a text or design of a product or app is as simple as possible given the complexity of the topic and rhetorical situation.  Simplicity is a highly prized attribute of communication. 

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Simplicity

Unity

Unity refers to a writer’s effort to make sure every bit of discourse — every word, phrase, clause, sentence, and paragraph — directly contribute to the main narrative or thesis. Mastery of unity is crucial for writers, as it enhances clarity and impact, significantly improving overall communication. 

Examples of How to Use AI to Facilitate Unity