ABSTRACT
I n a pioneering study, Kaufer, Hayes, and Flower (1986) made a seemingly evident, yet notable, observation: Writers compose in bursts, that is, written sentences are built up in a piecemeal fashion with bursts of writing activity interspersed by long production pauses (usually longer than 2 s). Whether for its apparent simplicity or for diffi culties in setting up a complete scientifi c explanation of this otherwise exuberant writing behavior, this fi nding seems to have been forgotten. Only recently, Hayes has led a series of studies aimed at providing a detailed account of bursts of language production (Chenoweth & Hayes, 2001, 2003; Hayes & Chenoweth, 2006, 2007). Here, we add to this line of research by presenting a study in which, from a developmental standpoint, we argue that automatizing transcription can lead to larger language bursts and therefore to improvements in text quality.
