ABSTRACT
This chapter, which deals with argumentative writing of university undergraduates, begins with a conundrum. On the one hand, we generally think of young adults as being relatively sophisticated thinkers who are able to empathize with alternative points of view. Yet, influential voices have identified ‘something like cognitive egocentricity’ (Hays 1988: 55) in the writing of adolescents and young adults (Bereiter 1980; Kroll 1984; Hays 1988; Hays et al. 1988). Bereiter refers to ‘egocentric writing in middle childhood and beyond’ (Bereiter 1980: 86) and Hays more closely identifies this egocentric writing of undergraduates as being related to the writers’ conceptualization of their audiences. She writes, ‘[This study of undergraduates] suggests something like cognitive egocentricity reflected in papers assessed at the lower and even middle positions of the Perry Scheme [a descriptor of socio-cognitive development]’ (Hays 1988: 55). These researchers, then, give testimony to the fact that adolescents and young adults exhibit some sort of egocentrism in their writing.
