Using an outliner with a word processor

Abstract-How do college students use computer-based outliners? What impact do these tools have on writing processes and products? This study examines the use of an outliner with a word processor by novice and advanced college writers. It also examines the impact of embedded prompts addressing topical and rhetorical issues. It shows how the outliner with embedded topical prompts serves both to increase the planning of novice writers and to connect this planning to their texts. These interventions are less effective for advanced writers. And the outliner without the prompts is also less effective for novice writers. Implications for classroom use of these tools are discussed. Outlines have traditionally been considered a useful aid in the development of a written product. With the widespread use of computer-based writing tools, a grow-ing number of word processors are designed with built-in outliners. But are these aids by themselves enough to help students who are learning to write? This article elaborates on a related study (Kozma, 1991b) to examine the impact of a computer outliner and embedded topical and rhetorical prompts on the writing processes and products of novice and advanced college writers. Almost every composition text and handbook contains a section describing out-lines (e.g., Fowler, 1980). The emphasis is frequently on the outline as an interme-diate product that writers generate on the way to their final product- the compo