Insights into Editing and Revising in Writing Process Using Keystroke Logs

Recent technology advances have enabled the collection of keystroke logs during writing, a non-intrusive approach to collecting writing process data that could provide insights into writers' editing and revising behaviors in the writing process. Using keystroke logs from 761 middle school students in the US, this study investigated the association between the writers' editing and revising behaviors, especially in-text editing and jump editing, and their scores and gender. The results showed different writing behavior patterns for participants of different ability and gender. The research findings on the writing processes went beyond character- and word-level activities and shed light on writers' revising behaviors and related writing evaluating skills, which can potentially be used for automated writing interventions.