Caveats and recommendations about self-regulation of writing: A social cognitive rejoinder

In their commentary, Graham and Harris (in press) raise a number of interesting caveats regarding the self-regulation of writing and make important recommendations regarding future instructional research on the topic. In this rejoinder, we respond to their caveats and recommendations by providing further explanation, identifying areas of agreement, and in some cases, offering alternative interpretations. We caution that low levels of self-regulation by some writers can still be highly predictive of writing outcomes, and thus its role should be judged on the basis of the latter rather than the former. Triadic social contextual conceptions of writing self-regulation avoid many interpretive problems of cognitive processing accounts and include variables that can explain how writing is motivated and how writers' personal environment and behavior are orchestrated and managed. (C) 1997 Academic Press.