How First-year Students Expressed Their Transition to College Experiences Differently Depending on the Affordances of Two Writing Contexts

Drawing on theory that positions writing as a social process, this study compares how two distinct contexts influenced the linguistic features of college students' writing over time. In one context, students blogged and received comments, while in the other context students word-processed and received no comments. Systematic qualitative and quantitative analyses of these natural language posts and comments indicated the bloggers used greater rates of cognitive and intensifying expressions in their writing over time than students who word-processed. These results suggest that the affordances of the context influenced narrators' expressive writing over time. The current findings have significance for scholars seeking to understand connections between interactive media, writing processes, and audience, and for college programs across the U.S. that provide support for first-year students.