Designed to alleviate the confusion caused by the existence of a multiplicity of approaches to writing research, the four parts of this book present explicit discussions of research principles and methods used by researchers actively working within a variety of disciplines. The two chapters in Part 1 describe very broad views of the entire research endeavor. The four chapters in Part 2 show how classical experimental projects are used to examine the processes used by readers in evaluating student composition, the development of writing abilities in children, the writing development of children who are just beinning to write, and the control of writing processes. The three chapters in Part 3 describe the use of observational approaches to study the composing processes of adult writers, the on-the-job writing of workers, and the role of the teacher in the student's writing process. Chapters in Part 4 examine two other approaches, recounting the long tradition of interest in writing disabilities and reviewing approaches to text analysis. (JL)