本研究針對台灣大學生的寫作過程及寫作策略進行調查，同時探討寫作任務、寫作能力和寫作策略之間的關聯性。此研究以五十四位國立大學學生為對象，依據他們的寫作能力分成高、中、低三組，並觀察各組在敘述、描寫和議論三種寫作任務上的策略使用情形。本研究的資料包含學生背景資料、學生寫作能力測驗結果、學生三種寫作任務的收集，以及學生在完成三種寫作任務後所填寫的寫作策略問卷。除了上述資料，本研究在學期中輔以每人三十分鐘的師生晤談，來深入了解學生的寫作歷程、寫作困難；在學期末，更隨機抽選十五名學生參與一小時的個別訪談，藉以探討他們在不同寫作任務中的策略運用。
本研究結果顯示，學生普遍於寫作前投入較少的心力在構思內容和組織架構上，因此他們時常在寫作時停下來思考和組織想法。也因為投入較少的心力在寫作前的準備，他們經常在寫作時運用寫作策略，諸如重讀之前寫過的內容，並在寫作後檢視內容、組織和文章的連貫性。其次，本研究發現大多數的學生在寫作過程中會頻繁地查閱雙語字典，這個現象可以歸因於學生高度關注本身的字彙量。此外，擁有不同寫作能力的學生在策略使用的頻率上並無明顯差異，即便如此，從策略多樣性的角度來看，仍可窺見不同寫作能力學生間的些微差別。
至於寫作任務對寫作策略的影響，本研究顯示，學生在撰寫敘述、描寫和議論三種寫作任務時，運用三種寫作策略的頻率有顯著不同。此三種策略分別為寫作前的構思、寫作過程中的間歇性停頓，以及自我修訂階段期間針對內容、組織和連貫性等的整體檢視。在敘述寫作任務中，學生運用構思策略的頻率遠勝於在描寫和議論寫作任務中，因為他們察覺到敘述經驗需要依照時間順序來安排事件的先後。然而，在描寫任務中，由於學生過度注意字彙的使用和字彙的多元性，使得他們在描寫任務中較少運用構思策略。至於議論寫作任務，由於學生認為此類任務的撰寫是較簡單且熟稔的，因此在撰寫前較少會先構思（與敘述文相比)，在寫作過程中也較少運用間歇性停頓策略（與另外兩種任務相比)，而傾向在完成草稿後作內容、連貫性、組織等的整體檢視。此寫作策略的使用不同於描寫文，因為描寫任務裡，學生傾向邊寫邊檢視內容、連貫性、和文章組織。以上結果顯示，不同的寫作任務會影響學生使用不同的寫作策略，但學生對內容、連貫性、和文章組織的關注力並不會隨著任務的改變而不同。此外，學生對寫作任務的熟稔度似乎與寫作任務的困難度有緊密的關係，而這也大大影響學生寫作策略的運用。

The aim of this study was to explore 54 EFL college students’ use of strategies in the prewriting, writing, and self-editing stages. In addition, this study compared strategies used by proficient writers, moderately proficient writers, and less proficient writers in narrative, descriptive, and argumentative writing tasks in order to investigate the effects of the three tasks on student’s writing, and to investigate students’ writing proficiency in relation to their strategy use. A writing proficiency test and a Background Information Survey were conducted in the beginning of the semester to examine students’ writing proficiency and to understand their writing difficulties and learning backgrounds. During the semester, students were required to turn in three writing tasks (i.e., narrative, descriptive, and argumentative writing tasks) and fill out Writing Strategy Questionnaires. The Writing Questionnaires, containing writing strategy statements and perceptions of their individual writing process, were given to the students each time after they submitted an essay. To clarify the answers obtained from the questionnaires and to further understand their writing problems, all of the students were invited to participate in 30-minute, individual, student-teacher conferences. At the end of the semester, fifteen students were randomly selected to participate in one-hour, individual interviews to unearth in-depth insights into their strategy use across different writing tasks.
The findings show that the 54 students generally focused limited attention on generating ideas and organizing content in the prewriting stage, and they tended to pause frequently to think about and organize ideas during the writing of the three tasks. Students’ lack of prewriting preparation may explain their high-frequency strategy use including rereading the written texts during writing and monitoring global writing aspects at the self-editing stage. Moreover, this study found students relied heavily on bilingual dictionaries due to numerous concerns over their limited vocabulary knowledge. As for the effect of writing proficiency on students’ strategy, this study demonstrated that students with different writing proficiency did not vary significantly in their frequency of strategy use. Despite the fact that the students of different proficiency levels did not differ in the frequency of strategy use, the variety of writing strategies used revealed slight differences between proficient writers and less proficient writers in their attention to writing aspects across the three writing tasks.
With regard to task effect on writing processes, the findings indicated that the strategies of organizing ideas, pausing during the writing stage, and monitoring global writing aspects varied greatly for the three writing tasks. Students tended to organize their ideas more in the narrative task than in the descriptive task due to their awareness of the chronological aspect needed in narrative writing and to their strong focus on using a variety of words instead of a focus on the organization in the descriptive writing. As students perceived the argumentative task to be an easier and more familiar task, they organized their ideas less than in the narrative writing, and they paused less often in the argumentative writing than in the other two tasks. Due to a lower frequency of pauses in the argumentative tasks, students tended to monitor content, coherence, and organization after finishing their argumentative drafts. This differed from the descriptive task where students spent more time monitoring during the composing stages rather than during the self-editing stage or after finishing their drafts. These results indicated that although different tasks influenced students’ strategy use in different ways, the amount of attention students paid to global writing aspects did not vary as the task changed. Moreover, task familiarity seemed to be a greater factor than task complexity in what and how students’ used strategies, as evidenced by the argumentative task (viewed by students as less challenging than the descriptive task) which is more complex but more familiar to this study’s students.

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