Peer-reviewed research
Attentional Overload and Writing Performance: Effects of Rough Draft and Outline Strategies
Ronald T. Kellogg, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 1988
Read the originalRead on October 16, 2026
- What it is
- Two experiments testing whether writing an outline, or composing a rough first draft, eases attentional overload and improves the quality of documents. Quality was judged by raters.
- How much weight it carries
- Peer-reviewed. The writing was done in the laboratory and by hand or on paper, not by dictation, and quality was judged by raters on short documents. The repository abstract gives the main findings.
Facts taken from this source
- In the same 1988 experiments, preparing a written outline before writing led to higher-quality documents than not outlining, as rated by judges.
“preparing a written outline, compared with not doing so, led to higher quality documents as indexed by ratings of judges” (Abstract)
- In Kellogg's 1988 experiments, composing a rough first draft instead of a polished draft did not improve the quality of the writing.
“Composing a rough draft, as opposed to a polished draft, had no beneficial effect on writing quality.” (Abstract)