Longitudinal studies of the development of writing in the college years are especially important because writing development occurs slowly, sometimes over the course of a person's life; it is not unusual for writers to fully "blossom" or reach the height of their writing powers, for example, in middle age or even advanced years. Across this span of time, the college years are particularly significant in that students' cognitive abilities are challenged constantly, enabling them to think and write in increasingly complex and sophisticated ways.
Fortunately, we now have some excellent longitudinal studies of writing to learn from, including Marilyn Sternglass's Time to Know Them: A Longitudinal Study of Writing and Learning at the College Level; Nancy Sommers and Laura Saltz's "The Novice as Expert: Writing the Freshman Year"; Anne Herrington and Marcia Curtis's Persons in Process: Four Stories of Writing and Personal Development in College; Ann Beaufort's Developmental Gains of a History Major: A Case for Building a Theory of Disciplinary Writing Expertise; and Lee Ann Carroll's Rehearsing New Roles: How College Students Develop as Writers. Most recently, Paul Rogers, a member of the Study research team and an advanced graduate student at the University of California , Santa Barbara, has compiled an outstanding bibliography on longitudinal studies of writing.