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These students arrived at Stanford as fairly confident writers: most reported that coming out of high school they were "very confident." By spring of their first year, however, that confidence had slipped considerably, though by graduation and into their first year beyond Stanford their confidence levels were again fairly high;

1. Participants who scored high in rhetorical awareness of audience in their freshman year showed their greatest amount of growth in subsequent years, indicating this variable as statistically significant (p>.0001). 2. Writing development is non-linear; students develop at different paces, sometimes regressing across years, particularly as they are learning the nuances of genre-specific writing within disciplines. 3. Participants reported that conversations about writing with teachers, professors, teaching assistants, and post-doctoral fellows had the greatest impact on their writing development. 4. While positive feedback appears to increase student-writers' confidence, descriptive constructive criticism may be most salient to helping students move their writing forward. 5. Students valued feedback at all stages of the writing process, but especially early on in the process when feedback clarified teacher expectations, and clearly connected to writing and revision processes.