She is known for her groundbreaking 1971 study The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders (National Council of Teachers of English Research Report No.
[1] In the 1930s she attended Williams Avenue Grade School in Norwood, Ohio, which espoused a Deweyan educational philosophy.
Emig attended the University of Michigan for her master's program, initially interested in her development as a creative writer.
[2] Betty Williams, the chair of her English Department, encouraged Emig to attend the 1960 Conference on College Composition and Communication that was held in Cincinnati.
[2] This talk inspired Emig to attend Tyler's summer course on composing processes offered at Harvard in 1961.
[2] Unfortunately, Harvard decided not to renew Tyler's contract, and the other faculty member in the program was fired for sexual harassment.
She went through ten different advisers between 1961 and 1969, and eventually graduated with MIT linguist Wayne O'Neil as her committee chair.
[1] As Gerald Nelms explains, Emig argues for a more complex understanding of the writing process that is based in constructivism rather than positivism.