Source-based writing is becoming more common in tests of academic English, in part to make tests more reflective of authentic academic writing. However, the concern has been raised that over-reliance on language from the source texts in essays may mask gaps in proficiency and thus lead to an inaccurate assessment of writing skill. In this paper,…

This study examines how novice foreign language (FL) writers develop their genre awareness, linguistic knowledge, and writing competence in a genre-based writing course that incorporates email-writing tasks. To define genre, the study draws on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) that sees language as a resource for making meaning in a particular…

This study investigated the effectiveness and students' perceptions of collaborative writing (CW) in second language (L2). The study involved 38 first year students in two intact classes at a large university in the UAE (United Arab Emirates). One class consisted of 18 students and was considered the experimental group, and the second consisted of…

Negotiating stance and carrying on social interaction in writing in educational contexts has been characterized by the choice of linguistic means away from explicit expressions of opinion representative of the informal relationship with the addressee towards the language that strives to conceal a subjective viewpoint and construes a formal…

Studies of cognitive processes in SL writing have paid attention to the strategies that writers use to tackle problems in composing. In text-generation, finding lexical items in the L2 to express their meanings is one of the most crucial problems writers have to face, for reasons related to the availability and accessibility of relevant linguistic…

Although models have been a mainstay of academic writing pedagogy for centuries, a recurrent critique has been that they control or limit student writing and misrepresent the affairs they claim to model. These insufficiencies notwithstanding, models are ubiquitous in the ordinary, practical world, and their usefulness to novices can easily go…

This study examined writers' use of their first language (L1) while writing in their second language (L2). Twenty students each wrote four short argumentative essays in their L1 (Dutch) and four in their L2 (English) under think-aloud conditions. We analysed whether L1 use varied between writers and tasks, and whether it was related to general…

The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed analysis of how lexical differences related to cohesion and connectionist models can distinguish first language (L1) writers of English from second language (L2) writers of English. Key to this analysis is the use of the computational tool Coh-Metrix, which measures cohesion and text difficulty at…

This study investigated the impact of aspects of the lexical proficiency of EFL students on their summary writing in English (L2) by controlling for the impact of a range of linguistic abilities in English and Japanese (L1). Sixty-eight Japanese undergraduate students wrote two summaries of English texts in English. Their English lexical…

This exploratory study, undertaken from a socio-cognitive perspective, aims to investigate the effects of intensive preparatory high school training in L1 and/or L2 essay writing for university entrance exams. The analysis focuses on the task response and structural features in L1 (Japanese) and L2 (English) essays written by first-year Japanese…

The ability to construct supported arguments in English is important for academic success in educational contexts where English is the language of instruction and student assessment is mediated through the academic essay. Starting from the hypothesis that students schooled in an English-medium education system do engage in friendly argument in…

Increasing calls for equity and accountability in U.S. secondary schools have led to intensified scrutiny of the academic literacy development of English learning (EL) adolescents. This paper discusses some of the challenges that EL secondary students face in achieving the language and literacy skills that will enable them to succeed in their…

The paper evaluates and synthesizes research on the question of how error correction affects learners' ability to write accurately, combining qualitative analysis of the relevant studies with quantitative meta-analysis of their findings. The conclusions are that, based on existing research: (a) the best estimate is that correction has a small…

While the use of corpora and concordancing in the language-learning environment began as early as 1969 (McEnery & Wilson, 1997, p. 12), it was the work in the 1980s of Tim Johns (1986) and others which brought it to public attention. Important developments occurred in the 1990s, beginning with publications advocating the use of corpora and…

Various authors have shown the first person to play a key role in the construction of the writer's persona in research articles. This paper compares the use of first person in a corpus of biology articles produced by native English-speaking (NES) writers and a corpus of research article manuscripts produced by non-native English-speaking (NNES)…