Sample records for l2 writing research

  1. Automated Measurement of Syntactic Complexity in Corpus-Based L2 Writing Research and Implications for Writing Assessment

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lu, Xiaofei

    2017-01-01

    Research investigating corpora of English learners' language raises new questions about how syntactic complexity is defined theoretically and operationally for second language (L2) writing assessment. I show that syntactic complexity is important in construct definitions and L2 writing rating scales as well as in L2 writing research. I describe…

  2. Effects of Web-Based Collaborative Writing on Individual L2 Writing Development

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bikowski, Dawn; Vithanage, Ramyadarshanie

    2016-01-01

    This study investigated the effect of repeated in-class web-based collaborative writing tasks on second language writers' (L2) individual writing scores. A pre-test post-test research model was used in addition to participant surveys, class observations, and teacher interviews. Participants included 59 L2 writers in a writing class at a large U.S.…

  3. Do L2 Writing Courses Affect the Improvement of L1 Writing Skills via Skills Transfer from L2 to L1?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gonca, Altmisdort

    2016-01-01

    This study investigates the relationship of second language (L2) writing skills proficiency with the first language (L1) writing skills, in light of the language transfer. The study aims to analyze the positive effects of L2 writing proficiency on L1 writing proficiency. Forty native Turkish-speaking university students participated in the study.…

  4. The role of research-article writing motivation and self-regulatory strategies in explaining research-article abstract writing ability.

    PubMed

    Lin, Ming-Chia; Cheng, Yuh-Show; Lin, Sieh-Hwa; Hsieh, Pei-Jung

    2015-04-01

    The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of research-article writing motivation and use of self-regulatory writing strategies in explaining second language (L2) research-article abstract writing ability, alongside the L2 literacy effect. Four measures were administered: a L2 literacy test, a research abstract performance assessment, and inventories of writing motivation and strategy. Participants were L2 graduate students in Taiwan (N=185; M age=25.8 yr., SD=4.5, range=22-53). Results of structural equation modeling showed a direct effect of motivation on research-article writing ability, but no direct effect of strategy or indirect effect of motivation via strategy on research-article writing ability, with L2 literacy controlled. The findings suggest research-article writing instruction should address writing motivation, besides L2 literacy.

  5. Collaborative Writing in L2 Classrooms

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Storch, Neomy

    2013-01-01

    In this first book-length treatment of collaborative writing in second language (L2) classrooms, Neomy Storch provides a theoretical, pedagogical and empirical rationale for the use of collaborative writing activities in L2 classes, as well as some guidelines about how to best implement such activities in both face-to-face and online mode. The…

  6. Cognitive Factors Contributing to Chinese EFL Learners' L2 Writing Performance in Timed Essay Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lu, Yanbin

    2010-01-01

    This study investigated cognitive factors that might influence Chinese EFL learners' argumentative essay writing in English. The factors that were explored included English (L2) language proficiency, Chinese (L1) writing ability, genre knowledge, use of writing strategies, and working memory capacity in L1 and L2. Data were collected from 136…

  7. The Relationship between L2 Students' Writing Experiences and Their Perceived Poetry Writing Ability

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Liao, Fang-Yu

    2017-01-01

    This paper looks at how L2 students' writing experiences relate to the way they think they can write poems and to further investigate if any types of writing experiences contribute to their perceived poetry writing ability. The paper starts by bringing up the value of introducing poetry writing to L2 students. Then, the literature review section…

  8. Convergence and Divergence of Process and Portfolio Approaches to L2 Writing Instruction: Issues and Implications

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lam, Ricky

    2015-01-01

    In the L2 writing literature, there has been a rich history of scholarship in theory, research and practice since the 1960s. Two of the most prominent L2 writing approaches are process and portfolio pedagogy. The former approach promotes the use of diverse writing strategies (e.g. pre-writing) to enhance student writers' expression and fluency.…

  9. On Written Corrective Feedback in L2 Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shao, Xu

    2015-01-01

    Truscott (1996) questions the practicability of grammar correction, and he believes that written corrective feedback (WCF) is not only a waste of time, but even harmful to the students as well. This has led to a great deal of discussion and research on WCF in second-language (L2) writing. Ferris (1999) is the representative opponent of Truscott's…

  10. Using Prewriting Tasks in L2 Writing Classes: Insights from Three Experiments

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McDonough, Kim; Neumann, Heike

    2014-01-01

    Even though collaborative prewriting tasks are frequently used in second language (L2) writing classes (Fernández Dobao, 2012; Storch, 2005), they have not been as widely researched as other tasks, such as collaborative writing and peer review. This article examines the effectiveness of collaborative prewriting tasks at encouraging English for…

  11. Calibrating Genre: Metacognitive Judgments and Rhetorical Effectiveness in Academic Writing by L2 Graduate Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Negretti, Raffaella

    2017-01-01

    Several strands of applied linguistic research have emphasized the importance of genre awareness for academic writing students. Although metacognitive behaviors have been linked to L2 writing proficiency and performance, there is still the need for an account of how and why different metacognitive behaviors can help L2 academic writers to apply…

  12. Writer L1/L2 Status and Asynchronous Online Writing Center Feedback: Consultant Response Patterns

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Weirick, Joshua; Davis, Tracy; Lawson, Daniel

    2017-01-01

    This case study examines the differences in comments offered by asynchronous online writing center consultants to L1 and L2 speakers and examines the potential disconnects in consultant perceptions of their practice. The researchers collected and coded sample papers and interviewed participants to contextualize data from the quantitative portion…

  13. The Effect of Planning Sub-Processes on L2 Writing Fluency, Grammatical Complexity, and Lexical Complexity

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Johnson, Mark D.; Mercado, Leonardo; Acevedo, Anthony

    2012-01-01

    This study contributes to L2 writing research which seeks to tie predictions of the Limited Attentional Capacity Model (Skehan, 1998; Skehan & Foster, 2001) and Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2001, 2005, 2011a, 2011b) to models of working memory in L1 writing (Kellogg, 1996). The study uses a quasi-experimental research design to investigate…

  14. L2 Writing Practice: Game Enjoyment as a Key to Engagement

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Allen, Laura K.; Crossley, Scott A.; Snow, Erica L.; McNamara, Danielle S.

    2014-01-01

    The Writing Pal (W-Pal) is an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) designed to provide students with explicit writing strategy instruction and practice. W-Pal includes a suite of educational games developed to increase writing engagement and provide opportunities to practice writing strategies. In this study, first (L1) (n = 26) and second (L2)…

  15. A Comparative Study of Facebook vs. Paper-and-Pencil Writing to Improve L2 Writing Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dizon, Gilbert

    2016-01-01

    Facebook has best leveraged the rapid technological and societal changes over the past decade to grow into the world's largest social-networking site (SNS). However, research of Facebook has lagged behind other Web 2.0 technologies, particularly in regards to investigating its efficacy versus a control group to improve L2 writing. This study,…

  16. Effects of Word and Fragment Writing during L2 Vocabulary Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Barcroft, Joe

    2007-01-01

    This study examined how writing (copying) target words and word fragments affects intentional second language (L2) vocabulary learning. English-speaking first-semester learners of Spanish attempted to learn 24 Spanish nouns via word-picture repetition in three conditions: (1) word writing, (2) fragment writing, and (3) no writing. After the…

  17. On the Effects of L2 on Iranian Bilinguals' L1 Writing Ability

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Agheshteh, Hessam

    2015-01-01

    While the effects of L1 on L2 have been extensively investigated, the effects of L2 on L1 have been largely ignored. The present study attempted to address this issue by investigating the effects of L2 English on Iranian Bilinguals' L1 writing ability. For this end, 61 participants, 30 bilinguals and 31 monolinguals, were assessed on an…

  18. Main Ingredients for Success in L2 Academic Writing: Outlining, Drafting and Proofreading.

    PubMed

    Munoz-Luna, Rosa

    2015-01-01

    Spanish undergraduates of English Studies are required to submit their essays in academic English, a genre which most of them are not acquainted with. This paper aims to explore the extralinguistic side of second language (L2) academic writing, more specifically, the combination of metalinguistic items (e.g. transition and frame markers, among others) with students' writing strategies when composing an academic text in L2 English. The research sample conveys a group of 200 Spanish undergraduates of English Studies; they are in their fourth year, so they are expected to be proficient in English academic writing but their written production quality varies considerably. Results are analysed following a mixed methodology by which metalinguistic items are statistically measured, and then contrasted with semi-structured interview results; SPSS and NVivo provide quantitative and qualitative outcomes, respectively. The analyses reveal that undergraduate students who produce complex sentences and more coherent texts employ a wider range of writing strategies both prior and while writing, being able to (un)consciously structure and design their texts more successfully. These high-scoring students make more proficient use of complex transition markers for coherence and frame markers for textual cohesion; their commonly used (pre-)writing strategies are drafting, outlining, and proofreading.

  19. Main Ingredients for Success in L2 Academic Writing: Outlining, Drafting and Proofreading

    PubMed Central

    Munoz-Luna, Rosa

    2015-01-01

    Spanish undergraduates of English Studies are required to submit their essays in academic English, a genre which most of them are not acquainted with. This paper aims to explore the extralinguistic side of second language (L2) academic writing, more specifically, the combination of metalinguistic items (e.g. transition and frame markers, among others) with students’ writing strategies when composing an academic text in L2 English. The research sample conveys a group of 200 Spanish undergraduates of English Studies; they are in their fourth year, so they are expected to be proficient in English academic writing but their written production quality varies considerably. Results are analysed following a mixed methodology by which metalinguistic items are statistically measured, and then contrasted with semi-structured interview results; SPSS and NVivo provide quantitative and qualitative outcomes, respectively. The analyses reveal that undergraduate students who produce complex sentences and more coherent texts employ a wider range of writing strategies both prior and while writing, being able to (un)consciously structure and design their texts more successfully. These high-scoring students make more proficient use of complex transition markers for coherence and frame markers for textual cohesion; their commonly used (pre-)writing strategies are drafting, outlining, and proofreading. PMID:26046836

  20. Written Corrective Feedback in L2 Writing: Connors & Lunsford (1988); Lunsford & Lunsford (2008); Lalande (1982) Dana Ferris

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ferris, Dana

    2015-01-01

    Written corrective feedback (CF) has been the most heavily researched topic in second language (L2) writing over the past 20 years. As a recent research timeline article in this journal (Ferris 2012; see also Bitchener & Ferris 2012) shows, studies of error correction in student writing have crossed disciplines (composition and rhetoric,…

  1. The Development and Use of Cohesive Devices in L2 Writing and Their Relations to Judgments of Essay Quality

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crossley, Scott A.; Kyle, Kristopher; McNamara, Danielle S.

    2016-01-01

    An important topic in writing research has been the use of cohesive features. Much of this research has focused on local and text cohesion. The few studies that have studied global cohesion have been restricted to first language writing. This study investigates the development of local, global, and text cohesion in the writing of 57 language (L2)…

  2. Peer Response to L2 Student Writing: Patterns and Expectations

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Abdalla Salih, Abdel Rahman

    2013-01-01

    This paper reports the corrective feedback patterns in L2 writing and the student writers' preferences for peer feedback. The study examines the actual focus of peer review and the types of corrective feedback provided in L2 composing process. Sixteen L2 matriculation students at a Malaysian university took part in five peer review sessions,…

  3. An Investigation of L2 Learners' Writing Self-Efficacy, Writing Anxiety and Its Causes at Higher Education in Turkey

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kirmizi, Özkan; Kirmizi, Gülin Dagdeviren

    2015-01-01

    The present study aimed at investigating higher education L2 learners in a Turkish context in terms of writing self-efficacy, writing anxiety, and the causes of writing anxiety. The data have been collected through the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI), developed by Cheng, (2004), and Causes of Writing Anxiety Inventory (CWAI), and…

  4. Web-Based Collaborative Writing in L2 Contexts: Methodological Insights from Text Mining

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yim, Soobin; Warschauer, Mark

    2017-01-01

    The increasingly widespread use of social software (e.g., Wikis, Google Docs) in second language (L2) settings has brought a renewed attention to collaborative writing. Although the current methodological approaches to examining collaborative writing are valuable to understand L2 students' interactional patterns or perceived experiences, they can…

  5. A Blended Collaborative Writing Approach for Chinese L2 Primary School Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wong, Lung-Hsiang; Chen, Wenli; Chai, Ching-Sing; Chin, Chee-Kuen; Gao, Ping

    2011-01-01

    This paper outlines an adaptable collaborative writing approach employing a wiki to address the typical weaknesses of young Singaporean Chinese students learning Chinese as second language (L2) in Chinese writing. These students' problems in writing include limited and incorrect use of vocabulary, English-style grammar, badly structured passages,…

  6. Using the Sociocognitive-Transformative Approach in Writing Classrooms: Effects on L2 Learners' Writing Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Barrot, Jessie S.

    2018-01-01

    The current study used a scale-based approach and complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) analysis to comprehensively capture the effects of the sociocognitive-transformative approach on 2nd language (L2) learners' writing performance. The study involved 66 preuniversity intermediate L2 students from 4 different English classes. I randomly…

  7. Investigating the Interactions among Genre, Task Complexity, and Proficiency in L2 Writing: A Comprehensive Text Analysis and Study of Learner Perceptions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yoon, Hyung-Jo

    2017-01-01

    In this study, I explored the interactions among genre, task complexity, and L2 proficiency in learners' writing task performance. Specifically, after identifying the lack of valid operationalizations of genre and task dimensions in L2 writing research, I examined how genre functions as a task complexity variable, and how learners' perceptions and…

  8. The Role of Cognitive and Affective Factors in Measures of L2 Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zabihi, Reza

    2018-01-01

    This study investigates the direct and/or indirect effects of some cognitive (working memory capacity) and affective (writing anxiety and writing self-efficacy) variables on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) of second language (L2) learners' writings. To achieve this goal, 232 upper-intermediate English learners performed an automated…

  9. Putting Students at the Centre of Classroom L2 Writing Assessment

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lee, Icy

    2016-01-01

    In many educational contexts, L2 writing assessment tends to emphasize its summative functions (i.e., assessment of learning--AoL) more than its formative potential (i.e., assessment for--AfL). While the teacher plays a dominant role in AoL, central to AfL is the role of the students, alongside that of the teacher and peers. A student-centred…

  10. Functional Adequacy in L2 Writing: Towards a New Rating Scale

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kuiken, Folkert; Vedder, Ineke

    2017-01-01

    The importance of functional adequacy as an essential component of L2 proficiency has been observed by several authors (Pallotti, 2009; De Jong, Steinel, Florijn, Schoonen, & Hulstijn, 2012a, b). The rationale underlying the present study is that the assessment of writing proficiency in L2 is not fully possible without taking into account the…

  11. Second Language Writing Research and Written Corrective Feedback in SLA: Intersections and Practical Applications

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ferris, Dana R.

    2010-01-01

    For more than a decade now, a great deal of research has been done on the topic of written corrective feedback (CF) in SLA and second language (L2) writing. Nonetheless, what those research efforts really have shown as well as the possible implications for practice remain in dispute. Although L2 writing and SLA researchers often examine similar…

  12. Diction and Expression in Error Analysis Can Enhance Academic Writing of L2 University Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sajid, Muhammad

    2016-01-01

    Without proper linguistic competence in English language, academic writing is one of the most challenging tasks, especially, in various genre specific disciplines by L2 novice writers. This paper examines the role of diction and expression through error analysis in English language of L2 novice writers' academic writing in interdisciplinary texts…

  13. Hidden Voices: L2 Students' Compensatory Writing Strategies

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stockall, Nancy; Villar Cole, Corinna

    2016-01-01

    This qualitative research study examines how 12 undergraduate second-language learners understood the concept of citations in academic writing. The following questions guided this study: What are the participants' beliefs about citing research? How do students conceive the role and function of citations in their writing assignments? How do they…

  14. Analyzing Genre Exemplars in Preparation for Writing: The Case of an L2 Graduate Student in the ESP Genre-Based Instructional Framework of Academic Literacy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cheng, An

    2008-01-01

    Some researchers believe that the ESP genre-based framework of writing instruction is effective in teaching discipline-specific English EAP writing to L2 learners, especially to advanced L2 graduate students. However, studies examining students' genre-based learning in such a framework are still underrepresented in current ESP genre-based…

  15. L1 vs L2 Writing: ESL Graduate Students' Perceptions.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Silva, Tony

    1992-01-01

    A classroom-based study is reported that explored English-as-a-Second Language graduate students' perceptions about (1) differences between writing in their native language and writing in English, and (2) how these difference should be reflected in ESL writing teachers' practices. (19 references) (Author/LB)

  16. The Use of Paraphrase in Summary Writing: A Comparison of L1 and L2 Writers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Keck, Casey

    2006-01-01

    Paraphrasing is considered by many to be an important skill for academic writing, and some have argued that the teaching of paraphrasing might help students avoid copying from source texts. Few studies, however, have investigated the ways in which both L1 and L2 academic writers already use paraphrasing as a textual borrowing strategy when…

  17. A Case Study on the Effects of an L2 Writing Instructional Model for Blended Learning in Higher Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    So, Lee; Lee, Chung Hyun

    2013-01-01

    This case study explores EFL (English as a foreign language) students' perceptions toward a prototype of an instructional model for second language (L2) writing in blended learning and the effects of the model on the development of L2 writing skills in higher education. This model is primarily founded on the process-oriented writing approach…

  18. Effects of Interactive Chat versus Independent Writing on L2 Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tare, Medha; Golonka, Ewa M.; Vatz, Karen; Bonilla, Carrie L.; Crooks, Carolyn; Strong, Rachel

    2014-01-01

    This study examines the importance of interaction for second language (L2) acquisition by analyzing outcomes from two types of out-of-class activities. The study compared: (a) interactive homework, completed via text chat, and (b) individual homework, completed via independent writing. In a between-subjects design, participants in two…

  19. Working Smarter, Not Working Harder: Revisiting Teacher Feedback in the L2 Writing Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lee, Icy

    2011-01-01

    Although second language (L2) teachers spend a significant amount of time marking students' writing, many of them feel that their efforts do not pay off. While students want teachers to give them feedback on their writing and value teacher feedback, they might experience feelings of frustration and confusion once they receive it. What is amiss in…

  20. Teaching Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tomas, Z.; Kostka, I.; Mott-Smith, J. A.

    2013-01-01

    The authors of "Teaching Writing" draw on their years of teaching and their knowledge of theory and research to present major concepts in teaching L2 writing. These concepts encompass how cultural differences affect the writing class, planning instruction, text-based writing, writing strategies, modeling, and responding to student…

  1. Effects of Task Complexity on L2 Writing Behaviors and Linguistic Complexity

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Révész, Andrea; Kourtali, Nektaria-Efstathia; Mazgutova, Diana

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated whether task complexity influences second language (L2) writers' fluency, pausing, and revision behaviors and the cognitive processes underlying these behaviors; whether task complexity affects linguistic complexity of written output; and whether relationships between writing behaviors and linguistic complexity are…

  2. Thinking Allowed: Integrating Process and Genre into the Second Language Writing Classroom: Research into Practice

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Racelis, Juval V.; Matsuda, Paul Kei

    2013-01-01

    The field of second language (L2) writing has moved beyond the false dichotomies between process- and genre-based pedagogies perpetuated in the 1980s and 1990s, but there has still been little research on how the two are actually reconciled in the classroom. Consequently, L2 writing instructors are left with an incomplete picture, unsure how to…

  3. Assessing Syntactic Sophistication in L2 Writing: A Usage-Based Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kyle, Kristopher; Crossley, Scott

    2017-01-01

    Over the past 45 years, the construct of syntactic sophistication has been assessed in L2 writing using what Bulté and Housen (2012) refer to as absolute complexity (Lu, 2011; Ortega, 2003; Wolfe-Quintero, Inagaki, & Kim, 1998). However, it has been argued that making inferences about learners based on absolute complexity indices (e.g., mean…

  4. The "'Grammar Correction' Debate in L2 Writing": Where Are We, and Where Do We Go from Here?--(And What Do We Do in the Meantime ...?)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ferris, Dana R.

    2004-01-01

    The efficacy of teacher error/grammar correction in second language writing classes has been the subject of much controversy, including a published debate in an earlier volume of this journal [J. Second Language Writing 8 (1999) 1; J. Second Language Writing 8 (1999) 111]. In this paper, the state-of-the-art in error correction research in L2

  5. The Effects of Utilizing Corpus Resources to Correct Collocation Errors in L2 Writing--Students' Performance, Corpus Use and Perceptions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wu, Yi-ju

    2016-01-01

    Data-Driven Learning (DDL), in which learners "confront [themselves] directly with the corpus data" (Johns, 2002, p. 108), has shown to be effective in collocation learning in L2 writing. Nevertheless, there have been only few research studies of this type examining the relationship between English proficiency and corpus consultation.…

  6. Effect of Instruction on ESL Students' Synthesis Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zhang, Cui

    2013-01-01

    Synthesis writing has become the focus of much greater attention in the past 10 years in L2 EAP contexts. However, research on L2 synthesis writing has been limited, especially with respect to treatment studies that relate writing instruction to the development of synthesis writing abilities. To address this research gap, the present study…

  7. Connecting Reading and Writing Using Children's Literature in the University L2 Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Leal, Priscila

    2015-01-01

    This article investigates the potential benefits of using children's literature in adult second language (L2) classrooms. A short-term, intensive university course for English reading and writing was designed incorporating children's literature into the curriculum. The author describes the course and discusses how children's literature can be used…

  8. Reverse Transfer: Exploring the Effects of Foreign Language Rhetorical Patterns on L1 Writing Performance of Iranian EFL Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Babaii, Esmat; Ramazani, Kambiz

    2017-01-01

    The relationship between language learners' L1 and L2 writing productions has attracted the attention of researchers since Kaplan (1966). Along this research line, the present study aimed to explore the reverse transfer of rhetorical patterns from English (L2) to Persian (L1) in the argumentative essays of EFL students in Iran. Sixty MA university…

  9. The Effect of Concept Mapping on L2 Writing Performance: Examining Possible Effects of Trait-Level Writing Anxiety

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Machida, Naoko; Dalsky, David J.

    2014-01-01

    Research on anxiety in a foreign language-learning context is well-documented; however, few studies have directly focused on anxiety occurring within writing contexts despite the fact that writing anxiety is known to affect students' learning. The present study examined the effectiveness of concept mapping considering students' writing anxiety.…

  10. Affordances of Web 2.0 Technologies for Collaborative Advanced Writing in a Foreign Language

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Strobl. Carola

    2014-01-01

    Can online collaboration yield a positive effect on academic writing in a foreign language? If so, what exactly is the added value, compared to individual writing, and (how) does it translate to better output? These are the central questions addressed in this paper. L2 writing research has long highlighted the benefits of collaboration in terms of…

  11. Promoting Writing for Research: The "Writing Retreat" Model

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Singh, R. J.

    2012-01-01

    Research papers take a long time to write and in an academic environment where the "publish or perish" clause applies, writing retreats are a way of creating time and space to write academic articles in a concentrated period of time. This article examines ways in which academics can write more articles for publication. In particular it…

  12. Writing Research Reports.

    PubMed

    Sessler, Daniel I; Shafer, Steven

    2018-01-01

    Clear writing makes manuscripts easier to understand. Clear writing enhances research reports, increasing clinical adoption and scientific impact. We discuss styles and organization to help junior investigators present their findings and avoid common errors.

  13. Plagiarism in Second-Language Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pecorari, Diane; Petric, Bojana

    2014-01-01

    Plagiarism is a broad and multidisciplinary field of study, and within second-language (L2) writing, research on the topic goes back to the mid-1980s. In this review article we first discuss the received view of plagiarism as a transgressive act and alternative understandings which have been presented in the L1 and L2 writing literature. We then…

  14. Measurements of Development in L2 Written Production: The Case of L2 Chinese

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jiang, Wenying

    2013-01-01

    This study investigates measures for second language (L2) writing development. A T-unit, which has been found the most satisfactory unit of analysis for measuring L2 development in English, is extended to measure L2 Chinese writing development through a cross-sectional design in this study. Data were collected from three L2 Chinese learner groups…

  15. Vocabulary Knowledge and Vocabulary Use in Second Language Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Johnson, Mark D.; Acevedo, Anthony; Mercado, Leonardo

    2016-01-01

    Research has consistently shown diversity of vocabulary to be an important indicator of second language (L2) writing development as well as L2 writing performance. These studies underscore the importance of vocabulary to L2 writing. However, they provide little to indicate what kind of vocabulary learners of English may need to know in order to…

  16. Worries of Novice Researchers in Writing Research Papers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wilang, Jeffrey Dawala; Jantori, Parinda; Chutataweesawas, Sirikoy

    2018-01-01

    Due to 'pressures' to publish research papers, a group of novice researchers (n = 9) was encouraged to attend a 'Write right' workshop. The participants were asked to fill out a self-report anxiety questionnaire to understand their worries in writing research papers in English. Afterwards, they were asked to write an essay on situations that…

  17. Outcome Measure of L2 Writing as a Mediator of the Effects of Corrective Feedback on Students' Ability to Write Accurately

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Riazantseva, Anastasia

    2012-01-01

    This study used longitudinal data and a pre-post test design to examine the effect of the outcome measure of L2 writing on the accuracy rates of thirty-two international graduate students enrolled in a semester-long content-based EAP course. As part of the coursework, the students completed weekly written assignments on which they received weekly…

  18. The Impact of Blended e-Learning on Undergraduate Academic Essay Writing in English (L2)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ferriman, Nicholas

    2013-01-01

    This paper describes a quasi-experimental study into the impact of a blended e-learning environment on academic writing assignments in English (L2) at a Thai international college. An experimental group of 15 students used an on-line bulletin board, as well as face-to-face (F2F) communication in class, to share information for essay topics they…

  19. Peer Feedback in Second Language Writing (2005-2014)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yu, Shulin; Lee, Icy

    2016-01-01

    This article reviews research on peer feedback in second language (L2) writing published in the last decade (i.e. 2005-2014). We analyse first the theoretical underpinnings that have informed both peer feedback research and the pedagogical use of peer feedback in L2 writing instruction. We also provide a critical interpretation of existing peer…

  20. The Influence of Students' L1 and Spoken English in English Writing: A Corpus-Based Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Prihantoro

    2016-01-01

    Academic writing requires both style and grammatical correctness; however, efforts in improving the quality of English academic writing by non-native students have been focused on grammar. Structures observed in this study were grammatically correct, but considered unnatural in academic writing genre. This research involves a group of non-native…

  1. Enhancing Undergraduate Students' Research and Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lumpkin, Angela

    2015-01-01

    Concern about the research and writing abilities of undergraduate students led to the development, implementation and enhancement of four sequential writing assignments in an introductory course. These writing assignments--which included a report on an interview of a professional in the field, a research paper on an aspirational career, a research…

  2. Researching, Writing, and Publishing Local History.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Felt, Thomas E.

    The book provides practical guidelines for the layman who is interested in researching, writing, and publishing local history. Two standards considered to be essential to the writing of local history are ethics and competence. The three aspects of competence which are discussed focus on researching, writing, and publishing. Chapter I identifies…

  3. Computer-Based Multimodal Composing Activities, Self-Revision, and L2 Acquisition through Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dzekoe, Richmond

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated how 22 advanced-low proficiency ESL students used computer-based multimodal composing activities (CBMCAs) to facilitate self-revision and learn English through academic writing in the USA. The CBMCAs involved a combination of writing, listening, visual analysis, and speaking activities. The research was framed within an…

  4. Learning to Write, Writing to Learn: Theory and Research in Practice

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Indrisano, Roselmina, Ed.; Paratore, Jeanne R., Ed.

    2005-01-01

    Improving the way to teach writing requires deepening one's understanding of the process of writing. Each chapter in this collection brings together the perspectives of a university researcher and a classroom teacher to show explicitly the connection between writing theory, and practice. The book covers writing development in grades K?12 and…

  5. Research Update: Write Research to be Read.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Murray, Donald M.

    1982-01-01

    Discusses 10 rules of thumb for writing educational research reports that are concise and accessible. The principles include writing in terms of people, emphasizing the positive, editing for simplicity, and breaking any of the previously discussed rules when necessary. (HTH)

  6. Revisiting Fluctuations in L2 Article Choice in L1-Korean L2-English Learners.

    PubMed

    Sarker, Bijon K; Baek, Seunghyun

    2017-04-01

    The current study investigated the distinction of L2 (second language) English article choice sensitivity in fifty-three L1-Korean L2-English learners in semantic contexts. In the context of English as a foreign language, the participants were divided into two groups based on grammatical ability as determined by their performance on a cloze test. In addition, a forced-choice elicitation test and a writing production test were administered to assess, respectively, the participants' receptive and productive article choice abilities. Regardless of grammatical ability, the results disclosed the overuse of the indefinite a in the [[Formula: see text]definite, -specific] context and the definite the in the [-definite, [Formula: see text]specific] context on the forced-choice elicitation test. In the [[Formula: see text]definite, [Formula: see text]specific] and [-definite, -specific] contexts, however, the overuse of either the indefinite a or the definite the, respectively, was less likely. Furthermore, it was revealed on the writing test that the participants more accurately used the definite the than the indefinite a, and they were also found to unreasonably omit more articles than to add or substitute articles on the writing production test. The findings across the two tests indicate that L1-Korean L2-English learners are more likely to have intrinsic difficulties transferring their L1 noun phrase (NP) knowledge to L2 NP knowledge owing to structural discrepancies and complex interfaces between L1 NPs and L2 NPs with respect to syntactic, semantic and pragmatic/discourse language subsystems.

  7. 10 Steps in Writing the Research Paper. Fourth Edition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Markman, Roberta H.; And Others

    Retaining the compact format of earlier editions, this updated book presents techniques and models for high school and college students to write successful research papers. After a preface and an introduction to research, the book discusses the 10 steps in writing a research paper: (1) find a subject; (2) read a general article; (3) formulate a…

  8. Research: Why and how to write a paper?

    PubMed

    Light, R W

    2015-10-01

    In this article, an internationally renowned pulmonologist with extensive experience in teaching and publishing gives practical advice to young physicians and/or residents on the importance of doing research, the steps for planning a project and also some do's and don'ts of writing and publishing a scientific paper. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U.

  9. Exploring L2 Writing Conferences: Discourse and Effects

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ji, Soohyon

    2017-01-01

    One-to-one writing conferences, which allow maximized individualized interaction between student-writers and teacher-readers, are widely adopted teaching practices in composition classrooms. One of the most frequently mentioned benefits of writing conferences is that individual sessions between a teacher and student allows and promotes individual…

  10. A Brief Overview of Key Issues in Second Language Writing Teaching and Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Javadi-Safa, Azim

    2018-01-01

    This paper briefly reviews the literature on writing skill in second language. It commences with a discussion on the importance of writing and its special characteristics. Then, it gives a brief account of the reasons for the weakness of students' writing skill as well as addressing some of the most important topics in L2 writing studies ranging…

  11. Supporting the Thesis Writing Process of International Research Students through an Ongoing Writing Group

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Li, Linda Y.; Vandermensbrugghe, Joelle

    2011-01-01

    Evidence from research suggests writing support is particularly needed for international research students who have to tackle the challenges of thesis writing in English as their second language in Western academic settings. This article reports the development of an ongoing writing group to support the thesis writing process of international…

  12. An Introduction to "Re-search" Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Duke, Charles R.

    To change the perceptions that research writing is somehow different from other writing, teachers need to place more emphasis on the "search" in student research papers. An intermediate assignment can help bridge the gap between the totally personal search and the more formal and traditional research paper approach. The assignment asks students to…

  13. Collaborative Writing Tasks in the L2 Classroom: Comparing Group, Pair, and Individual Work

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dobao, Ana Fernandez

    2012-01-01

    This study investigates the benefits of collaborative writing tasks. Previous research from the perspective of the sociocultural theory of mind suggests that writing tasks completed in pairs offer learners an opportunity to collaborate in the solution of their language-related problems, co-construct new language knowledge, and produce…

  14. Facilitating L2 Writers' Interpretation of Source Texts

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Doolan, Stephen M.; Fitzsimmons-Doolan, Shannon

    2016-01-01

    Student success in higher education often involves the effective integration of source texts into students' writing (Horowitz, 1986); therefore, advanced second language (L2) students are particularly well served by effective reading-to-write instruction. Teaching L2 students to write from sources is challenging because of several issues,…

  15. How to write a research proposal?

    PubMed Central

    Sudheesh, K; Duggappa, Devika Rani; Nethra, SS

    2016-01-01

    Writing the proposal of a research work in the present era is a challenging task due to the constantly evolving trends in the qualitative research design and the need to incorporate medical advances into the methodology. The proposal is a detailed plan or ‘blueprint’ for the intended study, and once it is completed, the research project should flow smoothly. Even today, many of the proposals at post-graduate evaluation committees and application proposals for funding are substandard. A search was conducted with keywords such as research proposal, writing proposal and qualitative using search engines, namely, PubMed and Google Scholar, and an attempt has been made to provide broad guidelines for writing a scientifically appropriate research proposal. PMID:27729688

  16. Basic Skills, Basic Writing, Basic Research.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Trimmer, Joseph F.

    1987-01-01

    Overviews basic writing instruction and research by briefly discussing the history of remediation, results of a survey of basic writing programs in U.S. colleges and universities, and interviews with developmental textbook editors at major publishing houses. Finds that basic writing instruction continues to focus on sentence grammar. (MM)

  17. Understanding and Evaluating L2 Personal Letter Writing: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Analysis of Student Texts in German

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crane, Cori

    2016-01-01

    Adopting a genre lens informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (cf. Halliday & Matthiessen, [Halliday, M. A. K., 2004]; Martin & Rose, [Martin, J. R., 2008]), this paper explores the text-structural and lexico-grammatical choices that second language (L2) writers of German make in personal letter writing. Close analysis of two student…

  18. Chinese L2 Literacy Practices: Material and Sociocultural Considerations

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lo-Philip, Stephanie Wingyan

    2014-01-01

    Although there has been research on literacy as a sociocultural practice, L2 literacy researchers have yet to incorporate and consider how the material characteristics of a writing system interact with sociocultural factors in shaping literacy practices. Drawing on conceptions of literacy as a sociocultural practice, psycholinguistic and…

  19. Research Writing in a Foreign Language.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Simpson, JoEllen M.

    1998-01-01

    Reports on the application of a North American system of research writing in a high-intermediate class of English-as-foreign-language learners in Colombia. The system was adapted from a variety of sources representing typical approaches to the introduction of academic research writing at the university level in the United States. (Author/VWL)

  20. Examining the Impact of L2 Proficiency and Keyboarding Skills on Scores on TOEFL-iBT Writing Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Barkaoui, Khaled

    2014-01-01

    A major concern with computer-based (CB) tests of second-language (L2) writing is that performance on such tests may be influenced by test-taker keyboarding skills. Poor keyboarding skills may force test-takers to focus their attention and cognitive resources on motor activities (i.e., keyboarding) and, consequently, other processes and aspects of…

  1. Writing a Research Proposal to The Research Council of Oman

    PubMed Central

    Al-Shukaili, Ahmed; Al-Maniri, Abdullah

    2017-01-01

    Writing a research proposal can be a challenging task for young researchers. This article explains how to write a strong research proposal to apply for funding, specifically, a proposal for The Research Council (TRC) of Oman. Three different research proposal application forms are currently used in TRC, including Open Research Grant (ORG), Graduate Research Support Program (GRSP), and Faculty-mentored Undergraduate Research Award Program (FURAP). The application forms are filled and submitted electronically on TRC website. Each of the proposals submitted to TRC is selected through a rigorous reviewing and screening process. Novelty and originality of the research idea is the most crucial element in writing a research proposal. Performing an in-depth review of the literature will assist you to compose a good researchable question and generate a strong hypothesis. The development of a good hypothesis will offer insight into the specific objectives of a study. Research objectives should be focused, measurable, and achievable by a specific time using the most appropriate methodology. Moreover, it is essential to select a proper study design in-line with the purpose of the study and the hypothesis. Furthermore, social/economic impact and reasonable budget of proposed research are important criteria in research proposal evaluation by TRC. Finally, ethical principles should be observed before writing a research proposal involving human or animal subjects. PMID:28584597

  2. Writing a Research Proposal to The Research Council of Oman.

    PubMed

    Al-Shukaili, Ahmed; Al-Maniri, Abdullah

    2017-05-01

    Writing a research proposal can be a challenging task for young researchers. This article explains how to write a strong research proposal to apply for funding, specifically, a proposal for The Research Council (TRC) of Oman. Three different research proposal application forms are currently used in TRC, including Open Research Grant (ORG), Graduate Research Support Program (GRSP), and Faculty-mentored Undergraduate Research Award Program (FURAP). The application forms are filled and submitted electronically on TRC website. Each of the proposals submitted to TRC is selected through a rigorous reviewing and screening process. Novelty and originality of the research idea is the most crucial element in writing a research proposal. Performing an in-depth review of the literature will assist you to compose a good researchable question and generate a strong hypothesis. The development of a good hypothesis will offer insight into the specific objectives of a study. Research objectives should be focused, measurable, and achievable by a specific time using the most appropriate methodology. Moreover, it is essential to select a proper study design in-line with the purpose of the study and the hypothesis. Furthermore, social/economic impact and reasonable budget of proposed research are important criteria in research proposal evaluation by TRC. Finally, ethical principles should be observed before writing a research proposal involving human or animal subjects.

  3. Negotiating Voice Construction between Writers and Readers in College Writing: A Case Study of an L2 Writer

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jwa, Soomin

    2018-01-01

    Voice is co-constructed, a result of the "text-mediated interaction between the writer and the reader." The present study, using the context of U.S. college writing, explores the complicated process by which an L2 novice writer--one who has a growing awareness of, yet peripheral access to, discourse practices--constructs a voice. Through…

  4. Writing a Research Paper

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mikk, Jaan

    2006-01-01

    The value of research and the career of a university lecturer depend heavily on the success in publishing scientific papers. This article reviews the guidelines for writing and submitting research papers. The three most important success criteria in publishing are as follows: the paper describes a good research, it is written according to the…

  5. Threshold to Transfer Writing Skills from L1 to L2

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ito, Fumihiko

    2009-01-01

    Background: It has been hypothesized that L2 (second language) readers are not able to draw on their L1 (first language) reading skills for the successful development of L2 reading skills until they develop a certain proficiency in L2 because a lack of proficiency blocks transfer of L1 reading skills to the reading of L2 texts. This minimum degree…

  6. Exploring Collaboratively Written L2 Texts among First-Year Learners of German in Google Docs

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Abrams, Zsuzsanna

    2016-01-01

    Grounded in research on collaborative writing and computer-mediated writing the present study examines the computer-mediated collaborative writing process among first-year learners of German as a second language (L2) at a US university. The data come from 28 first-year learners of German at a US university, who wrote hypothesized endings to a…

  7. African Primary Care Research: writing a research report.

    PubMed

    Couper, Ian; Mash, Bob

    2014-06-06

    Presenting a research report is an important way of demonstrating one's ability to conduct research and is a requirement of most research-based degrees. Although known by various names across academic institutions, the structure required is mostly very similar, being based on the Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion format of scientific articles.This article offers some guidance on the process of writing, aimed at helping readers to start and to continue their writing; and to assist them in presenting a report that is received positively by their readers, including examiners. It also details the typical components of the research report, providing some guidelines for each, as well as the pitfalls to avoid.This article is part of a series on African Primary Care Research that aims to build capacity for research particularly at a Master's level.

  8. Modeling the Development of L1 and EFL Writing Proficiency of Secondary School Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schoonen, Rob; van Gelderen, Amos; Stoel, Reinoud D.; Hulstijn, Jan; de Glopper, Kees

    2011-01-01

    This longitudinal study investigates the development of writing proficiency in English as a foreign language (EFL), in contrast to the development of first language (L1) writing proficiency in Dutch L1, in a sample of almost 400 secondary school students in the Netherlands. Students performed several writing tasks in both languages in three…

  9. African Primary Care Research: Writing a research report

    PubMed Central

    Mash, Bob

    2014-01-01

    Abstract Presenting a research report is an important way of demonstrating one's ability to conduct research and is a requirement of most research-based degrees. Although known by various names across academic institutions, the structure required is mostly very similar, being based on the Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion format of scientific articles. This article offers some guidance on the process of writing, aimed at helping readers to start and to continue their writing; and to assist them in presenting a report that is received positively by their readers, including examiners. It also details the typical components of the research report, providing some guidelines for each, as well as the pitfalls to avoid. This article is part of a series on African Primary Care Research that aims to build capacity for research particularly at a Master's level. PMID:26245441

  10. Writing. A Research-Based Writing Program for Students with High Access to Computers. ACOT Report #2.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hiebert, Elfrieda H.; And Others

    This report summarizes the curriculum development and research effort that took place at the Cupertino Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) site from January through June 1987. Based on the premise that computers make revising and editing much easier, the four major objectives emphasized by the computer-intensive writing program are fluency,…

  11. Rethinking the Research Paper in the Writing Center.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McDonald, James C.

    1994-01-01

    Discusses the problems presented to writing center tutors by traditional research paper assignments. Recounts typical definitions of student research papers according to current-traditional rhetoric. Advocates writing centers helping students transform research papers into meaning-making activities in which students construct knowledge. (HB)

  12. WriteSim TCExam - An open source text simulation environment for training novice researchers in scientific writing

    PubMed Central

    2010-01-01

    Background The ability to write clearly and effectively is of central importance to the scientific enterprise. Encouraged by the success of simulation environments in other biomedical sciences, we developed WriteSim TCExam, an open-source, Web-based, textual simulation environment for teaching effective writing techniques to novice researchers. We shortlisted and modified an existing open source application - TCExam to serve as a textual simulation environment. After testing usability internally in our team, we conducted formal field usability studies with novice researchers. These were followed by formal surveys with researchers fitting the role of administrators and users (novice researchers) Results The development process was guided by feedback from usability tests within our research team. Online surveys and formal studies, involving members of the Research on Research group and selected novice researchers, show that the application is user-friendly. Additionally it has been used to train 25 novice researchers in scientific writing to date and has generated encouraging results. Conclusion WriteSim TCExam is the first Web-based, open-source textual simulation environment designed to complement traditional scientific writing instruction. While initial reviews by students and educators have been positive, a formal study is needed to measure its benefits in comparison to standard instructional methods. PMID:20509946

  13. Reflections on the Need for Continued Research on Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Miller, Brett; McCardle, Peggy

    2011-01-01

    A focused scientific research effort on writing research and its relationship to language development and reading is needed to address the writing and broader literacy needs of today's and tomorrow's learners and workers. In the United States, as well as in many other nations, research on writing has been neglected in relation to the emphasis on…

  14. Cultivating Advanced Technical Writing Skills through a Graduate-Level Course on Writing Research Proposals

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McCarthy, Brian D.; Dempsey, Jillian L.

    2017-01-01

    A graduate-level course focused on original research proposals is introduced to address the uneven preparation in technical writing of new chemistry graduate students. This course focuses on writing original research proposals. The general course structure features extensive group discussions, small-group activities, and regular in-class…

  15. Writing instruction in kindergarten: examining an emerging area of research for children with writing and reading difficulties.

    PubMed

    Edwards, Lana

    2003-01-01

    This review examines the literature on how to teach kindergarten children with reading and writing difficulties how to write. Specifically, research on handwriting instruction, spelling instruction, and composition writing is discussed. Due to the limited number of empirical studies on writing that included kindergarten students with diagnosed reading and writing difficulties, selected studies conducted with the full range of kindergarten children, as well as studies conducted in the early elementary grades, are presented to highlight future directions for research.

  16. Lexical Retrieval Processes and Strategies in Second Language Writing: A Synthesis of Empirical Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Manchon, Rosa M.; Murphy, Liz; Roca, Julio

    2007-01-01

    Lexical access and retrieval are essential processes in fluent and efficient second language (L2) oral and written productive uses of language. In the case of L2 writing, attention to vocabulary is of paramount importance, although the retrieval of relevant lexis while composing in an L2 frequently entails different degrees of problem-solving…

  17. The art of writing good research proposals.

    PubMed

    van Ekelenburg, Henk

    2010-01-01

    Whilst scientists are by default motivated by intellectual challenges linked to the area of their interest rather than have an interest in the financial component related to their work, the reality of today is that funding for their work does not come automatically More and more governments provide project-related funding rather than multipurpose funding that covers the total annual costs of a research performing entity (such as a university department). So, like it or not, researchers have to present their research ideas and convince funding bodies about the usefulness and importance of their intended research work. Writing the research proposal is not simply typing words and punctuation. It requires succinctly and clearly chronicling the facts, as well as crafting a convincing line of reasoning for funding the project. For the best result, both the logical, verbal left side of the brain and the intuitive, creative right side of the brain need to work as a team. This article covers the process of writing a proposal, from research idea to submission to the funding body. The key to good writing is linking the text into a logical project flow. Therefore, in the early stage of writing an RTD proposal, developing the chain of reasoning and creating a flow chart is recommended to get a clear overview of the entire project and to visualise how the many work packages are connected.

  18. Empowering L2 Tutoring: A Case Study of a Second Language Writer's Vocabulary Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Severino, Carol; Deifell, Elizabeth

    2011-01-01

    Writing center tutors play a key role in advancing L2 writers' language learning because the tutorial interaction involves the introduction of new language and vocabulary at the point of need or interest. This tutor-research case study presents a detailed, complex portrait of how a second language writer in a US writing center learned and used…

  19. The Impact of Vocabulary Preparation on L2 Listening Comprehension, Confidence and Strategy Use

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chang, Anna Ching-Shyang

    2007-01-01

    Building on previous studies of the effects of planning on second language learners' (L2) oral narratives and writing, this research reports an investigation of the effects of vocabulary preparation prior to a listening comprehension test on L2 learners' vocabulary performance, listening comprehension, confidence levels and strategy use. The…

  20. Design Issues and Inference in Experimental L2 Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hudson, Thom; Llosa, Lorena

    2015-01-01

    Explicit attention to research design issues is essential in experimental second language (L2) research. Too often, however, such careful attention is not paid. This article examines some of the issues surrounding experimental L2 research and its relationships to causal inferences. It discusses the place of research questions and hypotheses,…

  1. Investigating the Role of Identity in L2 Writing Using Electronic Bulletin Boards

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Spiliotopoulos, Valia; Carey, Steven

    2005-01-01

    Recent research has focused on the relationship between language and identity (Ivanic, 1998; Kanno & Norton, 2003). International students who come to Canada to learn English as a second language realize that to succeed in the academic community, they must be particularly adept at writing in English for academic purposes. This article…

  2. Researching the Use of Voice Recognition Writing Software.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Honeycutt, Lee

    2003-01-01

    Notes that voice recognition technology (VRT) has become accurate and fast enough to be useful in a variety of writing scenarios. Contends that little is known about how this technology might affect writing process or perceptions of silent writing. Explores future use of VRT by examining past research in the technology of dictation. (PM)

  3. Improving Accuracy Is Not the Only Reason for Writing, and Even If It Were...

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bruton, Anthony

    2009-01-01

    For research into language development in L2 writing to have any relevance, it has to be situated within a framework of decisions in writing pedagogy. Furthermore, a perspective on L2 language development cannot be limited only to accuracy levels. Even if this is the case, it is counter-intuitive that further input may be detrimental to language…

  4. Found Poetry: Creating Space for Imaginative Arts-Based Literacy Research Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Patrick, Lisa D.

    2016-01-01

    This theoretical position article inquires into poetic methodologies in literacy research and argues for the inclusion of poetry in social science research writing. The unconventional use of poetry in research writing challenges the traditionally accepted role prose plays in academic writing. Research poetry is written from and about research…

  5. Integrating Research and Story Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Scott-Simmons, Diana; Barker, Jeanne; Cherry, Nan

    2003-01-01

    Describes a storytelling unit that offers a unique opportunity for students to develop skills in telling and writing stories while enhancing their Internet research skills. Notes that these stories require writers to conduct research and use their imaginations to create a story plot and characters that hold the reader's and listener's interest.…

  6. Students' Use of Evaluative Language in L2 English to Talk and Write about History in a Bilingual Education Programme

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Morton, Tom; Llinares, Ana

    2018-01-01

    This article reports on a four-year longitudinal study which investigates students' use of evaluative language in English as a second language (L2) to talk and write about history in a bilingual education programme. We focus on how four students use linguistic resources to adopt a stance to the content they are learning and develop an…

  7. Research on the Technology of Item Writing.

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1979-06-01

    research contract, Drs. Roid and Haladyna were . invited by Academic Press towrite a book intended for educational research- ers on the technology of...STATE SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION MONMOUTH UNCLSSIFED 6 ROWD ET AL. JUN 79 MDA983-77-C-O9 FG /2 N ;1.3 ~~ 10 1 Z:1.0 °°11U 11111.25 ,.1. :: liii...11111--- 1111- ~MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART NATIONAL BUR[AU OF STANDARDS i96 A %* 9 "... ;- .. RESEARCH ON THE TECHNOLOGY OF ITEM WRITING 0 Gale Roid

  8. Three ESL Students Writing a Policy Paper Assignment: An Activity-Analytic Perspective

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Li, Yongyan

    2013-01-01

    How university students write from sources has been an issue of long-standing interest among researchers of advanced academic literacy. Previous research in this regard in the context of L2 writing has tended to focus on novices' textual borrowing; less attention has been given to exploring the potential light that theories from other intellectual…

  9. Sources of L2 Writing Apprehension: A Study of Egyptian University Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Abdel Latif, Muhammad M.

    2015-01-01

    High levels of apprehension cause students to have writing difficulties. This study attempted to identify the sources of Egyptian university students' English writing apprehension. The study made use of both quantitative and qualitative data. The scores of 57 students on a writing apprehension scale were compared to their scores on another scale…

  10. From First Language Literacy to Second Language Proficiency to Second Language Literacy: The Act of Writing in a Foreign Language Context.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crerand, Mary E. Lavin

    A study investigated how a second language (L2) learner's writing skills develop in a second-language context. The three research questions addressed the effect of: (1) first-language (L1) literacy skills, (2) L2 proficiency, and (3) the instructional context on L2 writing. Subjects were 70 university French students. Data were drawn from 300…

  11. Discourse Connectives in L1 and L2 Argumentative Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hu, Chunyu; Li, Yuanyuan

    2015-01-01

    Discourse connectives (DCs) are multi-functional devices used to connect discourse segments and fulfill interpersonal levels of discourse. This study investigates the use of selected 80 DCs within 11 categories in the argumentative essays produced by L1 and L2 university students. The analysis is based on the International Corpus Network of Asian…

  12. A Doctoral Student of Physics Writing for Publication: A Sociopolitically-Oriented Case Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Li, Yongyan

    2006-01-01

    This is a sociopolitically-oriented qualitative case study [Casanave, C. P. (2003). Looking ahead to more sociopolitically-oriented case study research in L2 writing scholarship (But should it be called "post-process"?). "Journal of Second Language Writing," 12, 85-102.] of the writing-for-publication experience of an NNSE (nonnative speaker of…

  13. Written Corrective Feedback in IELTS Writing Task 2: Teachers' Priorities, Practices, and Beliefs

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pearson, William S.

    2018-01-01

    Teacher corrective feedback is widely recognised as integral in supporting developing L2 writers. The potentially high pressure IELTS test preparation classroom presents a context where feedback has not yet been extensively studied. Consequently, teachers' approaches to corrective feedback on Writing Task 2, the essay component of IELTS Writing,…

  14. The Ethics of Digital Writing Research: A Rhetorical Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McKee, Heidi; Porter, James E.

    2008-01-01

    The study of writers and writing in digital environments raises distinct and complex ethical issues for researchers. Rhetoric theory and casuistic ethics, working in tandem, provide a theoretical framework for addressing such issues. A casuistic heuristic grounded in rhetorical principles can help digital writing researchers critically…

  15. How to Write a Research Paper

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Borràs, Eulàlia

    2017-01-01

    Generally speaking, when one writes about their research they are making a contribution to the scientific community and disseminating the results of findings in scientific articles. This means that other researchers have access to the research produced and can examine the subjects raised in greater depth to advance scientific knowledge. This paper…

  16. Reading-Writing Integrated Tasks, Comprehensive Corrective Feedback, and EFL Writing Development

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zhang, Xiaoyan

    2017-01-01

    The study examines whether there is any difference between the effects of a reading-writing integrated task and comprehensive corrective feedback (CF) on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' writing development, and whether the input language in the integrated task makes a difference in L2 writing development over time and the language…

  17. The Role of Reading Strategies in Integrated L2 Writing Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Plakans, Lia

    2009-01-01

    Integrated second-language writing tasks elicit writing performances that involve other abilities such as reading or listening. Thus, understanding the role of these other abilities is necessary for interpreting performance on such tasks. This study used an inductive analysis of think-aloud protocol data and interviews to uncover the reading…

  18. A Qualitative Study into L2 Writing Strategies of University Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Raoofi, Saeid; Chan, Swee Heng; Mukundan, Jayakaran; Rashid, Sabariah Md

    2014-01-01

    This study reports on an investigation into writing strategies of Malaysian university students learning English as a second language. Qualitative data were collected from 21 undergraduate university students aged 19 to 21. The students interviewed reported using a variety of writing strategies. It was also found that all of the participants…

  19. Writing: The Nature, Development, and Teachinq of Written Communication. Volume 2, Writing: Process, Development and Communication.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Frederiksen, Carl H., Ed.; Dominic, Joseph F., Ed.

    Intended for researchers, teachers, local and national policy makers, and others interested in writing, this volume explores the processes and development of writing, particularly in the context of writing instruction. Following a preface, the introduction discusses various perspectives on the activity of writing, such as writing as a cognitive…

  20. L2 Word Recognition Research: A Critical Review.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Koda, Keiko

    1996-01-01

    Explores conceptual syntheses advancing second language (L2) word recognition research and uncovers agendas relating to cross-linguistic examinations of L2 processing in a cohort of undergraduate students in France. Describes connections between word recognition and reading, overviews the connectionist construct, and illustrates cross-linguistic…

  1. EFL Teachers' Attempts at Feedback Innovation in the Writing Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lee, Icy; Mak, Pauline; Burns, Anne

    2016-01-01

    To date, research on feedback in second language (L2) writing has primarily focused on feedback per se, with little attention paid to the teachers' professional development with regard to feedback in writing. This study aims to explore the ways in which two secondary teachers in Hong Kong attempted to implement feedback innovation in their writing…

  2. Genre and Second-Language Academic Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Paltridge, Brian

    2014-01-01

    The term "genre" first came into the field of second-language (L2) writing and, in turn, the field of English for specific purposes (ESP) in the 1980s, with the research of John Swales, first carried out in the UK, into the introduction section of research articles. Other important figures in this area are Tony Dudley-Evans, Ann Johns…

  3. Comparison of L1 and L2 Pre and Post Writing Samples of Bilingual Students.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reyes, Maria de la Luz

    A sample of 15 eighth-grade Hispanic students in a bilingual classroom were used for a descriptive analysis of students' writing samples to compare their growth between pre- and post- writing samples in Spanish and English. This was accomplished by juxtaposing English and Spanish pre- and post-tests using the same holistic rubric developed by the…

  4. Commentary: Writing and evaluating qualitative research reports

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    An overview of qualitative methods is provided, particularly for reviewers and authors who may be less familiar with qualitative research. A question and answer format is used to address considerations for writing and evaluating qualitative research. When producing qualitative research, individuals ...

  5. Investigating the Effects of Planning Time on the Complexity of L2 Argumentative Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tabari, Mahmoud Abdi

    2017-01-01

    Much research has investigated the role of planning time in second language writing; however, the results show that there are inconsistent findings about the effects of planning time conditions on the complexity of the EFL learners' textual output. The current study attempted to consider the differential effects of planning time conditions in…

  6. Embodied Learning and Creative Writing: An Action Research Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tobin, Jennifer Ann

    2012-01-01

    This action research study used narrative analysis to explore the role of the body in the writing process of creative writers. Specifically, the purpose of this action research study was threefold: it was first to examine how professional creative writers describe their writing process with particular attention to their perceptions of the role and…

  7. Turnitin and Peer Review in ESL Academic Writing Classrooms

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Li, Jinrong; Li, Mimi

    2018-01-01

    Despite the benefits of peer review, there are still challenges that need to be addressed to make it more effective for L2 students. With the development of technology, computer-mediated peer review has captured increasing attention from L2 writing researchers and instructors. While Turnitin is known for its use in detecting plagiarism, its newly…

  8. New Directions in Composition Research. Perspectives in Writing Research.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Beach, Richard, Ed.; Bridwell, Lillian S., Ed.

    This book contains 20 articles, from a wide variety of perspectives, designed to bridge the interests of researchers and teachers on the topic of current composition research. The following articles are included: "Studying the Writing Abilities of a University Freshman Class: Strategies from a Case Study" (Charles R. Cooper, with Roger…

  9. Assessing and Improving L2 Graduate Students' Popular Science and Academic Writing in an Academic Writing Course

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rakedzon, Tzipora; Baram-Tsabari, Ayelet

    2017-01-01

    This paper reports a study using a quasi-experimental design to examine whether an academic writing course in English can improve graduate students' academic and popular science writing skills. To address this issue, we designed pre- and post-assessment tasks, an intervention assessment task and a scoring rubric. The pre- and post-assessment tasks…

  10. Social Studies Research Papers: A Writing Process Approach.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gilstrap, Robert L.

    1987-01-01

    Describes a writing process approach to research papers which involves four steps: prewriting, composing, rewriting, and sharing. Illustrates the process using an intermediate grade level example but states that the process is appropriate at higher levels. Stresses that this approach is important because it integrates writing skills with social…

  11. Going to the Source: Research Paper Writing Experience.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rooney, Theresa

    2000-01-01

    First years students' experiences and knowledge about research paper writing were studied to investigate how strongly the process writing movement has influenced instructional practice, and how appropriately students have been prepared for their college experience. Finds that many of the students arrived at college without the experience of…

  12. Scientific writing seminar for early-stage investigators in substance abuse research.

    PubMed

    Guydish, Joseph; Masson, Carmen; Flentje, Annesa; Shopshire, Michael; Sorensen, James L

    2016-01-01

    There is little information on how to increase the scientific writing productivity of early-stage investigators in the addictions field. A scientific writing seminar is presented in this article, aiming to encourage manuscript writing and dissemination of addiction research, and outcomes are reported for 14 years of the seminar. In 14 years, there were 113 postdoctoral fellow enrollments in a 6-month writing seminar. Records of submission and publication rates of manuscripts were collected for 14 cohorts. Of the 113 participant enrollments, 97 (86%) submitted a manuscript for publication, and 87 participants (77%) published their manuscript. A scientific writing seminar may benefit writing productivity, but more research is needed to compare this training model with other existing models.

  13. Advancing Research in Second Language Writing through Computational Tools and Machine Learning Techniques: A Research Agenda

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crossley, Scott A.

    2013-01-01

    This paper provides an agenda for replication studies focusing on second language (L2) writing and the use of natural language processing (NLP) tools and machine learning algorithms. Specifically, it introduces a range of the available NLP tools and machine learning algorithms and demonstrates how these could be used to replicate seminal studies…

  14. A System for Teaching College Freshmen to Write a Research Paper.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Marshall, Colleen

    Students in college composition courses often have great difficulty learning to write research papers. They can learn to write better research papers through a series of steps: learning to read for the main point, writing opinion papers on topics that are personally meaningful to them, preparing lists of questions implicit in the opinion papers in…

  15. SCORE A: A Student Research Paper Writing Strategy.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Korinek, Lori; Bulls, Jill A.

    1996-01-01

    A mnemonic strategy for writing a research paper is explained. "SCORE A" reminds the student to select a subject, create categories, obtain sources, read and take notes, evenly organize the information, and apply process writing steps. Implementation of the strategy with five eighth graders with learning disabilities is reported. (DB)

  16. Exploring Challenges Encountered by EFL Libyan Learners in Research Teaching and Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alsied, Safia Mujtaba; Ibrahim, Noura Winis

    2017-01-01

    Research is conducted all over the world to solve problems or to answer questions of significance to humanity. Academic writing or writing to report research is not easy because it requires adequate background knowledge, interest, motivation and hard work. This study investigates the major challenges in research writing faced by Libyan EFL…

  17. Fostering Academic Vocabulary Use in Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brun-Mercer, Nicole; Zimmerman, Cheryl Boyd

    2015-01-01

    Though research has established a relationship between vocabulary knowledge and academic success and identified features to guide the L2 word learner through academic tasks (see Nation, 2013), less is known regarding student perceptions of academic vocabulary and the conscious decision-making process of these learners while they are writing. In…

  18. Chemical Research Writing: A Preparatory Course for Student Capstone Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schepmann, Hala G.; Hughes, Laura A.

    2006-01-01

    A research writing course was developed to prepare chemistry majors to conduct and report on their capstone research projects. The course guides students through a multistep process of preparing a literature review and research proposal. Students learn how to identify and avoid plagiarism, critically read and summarize a scientific article,…

  19. The Nature of Error in Adolescent Student Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wilcox, Kristen Campbell; Yagelski, Robert; Yu, Fang

    2014-01-01

    This study examined the nature and frequency of error in high school native English speaker (L1) and English learner (L2) writing. Four main research questions were addressed: Are there significant differences in students' error rates in English language arts (ELA) and social studies? Do the most common errors made by students differ in ELA…

  20. The Research Paper: From Personal to Academic Writing (Instructional Note).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Malinowski, Patricia A.

    1990-01-01

    Describes a research project designed to take students from personal writing to academic writing requiring research and application of documentation skills. Explains that the project involves choosing a career, is divided into four parts, and is completed over a four- to five-week period. (MG)

  1. Scientific Writing Seminar for Early-stage Investigators in Substance Abuse Research

    PubMed Central

    Guydish, Joseph; Masson, Carmen; Flentje, Annesa; Shopshire, Michael; Sorensen, James L.

    2015-01-01

    Background There is little information on how to increase the scientific writing productivity of early-stage investigators in the addictions field. A scientific writing seminar is presented in this article, aiming to encourage manuscript writing and dissemination of addiction research, and outcomes are reported for 14 years of the seminar. Methods In 14 years there were 113 postdoctoral fellow enrollments in a 6-month writing seminar. Records of submission and publication rates of manuscripts were collected for 14 cohorts. Results Of the 113 participant enrollments, 97 (86%) submitted a manuscript for publication, and 87 participants (77%) published their manuscript. Conclusions A scientific writing seminar may benefit writing productivity, but more research is needed to compare this training model to other existing models. PMID:25893689

  2. Please Write: Using Critical Friend Letter Writing in Teacher Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Samaras, Anastasia P.; Sell, Corey

    2013-01-01

    This study examines students' experiences using letter writing designed as a socio-cultural-based tool for critical friend work to promote dialogue and critique of their self-study teacher research projects. It seeks to understand their diverse experiences to inform future practice and contribute to the knowledge base of critical friend work in…

  3. Merging a Metalinguistic Grammar Approach with L2 Academic Process Writing: ELLs in Community College

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Camhi, Paul J.; Ebsworth, Miriam Eisenstein

    2008-01-01

    This action research study evaluates a classroom approach incorporating a reflective, metacognitive component within a second language process-oriented writing environment. Inspired by the literature and developed by the first author, this approach seeks to provide English language learners (ELLs) with a command of metalinguistic principles…

  4. A Community-Academic Partnered Grant Writing Series to Build Infrastructure for Partnered Research.

    PubMed

    King, Keyonna M; Pardo, Yvette-Janine; Norris, Keith C; Diaz-Romero, Maria; Morris, D'Ann; Vassar, Stefanie D; Brown, Arleen F

    2015-10-01

    Grant writing is an essential skill necessary to secure financial support for community programs and research projects. Increasingly, funding opportunities for translational biomedical research require studies to engage community partners, patients, or other stakeholders in the research process to address their concerns. However, there is little evidence on strategies to prepare teams of academic and community partners to collaborate on grants. This paper presents the description and formative evaluation of a two-part community-academic partnered grant writing series designed to help community organizations and academic institutions build infrastructure for collaborative research projects using a partnered approach. The first phase of the series was a half-day workshop on grant readiness, which was open to all interested community partners. The second phase, open only to community-academic teams that met eligibility criteria, was a 12-week session that covered partnered grant writing for foundation grants and National Institutes of Health grants. Participants in both phases reported an increase in knowledge and self-efficacy for writing partnered proposals. At 1-year follow-up, participants in Phase 2 had secured approximately $1.87 million in funding. This community-academic partnered grant writing series helped participants obtain proposal development skills and helped community-academic teams successfully compete for funding. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  5. A Community–Academic Partnered Grant Writing Series to Build Infrastructure for Partnered Research

    PubMed Central

    Pardo, Yvette‐Janine; Norris, Keith C.; Diaz‐Romero, Maria; Morris, D'Ann; Vassar, Stefanie D.; Brown, Arleen F.

    2015-01-01

    Abstract Grant writing is an essential skill necessary to secure financial support for community programs and research projects. Increasingly, funding opportunities for translational biomedical research require studies to engage community partners, patients, or other stakeholders in the research process to address their concerns. However, there is little evidence on strategies to prepare teams of academic and community partners to collaborate on grants. This paper presents the description and formative evaluation of a two‐part community–academic partnered grant writing series designed to help community organizations and academic institutions build infrastructure for collaborative research projects using a partnered approach. The first phase of the series was a half‐day workshop on grant readiness, which was open to all interested community partners. The second phase, open only to community–academic teams that met eligibility criteria, was a 12‐week session that covered partnered grant writing for foundation grants and National Institutes of Health grants. Participants in both phases reported an increase in knowledge and self‐efficacy for writing partnered proposals. At 1‐year follow‐up, participants in Phase 2 had secured approximately $1.87 million in funding. This community–academic partnered grant writing series helped participants obtain proposal development skills and helped community–academic teams successfully compete for funding. PMID:26365589

  6. Program of Research on Legal Writing: Phase II: Research on a Writing Exercise. LSAC Research Report Series.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Breland, Hunter M.; Carlton, Sydell T.; Taylor, Susan

    Based on the results of a Phase 1 investigation into the nature of legal writing, a prototype writing assessment, the Diagnostic Writing Skills Test (DWST) for entering law students was developed. The DWST is composed of two multiple-choice testlets based on prompts and responses to the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) Writing Sample. It contains…

  7. Reconfiguring the Role of the Research Paper: Collaborative Writing To Teach Basic Academic Research and Writing Strategies.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fleming, Michelle M.

    Each year that the author of this paper, an English instructor at Moorhead College (Minnesota), teaches the first-year "research paper," one instructor turns more and more to collaborative writing work. And she admits that some of her motives in reshaping the research paper in collaborative ways can seem to be based in assisting herself…

  8. Bringing Reading-to-Write and Writing-Only Assessment Tasks Together: A Generalizability Analysis

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gebril, Atta

    2010-01-01

    Integrated tasks are currently employed in a number of L2 exams since they are perceived as an addition to the writing-only task type. Given this trend, the current study investigates composite score generalizability of both reading-to-write and writing-only tasks. For this purpose, a multivariate generalizability analysis is used to investigate…

  9. Putting Writing Research into Practice: Applications for Teacher Professional Development

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Troia, Gary A., Ed.; Shankland, Rebecca K., Ed.; Heintz, Anne, Ed.

    2010-01-01

    What are the most effective methods for teaching writing across grade levels and student populations? What kind of training do teachers need to put research-validated methods into practice? This unique volume combines the latest writing research with clear-cut recommendations for designing high-quality professional development efforts. Prominent…

  10. Using Automated Writing Evaluation to Reduce Grammar Errors in Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Liao, Hui-Chuan

    2016-01-01

    Despite the recent development of automated writing evaluation (AWE) technology and the growing interest in applying this technology to language classrooms, few studies have looked at the effects of using AWE on reducing grammatical errors in L2 writing. This study identified the primary English grammatical error types made by 66 Taiwanese…

  11. Writing-Reading Relationships: Effectiveness of Writing Activities as Pre-Reading Tasks to Enhance L2 Inferential Reading Comprehension

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wickramaarachchi, Thilina Indrajie

    2014-01-01

    The study examines the interaction between reading and writing processes in general and more specifically the impact of pre-reading tasks incorporating writing tasks (referred to as "prw tasks") in helping the development of inferential reading comprehension. A sample of 70 first year ESL students of the University of Kelaniya were…

  12. Do L1 Reading Achievement and L1 Print Exposure Contribute to the Prediction of L2 Proficiency?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sparks, Richard L.; Patton, Jon; Ganschow, Leonore; Humbach, Nancy

    2012-01-01

    The study examined whether individual differences in high school first language (L1) reading achievement and print exposure would account for unique variance in second language (L2) written (word decoding, spelling, writing, reading comprehension) and oral (listening/speaking) proficiency after adjusting for the effects of early L1 literacy and…

  13. Neural Signatures of the Reading-Writing Connection: Greater Involvement of Writing in Chinese Reading than English Reading.

    PubMed

    Cao, Fan; Perfetti, Charles A

    2016-01-01

    Research on cross-linguistic comparisons of the neural correlates of reading has consistently found that the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) is more involved in Chinese than in English. However, there is a lack of consensus on the interpretation of the language difference. Because this region has been found to be involved in writing, we hypothesize that reading Chinese characters involves this writing region to a greater degree because Chinese speakers learn to read by repeatedly writing the characters. To test this hypothesis, we recruited English L1 learners of Chinese, who performed a reading task and a writing task in each language. The English L1 sample had learned some Chinese characters through character-writing and others through phonological learning, allowing a test of writing-on-reading effect. We found that the left MFG was more activated in Chinese than English regardless of task, and more activated in writing than in reading regardless of language. Furthermore, we found that this region was more activated for reading Chinese characters learned by character-writing than those learned by phonological learning. A major conclusion is that writing regions are also activated in reading, and that this reading-writing connection is modulated by the learning experience. We replicated the main findings in a group of native Chinese speakers, which excluded the possibility that the language differences observed in the English L1 participants were due to different language proficiency level.

  14. Neural Signatures of the Reading-Writing Connection: Greater Involvement of Writing in Chinese Reading than English Reading

    PubMed Central

    Cao, Fan; Perfetti, Charles A.

    2016-01-01

    Research on cross-linguistic comparisons of the neural correlates of reading has consistently found that the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) is more involved in Chinese than in English. However, there is a lack of consensus on the interpretation of the language difference. Because this region has been found to be involved in writing, we hypothesize that reading Chinese characters involves this writing region to a greater degree because Chinese speakers learn to read by repeatedly writing the characters. To test this hypothesis, we recruited English L1 learners of Chinese, who performed a reading task and a writing task in each language. The English L1 sample had learned some Chinese characters through character-writing and others through phonological learning, allowing a test of writing-on-reading effect. We found that the left MFG was more activated in Chinese than English regardless of task, and more activated in writing than in reading regardless of language. Furthermore, we found that this region was more activated for reading Chinese characters learned by character-writing than those learned by phonological learning. A major conclusion is that writing regions are also activated in reading, and that this reading-writing connection is modulated by the learning experience. We replicated the main findings in a group of native Chinese speakers, which excluded the possibility that the language differences observed in the English L1 participants were due to different language proficiency level. PMID:27992505

  15. Integrating K-W-L Prompts into Science Journal Writing: Can Simple Question Scaffolding Increase Student Content Knowledge?

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Wagner, Brandon Joel

    Writing-to-learn strategies have been administered in the past to enrich student learning. The purpose of this study was to see if K-W-L prompts in science journal writing could benefit student content knowledge within biology. Two high school biology classes were provided with learning journals. The journals given to the students during the treatment unit were provided with K-W-L question prompts to guide student learning while during the comparison unit students were given an open ended writing assignment. Pre and posttests were administered to determine student-learning gains. Student motivations and opinions of the treatment were collected through student interviews. The combined results were used to determine to what extent could K-W-L prompts in science journal writing influence comprehension of content knowledge. This study found there to be no difference in student learning gains when utilizing the K-W-L literacy strategy versus another free-writing activity. When scored, student K-W-Ls total scores did correlate to student success on unit tests. This opens up the potential for K-W-Ls to serve as an adequate tool for formative assessment. Here the K-W-L could be expanded to enrich student question asking, potentially aid students learning English, and potentially be used by students without teacher scaffolding.

  16. How to Write Your First Research Paper

    PubMed Central

    Kallestinova, Elena D.

    2011-01-01

    Writing a research manuscript is an intimidating process for many novice writers in the sciences. One of the stumbling blocks is the beginning of the process and creating the first draft. This paper presents guidelines on how to initiate the writing process and draft each section of a research manuscript. The paper discusses seven rules that allow the writer to prepare a well-structured and comprehensive manuscript for a publication submission. In addition, the author lists different strategies for successful revision. Each of those strategies represents a step in the revision process and should help the writer improve the quality of the manuscript. The paper could be considered a brief manual for publication. PMID:21966034

  17. How to write your first research paper.

    PubMed

    Kallestinova, Elena D

    2011-09-01

    Writing a research manuscript is an intimidating process for many novice writers in the sciences. One of the stumbling blocks is the beginning of the process and creating the first draft. This paper presents guidelines on how to initiate the writing process and draft each section of a research manuscript. The paper discusses seven rules that allow the writer to prepare a well-structured and comprehensive manuscript for a publication submission. In addition, the author lists different strategies for successful revision. Each of those strategies represents a step in the revision process and should help the writer improve the quality of the manuscript. The paper could be considered a brief manual for publication. Copyright © 2011.

  18. Digit ratio (2D:4D) and hand preference for writing in the BBC Internet Study.

    PubMed

    Manning, J T; Peters, M

    2009-09-01

    The ratio of the length of the second to the fourth digit (2D:4D) may be negatively correlated with prenatal testosterone. Hand preference has been linked with prenatal testosterone and 2D:4D. Here we show that 2D:4D is associated with hand preference for writing in a large internet sample (n>170,000) in which participants self-reported their finger lengths. We replicated a significant association between right 2D:4D and writing hand preference (low right 2D:4D associated with left hand preference) as well as a significant correlation between writing hand preference and the difference between left and right 2D:4D or Dr-l (low Dr-l associated with left hand preference). A new significant correlation between left 2D:4D and writing hand preference was also shown (high left 2D:4D associated with left hand preference). There was a clear interaction between writing hand preference and 2D:4D: The left 2D:4D was significantly larger than the right 2D:4D in male and female left-handed writers, and the right hand 2D:4D was significantly larger than the left hand 2D:4D in male and female right-handed writers.

  19. Training L2 Writers to Reference Corpora as a Self-Correction Tool

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Quinn, Cynthia

    2015-01-01

    Corpora have the potential to support the L2 writing process at the discourse level in contrast to the isolated dictionary entries that many intermediate writers rely on. To take advantage of this resource, learners need to be trained, which involves practising corpus research and referencing skills as well as learning to make data-based…

  20. Writing Laboratory Exercises To Be Used with a Writing and Research Guide.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alicna, Elaine; And Others

    Intended to facilitate a broader emphasis on creative writing in American high school English classes, this manual offers a number of writing laboratory exercises. The exercises are divided into five categories: (1) library skills, including reference book know how, and using the parts of books; (2) critical reading skills, including…

  1. Research in Developmental Writing Courses and Implications for Practice

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sabrio, David; Burchfield, Mitchel

    2007-01-01

    This article briefly surveys the literature on ways that developmental writing students learn; reports on student learning style research carried out in developmental writing classrooms at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and Southwest Texas Junior College, using the "Productivity Environmental Preference Survey"; suggests specific…

  2. Second Language Writing Online: An Update

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Godwin-Jones, Robert

    2018-01-01

    This article provides an update to the author's overview of developments in second language (L2) online writing that he wrote in 2008. There has been renewed interest in L2 writing through the wide use of social media, along with the rising popularity of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and telecollaboration (class-based online exchanges).…

  3. "Why Are These Underlined?" Depth of Processing and Type of Written Corrective Feedback in L2 Spanish Compositions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Caras, Allison Marie

    2017-01-01

    There is an ongoing debate as to whether written corrective feedback (WCF) is effective for the improvement of adult second language (L2) writers' accuracy. Ever since Truscott (1996, 1999) began arguing against grammar correction in L2 writing courses, researchers have challenged his position (i.e. below). Although most of these studies show WCF…

  4. Writing a qualitative research report.

    PubMed

    Burnard, Philip

    2004-04-01

    A research project in nursing or nursing education is probably only complete once the findings have been published. This paper offers a format for writing a qualitative research report for publication. It suggests, at least, the following sections: introduction, aims of the study, review of the literature, sample, data collection methods, data analysis methods, findings, discussion, conclusion, abstract. Each of these sections is addressed along with many written-out examples. In some sections, alternative approaches are suggested. The aim of the paper is to help the neophyte researcher to structure his or her report and for the experienced researcher to reflect on his or her current practice. References to other source material on qualitative research are given.

  5. Writing a qualitative research report.

    PubMed

    Burnard, Philip

    2004-07-01

    A research project in nursing or nursing education is probably only complete once the findings have been published. This paper offers a format for writing a qualitative research report for publication. It suggests, at least, the following sections: introduction, aims of the study, review of the literature, sample, data collection methods, data analysis methods, findings, discussion, conclusion, abstract. Each of these sections is addressed along with many written-out examples. In some sections, alternative approaches are suggested. The aim of the paper is to help the neophyte researcher to structure his or her report and for the experienced researcher to reflect on his or her current practice. References to other source material on qualitative research are given.

  6. Blog-Based Peer Response for L2 Writing Revision

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pham, Vu Phi Ho; Usaha, Siriluck

    2016-01-01

    Few studies have been conducted to see how blog-based peer response helps students to improve their writing revisions. The present study investigates peer comments made through blogs, the nature of the comments and their areas of focus, and the ratios of students incorporating suggestions made through blog-based comments into revisions of their…

  7. Reflections on how to write and organise a research thesis.

    PubMed

    Hardy, Sally; Ramjeet, Janet

    2005-01-01

    Writing up research projects and presenting a thesis are among the most challenging and time-consuming elements of the research process. The authors provide a structured guideline to help students, particularly those undertaking Master's degrees while still practising in clinical areas, to overcome the challenges of writing their thesis and produce a cogent, logical and reflective piece of work.

  8. The New Guide to Writing Research Papers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Callan, Stasia J.; Penwarden, Ann P.; Wendell, Carolyn

    The research paper teaches college students how to use basic research skills that are needed for gathering information and writing papers in a variety of courses as well as methods used for lifelong learning, both on and off the job. The last decade of technological development has resulted in new choices in resources for research, particularly…

  9. Action Research and Academic Writing: A Conversation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Winter, Richard; Badley, Graham

    2007-01-01

    Here is a conversation between two former colleagues about action research and academic writing. Richard Winter opens the discussion with a series of reflections on his work as an action researcher. These reflections include the key argument that action research is a noble cause because it is relevant to working life, has a practical impact and…

  10. Thesis Writing Challenges for Non-Native MA Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sadeghi, Karim; Shirzad Khajepasha, Arash

    2015-01-01

    Writing in a second (L2)/foreign language is generally a challenging activity, and writing an MA thesis, as an example of academic enterprise, can be daunting when done in a language in which the writer is not fully competent. The challenge such a genre of writing poses for L2 writers has not been properly addressed. To fill in the gap in this…

  11. Elephants and Paradigms: Conversations about Teaching L2 Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Blanton, Linda Lonon

    1995-01-01

    This article lays out a general scheme for looking at current competing theoretical bases for English as a Second Language. By focusing on only one arena of teaching, that of writing, the article emphasizes the systemic nature of some differing views. Some classroom implications of the social theory that factors in the reader of a text are…

  12. Dynamic Development of Complexity and Accuracy: A Case Study in Second Language Academic Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rosmawati

    2014-01-01

    This paper reports on the development of complexity and accuracy in English as a Second Language (ESL) academic writing. Although research into complexity and accuracy development in second language (L2) writing has been well established, few studies have assumed the multidimensionality of these two constructs (Norris & Ortega, 2009) or…

  13. Students as researchers: What and why seventh‐grade students choose to write when investigating their own research question

    PubMed Central

    Blikstad‐Balas, Marte

    2017-01-01

    Abstract All scientists depend on both reading and writing to do their scientific work. It is of paramount importance to ensure that students have a relevant repertoire of practices they can employ when facing scientific content inside and outside the school context. The present study reports on students in seventh grade acting as researchers. Over an 8‐week collaborative research period, students posed their own research question, attempted to answer it by systematically testing hypotheses, discussing findings, presenting their conclusions, and documenting their process in a written report. Drawing on the perspectives of New Literacy Studies—which sees literacy as socially situated—we analyze the purpose of all the 21 participating students’ texts (n = 344). Video observations and interviews with students are used to contextualize the writing events. We find that the students chose to write multiple kinds of texts for a variety of purposes. Analyzing purpose and the context, three stages of socialization into scientific writing is revealed, ranging from what the students write on their own initiative, via texts written through challenges to demanding research tasks scaffolded through writing instructions given by the teacher. Further, the students emphasized the relevance of both the research experience and the writing to their future adult life. PMID:29540938

  14. Learning and Teaching L2 Collocations: Insights from Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Szudarski, Pawel

    2017-01-01

    The aim of this article is to present and summarize the main research findings in the area of learning and teaching second language (L2) collocations. Being a large part of naturally occurring language, collocations and other types of multiword units (e.g., idioms, phrasal verbs, lexical bundles) have been identified as important aspects of L2

  15. Expanding and Redirecting Historical Research in Technical Writing: In Search of Our Past.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tebeaux, Elizabeth; Killingsworth, M. Jimmie

    1992-01-01

    Suggests an approach for expanding and integrating research to produce a history of technical writing. Defines problems that reside in writing such a history, suggests research premises and questions, and then applies these questions to technical writing as it existed in the English Renaissance, 1475-1640. (SR)

  16. Highlights of Programmatic, Interdisciplinary Research on Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Berninger, Virginia W.

    2009-01-01

    An overview of research topics and findings from an interdisciplinary, programmatic line of research on writing over the past 25 years is presented. The cross-sectional assessment studies (grades 1 to 9) showed which measures uniquely explained variance in handwriting, spelling, and composing and thus validated their use in assessment. These and…

  17. How L2 Legal Writers Use Strategies for Scholarly Writing: A Mixed Methods Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bain Butler, Donna

    2010-01-01

    This dissertation research fills existing gaps regarding the practices and processes of teaching second language (L2) writers at higher ranges of proficiency in law school context. It is a mixed methods, longitudinal, descriptive, writer-centered study. The research purpose was to explore strategic competence as a catalyst for professional…

  18. A Think-Aloud Protocols Investigation of Saudi English Major Students' Writing Revision Strategies in L1 (Arabic) and L2 (English)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alhaisoni, Eid

    2012-01-01

    This study investigates the writing revision strategies used by 16 Saudi English as foreign language (EFL) students. Two research methods were employed. First, think-aloud reporting was used to gain insight into the thought processes utilized by the students, and to study the revision strategies that Saudi male university students make use of…

  19. Circling through Text: Teaching Research through Multigenre Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Grierson, Sirpa T.

    1999-01-01

    Describes how the author incorporated her requirements for a term research paper into multigenre writing. Discusses what multigenre is, how it can be taught and assessed, and what makes it such a rich, workable alternative to the traditional research assignment. (SR)

  20. Writing Case Reports: Contributing to Practice and Research.

    PubMed

    Bavdekar, Sandeep B; Save, Sushma

    2015-04-01

    Case reports describe a patient with unusual or unexpected features. They represent the oldest type of medical publication. They are about generating a new hypothesis and not about proving a hypothesis. Hence, despite being considered as the lowest level of evidence; they continue to be relevant for clinical practice, research and medical education. This article intends to provide guidance regarding writing a case report to those wishing to make a foray in scientific writing through reporting an interesting case.

  1. Research for Monday Morning: Elementary Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Perron, Jack

    The first section of this paper discusses recent writing research and the basic elements of language development. The second section describes a program which used a sentence-combining method as an activity-based experience for language development. A six-month study involved all fourth graders at Powell School in Mountain View, California. The…

  2. Innovative Writing Instruction: Writing Selves, Writing Stories

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kinloch, Valeria, Ed.

    2009-01-01

    In this third "Innovative Writing Instruction" column, the author invited a former high school teacher on the verge of preparing for doctoral candidacy exams, an instructor and doctoral student interested in writing research/practice, and a university supervisor for teacher education preservice students to share aspects of their writing selves,…

  3. How to write an educational research grant: AMEE Guide No. 101.

    PubMed

    Blanco, Maria A; Gruppen, Larry D; Artino, Anthony R; Uijtdehaage, Sebastian; Szauter, Karen; Durning, Steven J

    2016-01-01

    Writing an educational research grant in health profession education is challenging, not only for those doing it for the first time but also for more experienced scholars. The intensity of the competition, the peculiarities of the grant format, the risk of rejection, and the time required are among the many obstacles that can prevent educational researchers with interesting and important ideas from writing a grant, that could provide the funding needed to turn their scholarly ideas into reality. The aim of this AMEE Guide is to clarify the grant-writing process by (a) explaining the mechanics and structure of a typical educational research grant proposal, and (b) sharing tips and strategies for making the process more manageable.

  4. The Los Altos Writing Project.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kraft, Richard F.

    The intent of this guide is to encourage teachers to have students write, both formally and informally, on a systematic basis. Three types of writing are emphasized: (1) journal writing; (2) research paper writing; and (3) essay writing. The section on journal writing includes a handout for the class explaining the purpose for journal writing and…

  5. Designing, Building, and Connecting Networks to Support Distributed Collaborative Empirical Writing Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brunk-Chavez, Beth; Pigg, Stacey; Moore, Jessie; Rosinski, Paula; Grabill, Jeffrey T.

    2018-01-01

    To speak to diverse audiences about how people learn to write and how writing works inside and outside the academy, we must conduct research across geographical, institutional, and cultural contexts as well as research that enables comparison when appropriate. Large-scale empirical research is useful for both of these moves; however, we must…

  6. How to Write: A Barely Annotated Bibliography. Research Report.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Miller, Lance A.

    The references in this bibliography tend toward practical or "how to" strategies for writing. The 718 references are listed alphabetically in the bibliography section, with each citation followed by a code denoting its topical categories: (1) general "how to write," (2) "how to write" business letters, (3) stylistics,…

  7. Impact of Recasts on the Accuracy in EFL Learners' Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Degteva, Olga

    2011-01-01

    Since the famous Truscott's "The case against grammar correction in L2 writing class" (1996) there has been an ongoing debate in SLA research about the value of corrective feedback and its different forms. A growing number of empirical research is now investigating the question, and although more and more evidence is obtained against Truscott's…

  8. Writing Research Articles for Publication in Early Childhood Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Saracho, Olivia N.

    2013-01-01

    Published research results in early childhood education contribute to the field's knowledge, theory, and practice. They also guide future early childhood education research studies. The publication of research articles is an essential requirement for academics. For some researchers, however, writing may be a difficult activity, particularly the…

  9. Hedging, Inflating, and Persuading in L2 Academic Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hinkel, Eli

    2005-01-01

    This study analyzes the types and frequencies of hedges and intensifiers employed in NS and NNS academic essays included in a corpus of L1 and L2 student academic texts (745 essays/220,747 words). The overarching goal of this investigation is to focus on these lexical and syntactic features of written discourse because they effectively lend…

  10. Increasing Research Productivity and Professional Development in Psychology With a Writing Retreat.

    PubMed

    Stanley, Ian H; Hom, Melanie A; Chu, Carol; Joiner, Thomas E

    2017-09-01

    Writing is a core feature of the training requirements and career demands of psychology faculty members and graduate students. Within academic psychology, specifically, writing is vital for the generation of scientific knowledge through manuscripts and grant applications. Although resources exist regarding how to improve one's writing skills, few models have been described regarding how to promote a culture of writing productivity that realizes tangible deliverables, such as manuscripts and grant applications. In this article, we discuss the rationale, model, and initial outcome data of a writing retreat developed and implemented to increase research productivity among psychology faculty and trainees. We also review best practices for conducting writing retreats and identify key areas for future SoTL on advancing writing.

  11. Corrective Feedback in L2 Writing: Theoretical Perspectives, Empirical Insights, and Future Directions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Van Beuningen, Catherine

    2010-01-01

    The role of (written) corrective feedback (CF) in the process of acquiring a second language (L2) has been an issue of considerable controversy among theorists and researchers alike. Although CF is a widely applied pedagogical tool and its use finds support in SLA theory, practical and theoretical objections to its usefulness have been raised…

  12. Research in Writing Assessment.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Coffman, William E.

    Five papers on the assessment of writing ability presented at the Division D meeting are critiqued. It is suggested that it is not possible to conclude--as has Larson in his study of grades 4, 6, and 8--that National Assessment of Educational Progress results do not give evidence of growth in writing ability. Dovell and Buhr, examining approaches…

  13. SLA Research and L2 Pedagogy: Misapplications and Questions of Relevance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Spada, Nina

    2015-01-01

    There has been considerable debate about the relevance and applicability of SLA theory and research for L2 pedagogy. There are those who maintain that SLA must be applicable to L2 pedagogy: a view based on the argument that because SLA is a subfield of applied linguistics, it should have direct relevance to L2 teaching. Others take the view that…

  14. Using Genre to Bridge Research, Professional Writing, and Public Writing at University of North Dakota: A Program Profile

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Basgier, Christopher

    2017-01-01

    To illustrate how genre pedagogy and public writing pedagogy can inform one another, this program profile describes the second-semester composition course at University of North Dakota, ENGL 130: College Composition II: Writing for Public Audiences. In this course, genre works as a rhetorical bridge across an interlinked sequence of research,…

  15. A Meta-Analysis of Single Subject Design Writing Intervention Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rogers, Leslie Ann; Graham, Steve

    2008-01-01

    There is considerable concern that students do not develop the writing skills needed for school, occupational, or personal success. A frequent explanation for this is that schools do not do a good job of teaching this complex skill. A recent meta-analysis of true- and quasi-experimental writing intervention research (S. Graham & D. Perin,…

  16. Becoming More than It Never (Actually) Was: Expressive Writing as Research-Creation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Truman, Sarah E.

    2016-01-01

    In this article the author combines Chinese literary theory and new materialism with her ongoing research into creative writing. In the opening section, the author discusses how language and writing can be approached using new materialist theories. She then enters into a creative non-fiction "research-creation" piece that explores how…

  17. Understanding Students' Use of Sources in Research Writing through an Epistemological Lens

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nicolas, Corinne E.

    2012-01-01

    Concerns about the poor quality of students' use of sources in undergraduate research writing have typically led to investigations either of students' information-seeking strategies or of their composing practices. I argue that an either/or approach provides an incomplete picture of students' research writing processes, and that an exploration of…

  18. The Challenge of Writing Remediation: Can Composition Research Inform Higher Education Policy?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Relles, Stefani R.; Tierney, William G.

    2013-01-01

    Background/Context: This article presents a review of research relevant to postsecondary writing remediation. The purpose of the review is to assess empirical support for policy aimed at improving the degree completion rates of students who arrive at tertiary settings underprepared to write. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Our…

  19. Using Turnitin to Provide Feedback on L2 Writers' Texts

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kostka, Ilka; Maliborska, Veronika

    2016-01-01

    Second language (L2) writing instructors have varying tools at their disposal for providing feedback on students' writing, including ones that enable them to provide written and audio feedback in electronic form. One tool that has been underexplored is Turnitin, a widely used software program that matches electronic text to a wide range of…

  20. Spanish and UK Post-PhD Researchers: Writing Perceptions, Well-Being and Productivity

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Castelló, Montserrat; McAlpine, Lynn; Pyhältö, Kirsi

    2017-01-01

    Post-PhD researchers working at universities are contributors to a country's productivity and competitiveness mostly through writing, which becomes a means to establish their scholarly identity as they contribute to knowledge. However, little is known about researchers' writing perceptions, and their interrelations with engagement in research,…

  1. A Creative Approach to the Research Paper: Combining Creative Writing with Academic Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Blue, Tim

    2006-01-01

    This article describes a combination of a research essay and a creative writing assignment that encourages rigorous academic research while allowing students to get "outside the box" of traditional academic research papers. This assignment has five steps. The first two steps offer the chance to introduce academic research along with summary and…

  2. A Model of Research Paper Writing Instructional Materials for Academic Writing Course: "Needs & Documents Analysis and Model Design"

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ghufron, M. Ali; Saleh, Mursid; Warsono; Sofwan, Ahmad

    2016-01-01

    This study aimed at designing a model of instructional materials for Academic Writing Course focusing on research paper writing. The model was designed based on the Curriculum at the English Education Study Program, Faculty of Language and Art Education of IKIP PGRI Bojonegoro, East Java, Indonesia. This model was developed in order to improve…

  3. Toward an Ethical Attitude in Mathematics Education Research Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Andersson, Annica; le Roux, Kate

    2017-01-01

    In this article, the authors propose a set of multi-level questions as a guide for developing an ethical attitude in researcher--participant and researcher--researcher relations during the research writing process. Drawing on the sociopolitical turn in mathematics education, the authors view these relations in terms of power and positionings, in…

  4. A Research Writing Tool: Designing an Online Resource for Supervisors and Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Economou, Dorothy; James, Bronwyn

    2017-01-01

    This paper presents and discusses the key findings of a needs analysis, and its impact on the design for an innovative online Research Writing Tool, which aims to facilitate higher degree research writing development in medically related fields. Unlike other resources which target students only, this tool aims to support both supervisors and…

  5. Collaborative Revision in L2 Writing: Learners' Reflections

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Memari Hanjani, Alireza

    2016-01-01

    L2 learning literature has reflected on the problems surrounding the application of teacher written feedback and peer feedback in EFL contexts. To address the disadvantages of these feedback forms, this exploratory case study examined EFL learners' reactions to a collaborative revision activity. Interview data were collected from eight native…

  6. Second Language Writing Development: A Research Agenda

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Polio, Charlene

    2017-01-01

    In 1998, Wolfe-Quintero, Inagaki & Kim published a monograph describing measures used in assessing writing development. Despite more recent research on linguistic development (e.g., Bulté & Housen 2012; Verspoor, Schmid & Xu 2012; Connor-Linton & Polio 2014), the volume is still a valuable resource and good starting point for…

  7. Group Dynamic Assessment of L2 Learners' Writing Abilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shabani, Karim

    2018-01-01

    The present study was designed to test a group-based format of dynamic assessment (G-DA) in the context of writing over a time span of twelve weeks of instruction. A cohort of 60 students took a homogeneity test and based on the results, 44 students were selected to participate forming the two groups of experimental (N = 22) and control (N = 22).…

  8. Cultural Intelligence and Writing Ability: Delving into Fluency, Accuracy and Complexity

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ghonsooly, Behzad; Shalchy, Somayye

    2013-01-01

    Over the recent decades, cultural intelligence, now referred to as CQ has become a burgeoning area of research in the domain of business and management. Given the paucity of research on the effects of CQ on second or foreign language learning especially writing, this study intends to examine the effects of CQ on L2 learners' written performance…

  9. Shared Features of L2 Writing: Intergroup Homogeneity and Text Classification

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crossley, Scott A.; McNamara, Danielle S.

    2011-01-01

    This study investigates intergroup homogeneity within high intermediate and advanced L2 writers of English from Czech, Finnish, German, and Spanish first language backgrounds. A variety of linguistic features related to lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, and cohesion were used to compare texts written by L1 speakers of English to L2

  10. Writing the Learning Organization: A Framework for Teaching and Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Amidon, Stevens R.

    2005-01-01

    The marginalization of business writing as a discipline has been traced to a lack of research and to the fact that many in the field teach in business departments that do not value the work of scholars in English studies. One way out of this position may be an act of disciplinary border crossing--aligning the field of business writing with…

  11. Training of Vocational Education Teachers in Research Methodology and Research Report Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Beaumariage, G. N., Jr.

    A 45-hour three-unit course in research design, data collection techniques, and research report writing was prepared and taught to vocational/technology instructors. The course emphasized the relationship of design and data to the final reports in terms of techniques used. As a result of teaching the course, a second syllabus was developed…

  12. Enhancing Successful Outcomes of Wiki-Based Collaborative Writing: A State-of-the-Art Review of Facilitation Frameworks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stoddart, Andrew; Chan, Joe Yong-Yi; Liu, Gi-Zen

    2016-01-01

    This state-of-the-art review research undertook a survey of a variety of studies regarding wiki-based collaborative writing projects and from this body of work extracted the best practices tenets of facilitation. Wiki-based collaborative writing projects are becoming more common in second language (L2) pedagogy. Such projects have multiple aims.…

  13. Preparing Teachers to Respond to Student Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ferris, Dana

    2007-01-01

    Responding to student writing is one of the most challenging aspects of the writing instructor's job, and it is certainly the most time-consuming. Preparing future teachers to respond to L2 writing thus becomes an important aspect of any pre-service training course. In this paper, the author describes her own approach to training writing…

  14. Researching the Internet in a Writing Class: A Writing Teacher's Role and a Computer Specialist's Role.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Anstendig, Linda; Meyer, Jeanine

    An Internet research project was undertaken by a class of college honors students to see how effectively the Internet could be used for genuine research purposes. The class consisted of 16 students, a mix of freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, enrolled in an advanced writing course whose focus was different forms of research: I-Search, ethnography,…

  15. Development of research paper writing skills of poultry science undergraduate students studying food microbiology.

    PubMed

    Howard, Z R; Donalson, L M; Kim, W K; Li, X; Zabala Díaz, I; Landers, K L; Maciorowski, K G; Ricke, S C

    2006-02-01

    Because food and poultry industries are demanding an improvement in written communication skills among graduates, research paper writing should be an integral part of a senior undergraduate class. However, scientific writing assignments are often treated as secondary to developing the technical skills of the students. Scientific research paper writing has been emphasized in an undergraduate course on advanced food microbiology taught in the Poultry Science Department at Texas A& M University (College Station, TX). Students' opinions suggest that research paper writing as part of a senior course in Poultry Science provides students with scientific communication skills and useful training for their career, but more emphasis on reading and understanding scientific literature may be required.

  16. Proceedings of a Series of Workshops on Writing Research and Development Proposals: A Final Report. Kentucky Research in Vocational Education Series, No. 2.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McKinney, Floyd L., Ed.; Sims, E. Norman, Ed.

    This book contains presentations made at a series of 3-day workshops held in Kentucky to prepare vocational educators to write proposals, progress reports, and final reports for research and development efforts. Workshop presentation included "Need for Research and Development in Vocational-Technical Education," by Robert Warmbrod,…

  17. Interdisciplinary Research in a Dense Summer Bridge: The Role of a Writing Intensive Chemistry Seminar

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Waratuke, Stephen; Kling, Thomas

    2016-01-01

    We describe the structure of a writing-intensive, chemistry first year seminar designed to support a three week, research focused summer bridge program. Writing assignments in the seminar helped students understand their research activities, learn to conduct themselves as scientists, and reflect upon their lab work. The writing intensive seminar…

  18. The Effects of Corrective Feedback on Chinese Learners' Writing Accuracy: A Quantitative Analysis in an EFL Context

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wang, Xin

    2017-01-01

    Scholars debate whether corrective feedback contributes to improving L2 learners' grammatical accuracy in writing performance. Some researchers take a stance on the ineffectiveness of corrective feedback based on the impracticality of providing detailed corrective feedback for all L2 learners and detached grammar instruction in language…

  19. Concocting that Magic Elixir: Successful Grant Application Writing in Dissemination and Implementation Research.

    PubMed

    Brownson, Ross C; Colditz, Graham A; Dobbins, Maureen; Emmons, Karen M; Kerner, Jon F; Padek, Margaret; Proctor, Enola K; Stange, Kurt C

    2015-12-01

    This paper reports core competencies for dissemination and implementation (D&I) grant application writing and provides tips for writing a successful proposal. Two related phases were used to collect the data: a card sorting process among D&I researchers and an expert review among a smaller set of researchers. Card sorting was completed by 123 respondents. In the second phase, a series of grant application writing tips were developed based on the combined 170 years of grant review experience of the writing team. The card sorting resulted in 12 core competencies for D&I grant application writing that covered the main sections in a grant application to the US National Institutes of Health: (a) specific aims that provide clear rationale, objectives, and an overview of the research plan; (b) significance that frames and justifies the importance of a D&I question; (c) innovation that articulates novel products and new knowledge; and (d) approach that uses a relevant D&I model, addresses measurement and the D&I context, and includes an analysis plan well-tied to the aims and measures. Writing a successful D&I grant application is a skill that can be learned with experience and attention to the core competencies articulated in this paper. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  20. Concocting that Magic Elixir: Successful Grant Application Writing in Dissemination and Implementation Research

    PubMed Central

    Colditz, Graham A.; Dobbins, Maureen; Emmons, Karen M.; Kerner, Jon F.; Padek, Margaret; Proctor, Enola K.; Stange, Kurt C.

    2015-01-01

    Abstract Background This paper reports core competencies for dissemination and implementation (D&I) grant application writing and provides tips for writing a successful proposal. Methods Two related phases were used to collect the data: a card sorting process among D&I researchers and an expert review among a smaller set of researchers. Card sorting was completed by 123 respondents. In the second phase, a series of grant application writing tips were developed based on the combined 170 years of grant review experience of the writing team. Results The card sorting resulted in 12 core competencies for D&I grant application writing that covered the main sections in a grant application to the US National Institutes of Health: (a) specific aims that provide clear rationale, objectives, and an overview of the research plan; (b) significance that frames and justifies the importance of a D&I question; (c) innovation that articulates novel products and new knowledge; and (d) approach that uses a relevant D&I model, addresses measurement and the D&I context, and includes an analysis plan well‐tied to the aims and measures. Conclusions Writing a successful D&I grant application is a skill that can be learned with experience and attention to the core competencies articulated in this paper. PMID:26577630

  1. Peer Mentors in Undergraduates' Research Proposal Writing in Taiwan

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kuo, Ya-Hui

    2010-01-01

    To date, there has been little research in the existing literature exploring how peer mentors can assist college students' research proposal. This paper provides the background to the adoption of a peer mentoring program in a research writing class in Taiwan. The purpose of this study is to investigate the value of using peer mentors to assist…

  2. Enhancing Students' Creative Writing Skills: An Action Research Project

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nasir, Laraib; Naqvi, Syeda Meenoo; Bhamani, Shelina

    2013-01-01

    This research aimed to improve written expression (composition) skills of 5th grade students of an elite private school. The research was designed under the paradigm of action research. A total sample of 39 students' from the same grade was chosen for the study. The baseline assessment was carried out to explore the pre-intervention writing skill…

  3. Coordinating Civil Procedure with Legal Research and Writing: A Field Experiment.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Glannon, Joseph W.; Seligmann, Terry Jean; Sichko, Medb Mahony; Simard, Linda Sandstrom

    1997-01-01

    Describes a year-long collaboration to teach legal research and writing alongside civil procedure. In fall, civil procedure topics were used for writing assignments, in combination with simulation and demonstration exercises based on that case. In spring, students wrote briefs on motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment in a second case…

  4. Computers and Writing: The Research Says YES!

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Patterson, Nancy

    2006-01-01

    Word processing continues to be the focus in many classrooms, although more and more teachers now ask students to publish on the Web, engage in e-mail conversations regarding their reading and writing, create slide presentations that represent their learning, post to blog sites, etc. And while there is a growing body of research that supports…

  5. Air Writing as a Technique for the Acquisition of Sino-japanese Characters by Second Language Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Thomas, Margaret

    2015-01-01

    This article calls attention to a facet of the expertise of second language (L2) learners of Japanese at the intersection of language, memory, gesture, and the psycholinguistics of a logographic writing system. Previous research has shown that adult L2 learners of Japanese living in Japan (similarly to native speakers of Japanese) often…

  6. Cooperative Writing Response Groups: Revising Global Aspects of Second-Language Writing in a Constrained Educational Environment

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Porto, Melina

    2016-01-01

    This article describes a cooperative writing response initiative designed to develop writing skills in foreign/second-language contexts (hereafter L2). The strategy originated from my desire to cater for my learners' need to become better writers in English within a constrained educational environment in Argentina. In this article I describe this…

  7. Scientific writing of novice researchers: what difficulties and encouragements do they encounter?

    PubMed

    Shah, Jatin; Shah, Anand; Pietrobon, Ricardo

    2009-04-01

    Writing scientific articles is a daunting task for novice researchers. In this qualitative study carried out in 2007, the authors evaluated the experiences of a group of novice researchers engaged in the writing process, to elucidate the main difficulties and sources of encouragement they encountered. Sixteen novice researchers were interviewed. Most were women (10), and most were enrolled in programs of medicine (9), followed by nursing (4) and physical therapy (3). These were drawn via convenience sampling from a randomized control trial in which 48 of them were equally assigned to either an online or a face-to-face course of instruction. On completion, interviews were conducted in focus groups of four students each. The interviews were transcribed and read independently by two of the authors, who then encoded the material based on the principles of grounded theory. Initial categories were converted to major emerging themes, which were validated when participants were asked to review the findings. Triangulation of results was carried out by discussing the emerging themes in an online forum with five specialists in college writing education. Classifying the diverse responses of participants led to the emergence of four major themes: cognitive burden, group support and mentoring, difficulty in distinguishing between content and structure, and backward design of manuscripts. The themes produced by this study provide some insight into the challenges faced by novice researchers in their early attempts at scientific writing. Remedies that address these challenges are needed to substantially improve scientific writing instruction.

  8. The Multi-Feature Hypothesis: Connectionist Guidelines for L2 Task Design

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moonen, Machteld; de Graaff, Rick; Westhoff, Gerard; Brekelmans, Mieke

    2014-01-01

    This study focuses on the effects of task type on the retention and ease of activation of second language (L2) vocabulary, based on the multi-feature hypothesis (Moonen, De Graaff, & Westhoff, 2006). Two tasks were compared: a writing task and a list-learning task. It was hypothesized that performing the writing task would yield higher…

  9. Research-Based Writing Practices and the Common Core: Meta-Analysis and Meta-Synthesis

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Graham, Steve; Harris, Karen R.; Santangelo, Tanya

    2015-01-01

    In order to meet writing objectives specified in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), many teachers need to make significant changes in how writing is taught. While CCSS identified what students need to master, it did not provide guidance on how teachers are to meet these writing benchmarks. The current article presents research-supported…

  10. Bridging Gaps and Preserving Memories through Oral History Research and Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dayton-Wood, Amy; Hammonds, Laren; Matherson, Lisa; Tollison, Leah

    2012-01-01

    In spring of 2010, three high school teachers and their students paired with a college teacher and her advanced writing class to collaborate on oral history research and writing. While many people think of oral history as "just stories," the authors introduce it to students as a rigorous method for documenting historical events, cultural…

  11. A randomized controlled trial of expressive writing in breast cancer survivors with lymphedema.

    PubMed

    Sohl, Stephanie J; Dietrich, Mary S; Wallston, Kenneth A; Ridner, Sheila H

    2017-07-01

    Breast cancer survivors who develop lymphedema report poorer quality of life (QoL) than those without lymphedema. Expressive writing is a potential intervention to address QoL. Adult women (N = 107) with breast cancer and chronic Stage II lymphedema were randomised to writing about thoughts and feelings specific to lymphedema and its treatment (intervention) or about daily activities (control) for four, 20-min sessions. Outcome measures were several indicators of QoL assessed at baseline, one, three, and six months post-intervention (total scores and subscales of Upper Limb Lymphedema 27 and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast). Hypothesised moderators of change in QoL were dispositional optimism, avoidant behaviours, and time since lymphedema diagnosis. There was no statistically significant intent-to-treat main effects of expressive writing on QoL. Statistically significant moderating effects on change in different indicators of QoL were observed for all three moderators. Expressive writing was more effective for improving QoL in women who were higher on optimism, lower on avoidance and had less time since a lymphedema diagnosis. These results provide further evidence that there are subsets of individuals for whom expressive writing is more effective. Future research may investigate targeting expressive writing based on identified moderators.

  12. Authorship in Global Mental Health Research: Recommendations for Collaborative Approaches to Writing and Publishing

    PubMed Central

    Kohrt, Brandon A.; Upadhaya, Nawaraj; Luitel, Nagendra P.; Maharjan, Sujen M.; Kaiser, Bonnie N.; MacFarlane, Elizabeth K.; Khan, Noreen

    2014-01-01

    Background Collaborations among researchers, clinicians, and individuals with mental illness from high-income countries (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are crucial to produce research, interventions, and policies that are relevant, feasible, and ethical. However, global mental health and cultural psychiatry research publications have been dominated by HIC investigators. Objective The aim of this review was to present recommendations for collaborative writing with a focus on early career researchers in HICs and LMICs. Methods A workshop was conducted with HIC and LMIC investigators in Nepal to discuss lessons learned for collaborative writing. The researchers had experience in cross-cultural psychiatric epidemiology, health services research, randomized controlled trials, and projects with war and disaster-affected populations in complex humanitarian emergencies including child soldiers and refugees. Additional lessons learned were contributed from researchers engaged in similar collaborations in Haiti. Findings A step-by-step process for collaborative writing was developed. Conclusions HIC and LMIC writing collaborations will encourage accurate, ethical, and contextually grounded publications to foster understanding and facilitate reduction of the global burden of mental illness. PMID:24976552

  13. Toward a Student-Centered Understanding of Intensive Writing and Writing-to-Learn in the Spanish Major: An Examination of Advanced L2 Spanish Students' Learning in the Writing-Intensive Spanish Content Course

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Strong, Robert Marvin

    2009-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to build upon our understanding of the place and value of writing in the advanced foreign language curriculum. Specifically, the study examines how students in writing-intensive Spanish-major courses are affected by the writing-intensive (WI) requirement at the University of Minnesota. Writing-Across-the-Curriculum…

  14. Integrating writing research with curricular development in large-enrollment introductory physics

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Demaree, Dedra

    2008-05-01

    Multiple research projects have been undertaken as part of an ongoing study to develop methods to do quantitative assessment of writing to learn within physics. The ability to make use of writing to learn at first glance appears limited in large-enrollment courses due to the time-intensive nature of essay writing and grading. However, effective ways to implement writing are quite possible. One study that will be discussed required students to do textbook summary writing in introductory physics in the 2007 spring semester of the ``Foundation Physics Course'' at the University of Cape Town. This course is a component of the special access program which contains mostly second language English speakers. Another use of writing will be reported that is currently being used in the introductory physics course at Oregon State University as a way to enhance problem solving. This project is also aimed at scaffolding students toward goals in our upper division courses. This talk will report on some of what we know about writing to learn, how we are working to improve ways to study it quantitatively, and how we are incorporating some aspects of it in accessible ways in large-enrollment introductory courses.

  15. The Impact of L1 Writing System on ESL Knowledge of Vowel and Consonant Spellings

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Martin, Katherine I.

    2017-01-01

    Orthographic knowledge, the general ability to learn, store, and use information about the orthographic form of words (Stanovich & West, 1989), is a crucial skill for supporting literacy. Although the development of first language (L1) orthographic awareness is impacted by the characteristics of a learner's L1 writing system, relatively little…

  16. The Use of Journals To Improve Writing Skills in Commercial Spanish: State of a Research Project.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alvarez-Ruf, Hersilia

    Recent writing theory, research, and pedagogy have aided in the development of several models for improving second language writing skills. Attention is focused more on writing as a process, the importance of practice in writing improvement, and the need to learn cognitive structures contributing to writing. Daily journal writing is one method of…

  17. Commentary: Writing and Evaluating Qualitative Research Reports

    PubMed Central

    Thompson, Deborah; Aroian, Karen J.; McQuaid, Elizabeth L.; Deatrick, Janet A.

    2016-01-01

    Objective To provide an overview of qualitative methods, particularly for reviewers and authors who may be less familiar with qualitative research. Methods A question and answer format is used to address considerations for writing and evaluating qualitative research. Results and Conclusions When producing qualitative research, individuals are encouraged to address the qualitative research considerations raised and to explicitly identify the systematic strategies used to ensure rigor in study design and methods, analysis, and presentation of findings. Increasing capacity for review and publication of qualitative research within pediatric psychology will advance the field’s ability to gain a better understanding of the specific needs of pediatric populations, tailor interventions more effectively, and promote optimal health. PMID:27118271

  18. Secondary Students' Writing Achievement Goals: Assessing the Mediating Effects of Mastery and Performance Goals on Writing Self-Efficacy, Affect, and Writing Achievement

    PubMed Central

    Yilmaz Soylu, Meryem; Zeleny, Mary G.; Zhao, Ruomeng; Bruning, Roger H.; Dempsey, Michael S.; Kauffman, Douglas F.

    2017-01-01

    The two studies reported here explored the factor structure of the newly constructed Writing Achievement Goal Scale (WAGS), and examined relationships among secondary students' writing achievement goals, writing self-efficacy, affect for writing, and writing achievement. In the first study, 697 middle school students completed the WAGS. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed a good fit for this data with a three-factor model that corresponds with mastery, performance approach, and performance avoidance goals. The results of Study 1 were an indication for the researchers to move forward with Study 2, which included 563 high school students. The secondary students completed the WAGS, as well as the Self-efficacy for Writing Scale, and the Liking Writing Scale. Students also self-reported grades for writing and for language arts courses. Approximately 6 weeks later, students completed a statewide writing assessment. We tested a theoretical model representing relationships among Study 2 variables using structural equation modeling including students' responses to the study scales and students' scores on the statewide assessment. Results from Study 2 revealed a good fit between a model depicting proposed relationships among the constructs and the data. Findings are discussed relative to achievement goal theory and writing. PMID:28878707

  19. Really Writing! Ready-To-Use Writing Process Activities for the Elementary Grades. 2nd Edition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sunflower, Cherlyn

    2005-01-01

    The second edition of "Really Writing!" provides 40 real-life writing activities designed to capture the attention of young authors (grades 2 through 6) who are just learning the composing process. This book is also a resource for teaching advanced writers who are ready to experiment with a variety of writing and speaking genres. Each of the…

  20. Exploring Collaborative Writing in Wikis: A Genre-Based Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Coccetta, Francesca

    2015-01-01

    While CALL research into collaborative writing in the L2 using wikis has mainly focused on the texts written by learners in terms of their grammatical accuracy (e.g. Mak & Coniam, 2008; Lee, 2010), the purpose of the present study is to draw attention to these texts as instances of a given genre. It reports on a small-scale experiment…

  1. Symbols and Scrolls: Teaching Elementary Students about Historic Writing. Pull-out 2.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Christensen, Lois M.

    1999-01-01

    Describes a unit for elementary students on the history and technology of writing from ancient to medieval times. Includes a contemporary writing and print exercise, an ancient and medieval writing exercise, a research activity on the evolution of writing, a biography study, a fine arts exercise, and a community survey. Addresses the unit…

  2. Teaching Google Search Techniques in an L2 Academic Writing Context

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Han, Sumi; Shin, Jeong-Ah

    2017-01-01

    This mixed-method study examines the effectiveness of teaching Google search techniques (GSTs) to Korean EFL college students in an intermediate-level academic English writing course. 18 students participated in a 4-day GST workshop consisting of an overview session of the web as corpus and Google as a concordancer, and three training sessions…

  3. Improving Scientific Research and Writing Skills through Peer Review and Empirical Group Learning †

    PubMed Central

    Senkevitch, Emilee; Smith, Ann C.; Marbach-Ad, Gili; Song, Wenxia

    2011-01-01

    Here we describe a semester-long, multipart activity called “Read and wRite to reveal the Research process” (R3) that was designed to teach students the elements of a scientific research paper. We implemented R3 in an advanced immunology course. In R3, we paralleled the activities of reading, discussion, and presentation of relevant immunology work from primary research papers with student writing, discussion, and presentation of their own lab findings. We used reading, discussing, and writing activities to introduce students to the rationale for basic components of a scientific research paper, the method of composing a scientific paper, and the applications of course content to scientific research. As a final part of R3, students worked collaboratively to construct a Group Research Paper that reported on a hypothesis-driven research project, followed by a peer review activity that mimicked the last stage of the scientific publishing process. Assessment of student learning revealed a statistically significant gain in student performance on writing in the style of a research paper from the start of the semester to the end of the semester. PMID:23653760

  4. L2 Reading Research and Pedagogical Considerations in the Teaching of French and Francophone Theater

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Edwards, Carole; Taylor, Alan M.

    2012-01-01

    Little research on improving second language (L2) reading comprehension of French and francophone theater has been conducted. This study provides insight into enhancing L2 comprehension of drama by combining L2 research with examples from L'accent grave by Jacques Prevert, Ton beau capitaine by Simone Schwarz-Bart (1987), Un Touareg s'est marie a…

  5. An L2 Reader's Word-Recognition Strategies: Transferred or Developed

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alco, Bonnie

    2010-01-01

    Transfer of reading strategies from the first language (L1) to the second language (L2) has long puzzled educators, but what happens if the L1 is an alphabet language and the second is not, or if there is a mismatch in the languages' grapheme-phoneme connection? Although some students readily adjust to reading and writing in their second language,…

  6. Using Translation Exercises in the Communicative EFL Writing Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kim, Eun-Young

    2011-01-01

    Implementing process pedagogy in an L2 writing classroom has its own limits for students with low English proficiency. Although L1 writers commonly benefit from writing multiple drafts, most of the low English level Korean college students in my English composition class did not benefit from the revisions. This article introduces an innovative…

  7. The Effects of Meaning-Focused Pre-Tasks on Beginning-Level L2 Writing in German: An Exploratory Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Abrams, Zsuzsanna; Byrd, David R.

    2017-01-01

    Most studies on task-based language learning focus on the oral performance of advanced level learners of English as a second language (ESL), while little research examines the written performance of beginning language learners in non-ESL contexts. This exploratory study aims to address this gap, by examining the effect of pre-writing tasks on…

  8. Supervising Writing: Helping Postgraduate Students Develop as Researchers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lee, Anne; Murray, Rowena

    2015-01-01

    Research and enquiry skills are increasingly required of students at all levels of the higher education curriculum, and this requires a sophisticated pedagogical response. The question is: how can we integrate current knowledge about academic writing with current knowledge about supervision? This article integrates different approaches to writing…

  9. An Evaluation of Research Students' Writing Support Intervention

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    O'Mahony, Barry; Verezub, Elena; Dalrymple, John; Bertone, Santina

    2013-01-01

    Purpose: Achieving quality standards in postgraduate education, particularly among Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students, can be challenging. In addition to the diverse educational and cultural backgrounds of these students, thesis writing frequently involves the development of new skills associated with the comprehension of a large volume of…

  10. Down the Rabbit Hole: Challenges and Methodological Recommendations in Researching Writing-Related Student Dispositions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Driscoll, Dana Lynn; Gorzelsky, Gwen; Wells, Jennifer; Hayes, Carol; Jones, Ed; Salchak, Steve

    2017-01-01

    Researching writing-related dispositions is of critical concern for understanding writing transfer and writing development. However, as a field we need better tools and methods for identifying, tracking, and analyzing dispositions. This article describes a failed attempt to code for five key dispositions (attribution, self-efficacy, persistence,…

  11. Rhetorical Structures in Academic Research Writing by Non-Native Writers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Suryani, Ina; Kamaruddin, H.; Hashima, Noor; Yaacob, Aizan; Rashid, Salleh Abd; Desa, Hazry

    2014-01-01

    Writers of research articles are expected to present research information in a structured manner by following a certain rhetorical patterns determined by the discourse community. Failures to keep to the writing standard and rhetorical pattern are likely to lower the acceptance rate. While producing a research article is understandably a complex…

  12. Authorship in global mental health research: recommendations for collaborative approaches to writing and publishing.

    PubMed

    Kohrt, Brandon A; Upadhaya, Nawaraj; Luitel, Nagendra P; Maharjan, Sujen M; Kaiser, Bonnie N; MacFarlane, Elizabeth K; Khan, Noreen

    2014-01-01

    Collaborations among researchers, clinicians, and individuals with mental illness from high-income countries (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are crucial to produce research, interventions, and policies that are relevant, feasible, and ethical. However, global mental health and cultural psychiatry research publications have been dominated by HIC investigators. The aim of this review was to present recommendations for collaborative writing with a focus on early career investigators researchers in HICs and LMICs. A workshop was conducted with HIC and LMIC investigators in Nepal to discuss lessons learned for collaborative writing. The researchers had experience in cross-cultural psychiatric epidemiology, health services research, randomized controlled trials, and projects with war and disaster-affected populations in complex humanitarian emergencies including child soldiers and refugees. Additional lessons learned were contributed from researchers engaged in similar collaborations in Haiti. A step-by-step process for collaborative writing was developed. HIC and LMIC writing collaborations will encourage accurate, ethical, and contextually grounded publications to foster understanding and facilitate reduction of the global burden of mental illness. Copyright © 2014 Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  13. "Daughter of Time": Outside Reading for a Research Writing Course.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sosville, Jerri

    1987-01-01

    Presents an alternative to the usual selections taught in research paper writing courses. Suggests that Josephine Tey's novel is more relevant and enjoyable, as well as better suited for research projects, than, for example, "1984" or "The Sound and the Fury." (HTH)

  14. Research and Teaching: Writing to Learn in the Natural Sciences--Does Source Material Matter?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Christensen, Heather Rebecca; Rasmussen, Andrew

    2017-01-01

    For over 4 decades, educational researchers have been studying best practices for introducing writing into the curriculum. One successful strategy, a low-stakes writing exercise called "writing to learn" (WTL), has been implemented across several disciplines within higher education. In light of a growing interest in the use of technology…

  15. An Investigation of Three Chinese Students' English Writing Strategies

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mu, Congjun; Carrington, Suzanne

    2007-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to investigate the writing processes of second language (L2) writers, specifically examining the writing strategies of three Chinese post-graduate students in an Australian higher education institution. The study was prompted by the paucity of second language writing strategies of Chinese students in an authentic…

  16. Predicting Second Language Writing Proficiency: The Roles of Cohesion and Linguistic Sophistication

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crossley, Scott A.; McNamara, Danielle S.

    2012-01-01

    This study addresses research gaps in predicting second language (L2) writing proficiency using linguistic features. Key to this analysis is the inclusion of linguistic measures at the surface, textbase and situation model level that assess text cohesion and linguistic sophistication. The results of this study demonstrate that five variables…

  17. The Discursive Management of Emotionality in the L2 Research Interview

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Prior, Matthew T.

    2011-01-01

    This study investigates the ways in which emotions and emotionality are managed as topics and resources in second language (L2) research interviews. A continued challenge for researchers is how to define and operationalize emotions and other putative psychological phenomena. One popular research methodology that treats emotions as the object and…

  18. The Importance of Harmony: An Ecological Metaphor for Writing Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fleckenstein, Kristie S.; Spinuzzi, Clay; Rickly, Rebecca J.; Papper, Carole Clark

    2008-01-01

    This essay argues for the value of an ecological metaphor in conceptualizing, designing, and enacting research in writing studies. Such a metaphor conceives of activities, actors, situations, and phenomena as interdependent, diverse, and fused through feedback. This ecological orientation invites composition scholars to research rhetorically: to…

  19. Connecting Practice and Research: Integrated Reading and Writing Instruction Assessment

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Caverly, David C.; Taylor, Judi Salsburg; Dimino, Renee K.; Lampi, Jodi P.

    2016-01-01

    The first "Connecting Practice and Research" column (Lampi, Dimino, & Salsburg Taylor, 2015), introduced a Research-to-Practice partnership (Coburn & Penuel, 2016) between two faculty from a community college and a university professor who were aiming to develop effective integrated reading and writing (IRW) instruction through a…

  20. Perceptions of L1 Glossed Feedback in Automated Writing Evaluation: A Case Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wilken, Jayme Lynn

    2018-01-01

    Learner perceptions toward and utilization of L1 glossed feedback in an automated writing evaluation (AWE) program were investigated in an Intensive English Program (IEP) class. This small case study focused on two Chinese students who responded to weekly surveys, semi-structured interviews, and screen capture videos of their revisions over a…

  1. An Action Research on Improving Non-English Majors' English Writing by "Basic Sentence Pattern Translation Drills"

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    He, Xiaoyu

    2016-01-01

    English writing plays an indispensible part in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learning for Chinese students, which accounts for a high score in an English test in China. And it is also a comprehensive reflection of students' abilities in L2 application. However, most non-English majors in vocational and technical colleges have great trouble…

  2. Collaborative Writing with Web 2.0 Technologies: Education Students' Perceptions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brodahl, Cornelia; Hadjerrouit, Said; Hansen, Nils Kristian

    2011-01-01

    Web 2.0 technologies are becoming popular in teaching and learning environments. Among them several online collaborative writing tools, like wikis and blogs, have been integrated into educational settings. Research has been carried out on a wide range of subjects related to wikis, while other, comparable tools like Google Docs and EtherPad remain…

  3. Developing Research Paper Writing Programs for EFL/ESL Undergraduate Students Using Process Genre Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tuyen, Kim Thanh; Bin Osman, Shuki; Dan, Thai Cong; Ahmad, Nor Shafrin Binti

    2016-01-01

    Research Paper Writing (RPW) plays a key role in completing all research work. Poor writing could lead to the postponement of publications. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a program of (RPW) to improve RPW ability for EFL/ESL writers, especially for undergraduate students in Higher Education (HE) institutions, which has caught less attention…

  4. Mobile-Assisted Grammar Exercises: Effects on Self-Editing in L2 Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Li, Zhi; Hegelheimer, Volker

    2013-01-01

    In this paper, we report on the development and implementation of a web-based mobile application, "Grammar Clinic," for an ESL writing class. Drawing on insights from the interactionist approach to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the Noticing Hypothesis, and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), "Grammar Clinic" was…

  5. Extending Interactive Writing into Grades 2-5

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Roth, Kate; Dabrowski, Joan

    2014-01-01

    Interactive writing is an instructional practice widely considered effective and most appropriate for emergent writers. This article asserts that it is a valuable method for more fluent writers in grades 2-5. It outlines the basic lesson sequence and proposes four key shifts to adapt interactive writing for older, more fluent writers: 1) The…

  6. What They Take with Them: Findings from the Peer Writing Tutor Alumni Research Project

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hughes, Bradley; Gillespie, Paula; Kail, Harvey

    2010-01-01

    Through the Peer Writing Tutor Alumni Research Project (PWTARP), the authors have set out to explore and document what peer tutors take with them from their training and experience. The Peer Writing Tutor Alumni Research Project has made it possible for the authors to sample and analyze more systematically the reflections of 126 former tutors from…

  7. Early Writing in the Research Mode via Digital Modeling of Rivers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Snow, Robin Scott

    1991-01-01

    Author describes an individual research project involving digital modeling of graded river profiles as part of a sophomore-level geomorphology class. The three-week project gives students the opportunity to choose research topics, design experiments to test ideas, interpret results, and write a research report. (PR)

  8. The Implementation of Team-Based Discovery Learning to Improve Students' Ability in Writing Research Proposal

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Arifani, Yudhi

    2016-01-01

    Writing research proposal in educational setting is a very complex process involving variety of elements. Consequently, analyzing the complex elements from introduction to data analysis sections in order to yield convinced research proposal writing through reviewing reputable journal articles is worth-contributing. The objectives of this research…

  9. Commentary: Writing and Evaluating Qualitative Research Reports.

    PubMed

    Wu, Yelena P; Thompson, Deborah; Aroian, Karen J; McQuaid, Elizabeth L; Deatrick, Janet A

    2016-06-01

    To provide an overview of qualitative methods, particularly for reviewers and authors who may be less familiar with qualitative research. A question and answer format is used to address considerations for writing and evaluating qualitative research. When producing qualitative research, individuals are encouraged to address the qualitative research considerations raised and to explicitly identify the systematic strategies used to ensure rigor in study design and methods, analysis, and presentation of findings. Increasing capacity for review and publication of qualitative research within pediatric psychology will advance the field's ability to gain a better understanding of the specific needs of pediatric populations, tailor interventions more effectively, and promote optimal health. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Pediatric Psychology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  10. Ease into Writing. Volume 2.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lott, Carolyn, Ed.; Stone, Janet, Ed.

    Addressing the expressed needs of the writing community, this book presents writing lessons for intermediate, middle school, and secondary school students that incorporate the 5-step writing process into content areas as a natural part of the curriculum. The 30 lessons in this book involve students in large and small groups and in individual…

  11. The Effect of Different Types of Corrective Feedback on ESL Student Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bitchener, John; Young, Stuart; Cameron, Denise

    2005-01-01

    Debate about the value of providing corrective feedback on L2 writing has been prominent in recent years as a result of Truscott's [Truscott, J. (1996). The case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes. Language Learning, 46, 327-369] claim that it is both ineffective and harmful and should therefore be abandoned. A growing body of…

  12. Research to Practice: Integrating Reading and Writing in a Kindergarten Curriculum. Technical Report No. 415.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kawakami-Arakaki, Alice J.; And Others

    Based on emergent literacy research, two components of reading and writing--the morning message and the writing process--were developed in a laboratory school kindergarten by teacher-researcher collaboration and later disseminated to both public and private schools through a project conducted for the Kamehameha Schools, a private school in…

  13. Writing: The Research Paper. Postsecondary Intervention Model for Learning Disabilities. Study Manual #3.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Friedman, Brenda G.; And Others

    The manual is intended to help students with language learning disabilities master the academic task of research paper writing. A seven-step procedure is advocated for students and their tutors: (1) select a workable topic, then limit and focus it; (2) use library references to identify sources from which to prepare a working bibliography; (3)…

  14. The Relationship between Multiple Intelligences and Writing Ability of Iranian EFL Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sadeghi, Karim; Farzizadeh, Bahareh

    2012-01-01

    The relationship between multiple intelligences and learning of L2 language skills is a burgeoning area of research. This study aimed at finding the relationship between Multiple Intelligences (MI) and the writing ability of EFL learners. For this purpose, the body of female BA sophomores in TEFL at Urmia University (N = 47), within the age range…

  15. The Interrelationship among Critical Thinking, Writing an Argumentative Essay in an L2 and Their Subskills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Soodmand Afshar, Hassan; Movassagh, Hossein; Radi Arbabi, Hassan

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated the relationship between critical thinking and the writing ability of Iranian EFL learners, and the interrelationship among the subskills of the two constructs. Furthermore, it aimed at finding which skills of critical thinking predicted the participants' writing ability. To this end, 104 students majoring in English…

  16. Teaching Phenomenological Research and Writing.

    PubMed

    Adams, Catherine; van Manen, Michael Anders

    2017-05-01

    In this article, we describe our approach and philosophical methodology of teaching and doing phenomenology. The human science seminar that we offer involves participants in the primary phenomenological literature as well as in a variety of carefully engaged writing exercises. Each seminar participant selects a personal phenomenological project that aims at producing a publishable research paper. We show how the qualitative methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology requires of its practitioner a sensitivity and attitudinal disposition that has to be internalized and that cannot be captured in a procedural or step-by-step program. Our experience is that seminar participants become highly motivated and committed to their phenomenological project while involved in the rather intense progression of lectures, workshop activities, readings, and discussions.

  17. Quantifying the Burden of Writing Research Articles in a Second Language: Data from Mexican Scientists

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hanauer, David I.; Englander, Karen

    2011-01-01

    This article provides quantitative data to establish the relative, perceived burden of writing research articles in English as a second language. Previous qualitative research has shown that scientists writing English in a second language face difficulties but has not established parameters for the degree of this difficulty. A total of 141…

  18. Using Evidence in L2 Argumentative Writing: A Longitudinal Case Study across High School and University

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kibler, Amanda K.; Hardigree, Christine

    2017-01-01

    This 8-year longitudinal case study of Fabiola, a Spanish-English bilingual, investigated her argumentative writing development, focusing on her use of evidence to support and develop arguments over time from high school through university. Data sources included 36 writing samples. Texts across grade levels and course types were analyzed to…

  19. Writing and Publishing a Research Paper in a Peer-Reviewed Journal

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Porter, Stephen R.

    2007-01-01

    Writing and publishing a research paper in a peer-reviewed journal is a complicated process. This paper tries to take some of the mystery out of that process by describing how a good research paper should be structured, and how the journal submission process works.

  20. Effect of Alignment on L2 Written Production

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wang, Chuming; Wang, Min

    2015-01-01

    This article aims to uncover how L2 writing is affected by alignment, a socio-cognitive process involving dynamic coordination and adaptation. For this, two studies were conducted. Study 1 required two groups of 24 learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) to continue in English two stories with their endings removed, both of which had a…

  1. Natives and Academics: Researching and Writing about American Indians.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mihesuah, Devon A., Ed.

    This anthology provides Native perspectives on the ethics of researching, writing about, and teaching about American Indians, and may be used as a text for discussion in American Indian Studies classes. Leading Native scholars discuss the representativeness of Native informants, the merits of various data collection methods, the role and veracity…

  2. Research Paper Writing Strategies of Professional Japanese EFL Writers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Matsumoto, Kazuko

    1995-01-01

    Four Japanese university professors were interviewed on their strategies for writing a research paper in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Results indicate that these writers use strategies similar to those used by skilled native English writers and proficient writers of English as a Second Language. (35 references) (Author/CK)

  3. Part four: The research dissertation: planning, producing and writing a thesis.

    PubMed

    Quick, J; Hall, S

    2015-11-01

    Dissertations have become common inclusions to postgraduate degrees in healthcare. To the novice researcher, undertaking an extensive project of this kind can appear daunting. In this final article in the series 'Spotlight on Research', Julie Quick and Susan Hall advise perioperative practitioners on how to plan, produce and write a research dissertation. Guidance is also given on disseminating the results from research studies.

  4. Help Options for L2 Listening in CALL: A Research Agenda

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cross, Jeremy

    2017-01-01

    In this article, I present an agenda for researching help options for second language (L2) listening in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) environments. I outline several theories which researchers in the area draw on, then present common points of concern identified from a review of related literature. This serves as a means to…

  5. Peer Feedback Practice in EFL Tertiary Writing Classes

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nguyen, Ha Thi

    2016-01-01

    Peer feedback plays a pivotal role in stimulating students' participation in L2 writing, which has the potential to develop students' writing skills. The concept of metacognition has also been examined to facilitate learner writers in their learning process. As such, this study drawing upon the concept of metacognition explores the implementation…

  6. Collaborative Writing in a Statistics and Research Methods Course.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dunn, Dana S.

    1996-01-01

    Describes a collaborative writing project in which students must identify key variables, search and read relevant literature, and reason through a research idea by working closely with a partner. The end result is a polished laboratory report in the APA style. The class includes a peer review workshop prior to final editing. (MJP)

  7. The Effect of Writing Task and Task Conditions on Colombian EFL Learners' Language Use

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McDonough, Kim; Fuentes, César García

    2015-01-01

    This classroom study examines whether English L2 writers' language use differs depending on the writing task (operationalized as paragraph type), and task conditions (operationalized as individual or collaborative writing). The texts written by English L2 university students in Colombia (N = 26) in response to problem/solution and cause/effect…

  8. Automated Writing Evaluation Program's Effect on Student Writing Achievement

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Holman, Lester Donnie

    2011-01-01

    In an ex post facto causal-comparative research design, this study investigated the effectiveness of Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) programs on raising the student writing achievement. Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) writing achievement scores from the 2010 administration were utilized for this study. The independent variable…

  9. A Conversation Analysis of the Function of Silence in Writing Conferences

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mirzaee, Milad; Yaqubi, Baqer

    2016-01-01

    One of the recent issues in English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) writing instruction has been the quest for a more effective way to give feedback to L2 learners' writing drafts. Although teacher-learner writing conferences have been increasingly used for providing ample opportunity for negotiating revisions, relatively little attention…

  10. Supporting the Writing up of Teacher Research: Peer and Mentor Roles

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dikilitas, Kenan; Mumford, Simon E.

    2016-01-01

    This study focuses specifically on the writing up process of relatively inexperienced teacher researchers. The data consist of interviews with 11 teacher researchers at a private university in Turkey. There was evidence that mentor-supported collaboration created a socio-constructivist learning environment, leading to the development of academic…

  11. "Thinking-for-Writing": A Prolegomenon on Writing Signed Languages.

    PubMed

    Rosen, Russell S; Hartman, Maria C; Wang, Ye

    2017-01-01

    In his article in this American Annals of the Deaf special issue that also includes the present article, Grushkin argues that the writing difficulties of many deaf and hard of hearing children result primarily from the orthographic nature of the writing system; he proposes a new system based on features found in signed languages. In response, the present authors review the literature on D/HH children's writing difficulties, outline the main percepts of and assumptions about writing signed languages, discuss "thinking-for-writing" as a process in developing writing skills, offer research designs to test the effectiveness of writing signed language systems, and provide strategies for adopting "thinking-for-writing" in education. They conclude that until empirical studies show that writing signed languages effectively reflects writers' "thinking-for-writing," the alphabetic orthographic system of English should still be used, and ways should be found to teach D/HH children to use English writing to express their thoughts.

  12. The Effects of Different Pre-Writing Strategies on Iranian EFL Writing Achievement

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mahnam, Lily; Nejadansari, Dariush

    2012-01-01

    This study aimed at investigating whether applying pre-writing strategies would affect the quality of L2 learners' compositions. Twenty three adult EFL students from Jahad-e-Daneshgahi English centre in Iran participated in this study. They were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups, including 11 and 12 participants in each. They…

  13. Corpus-Supported Academic Writing: How Can Technology Help?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chitez, Madalina; Rapp, Christian; Kruse, Otto

    2015-01-01

    Phraseology has long been used in L2 teaching of academic writing, and corpus linguistics has played a major role in the compilation and assessment of academic phrases. However, there are only a few interactive academic writing tools in which corpus methodology is implemented in a real-time design to support formulation processes. In this paper,…

  14. Writing Regulation Processes in Higher Education: A Review of Two Decades of Empirical Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sala-Bubaré, Anna; Castelló, Montserrat

    2018-01-01

    In Higher Education (HE), writers need to regulate their writing processes in order to achieve their communicative goals. Although critical for academic success and knowledge construction, writing regulation processes have been mainly researched in compulsory education rather than in HE, with no systematic review focused on this context. The…

  15. Second Language Learners' Performance and Strategies When Writing Direct and Translated Essays

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ismail, Sadiq Abdulwahed Ahmed; Alsheikh, Negmeldin Omer

    2012-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate ESL students' performance and strategies when writing direct and translated essays. The study also aimed at exploring students' strategies when writing in L2 (English) and L1 (Arabic). The study used a mixture of quantitative and qualitative procedures for data collection and analysis. Adapted strategy…

  16. The Impact of Canadian Social Discourses on L2 Writing Pedagogy in Ontario

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kalan, Amir

    2013-01-01

    This paper attempts to illustrate the impact of Canadian social, political, and academic discourses on second language writing pedagogy in Ontario schools. Building upon the views that regard teacher knowledge as teachers' sociocultural interactions and lived experiences, and not merely intellectual capabilities gained within teacher preparation,…

  17. The Teaching of Writing: Illinois Teachers Report on Research & Practices. Sentence Combining as a Composition Technique.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Matthews, Dorothy, Ed.

    1978-01-01

    The ten articles in this journal report on research and practice in the teaching of writing. Topics covered include sentence combining as a composition technique, peer evaluation in a technical writing class, a plan for teaching paragraph construction, the use of literary humor in a writing class, methods for setting the scene, how students view…

  18. Toward a Theory of Adaptive Transfer: Expanding Disciplinary Discussions of "Transfer" in Second-Language Writing and Composition Studies

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    DePalma, Michael-John; Ringer, Jeffrey M.

    2011-01-01

    In this paper, we argue that discussions of transfer in L2 writing and composition studies have focused primarily on the reuse of past learning and thus have not adequately accounted for the adaptation of learned writing knowledge in unfamiliar situations. In an effort to expand disciplinary discussions of transfer in L2 writing and composition…

  19. Research Leadership in Writing for Publication: A Theoretical Framework

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Murray, Rowena; Steckley, Laura; MacLeod, Iain

    2012-01-01

    Academics experience difficulty in managing competing tasks, particularly in relation to writing for publication. In a study conducted on a writing retreat, analysis of data obtained from academic writers revealed that facilitative leadership provided at a writing retreat was central to managing task complexity and writing-related anxiety. The…

  20. Chinese children's early knowledge about writing.

    PubMed

    Zhang, Lan; Yin, Li; Treiman, Rebecca

    2017-09-01

    Much research on literacy development has focused on learners of alphabetic writing systems. Researchers have hypothesized that children learn about the formal characteristics of writing before they learn about the relations between units of writing and units of speech. We tested this hypothesis by examining young Chinese children's understanding of writing. Mandarin-speaking 2- to 5-year-olds completed a graphic task, which tapped their knowledge about the formal characteristics of writing, and a phonological task, which tapped their knowledge about the correspondence between Chinese characters and syllables. The 3- to 5-year-olds performed better on the graphic task than the phonological task, indicating that learning how writing appears visually begins earlier than learning that writing corresponds to linguistic units, even in a writing system in which written units correspond to syllables. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Learning about writing's visual form, how it looks, is an important part of emergent literacy. Knowledge of how writing symbolizes linguistic units may emerge later. What does this study add? We test the hypothesis that Chinese children learn about writing's visual form earlier than its symbolic nature. Chinese 3- to 5- year-olds know more about visual features than character-syllable links. Results show learning of the visual appearance of a notation system is developmentally precocious. © 2016 The British Psychological Society.

  1. Technology to Support Writing by Students with Learning and Academic Disabilities: Recent Research Trends and Findings

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Peterson-Karlan, George R.

    2011-01-01

    The trends and findings from a descriptive analysis of 25 years of research studies examining the effectiveness of technology to support the compositional writing of students with learning and academic disabilities are presented. A corpus of 85 applied research studies of writing technology effectiveness was identified from among 249 items in the…

  2. An introduction to research for primary dental care clinicians part 9: stage 10. Writing up and disseminating the results.

    PubMed

    Eaton, Kenneth A; Wiles, Laura; O'Malley, David

    2012-04-01

    This paper, the ninth and final one in the series, will address the tenth and final stage of a research project suggested in the first paper. The ten suggested stages are: 1. The initial idea (asking a research question). 2. Searching the literature. 3. Refining the research question. 4. Planning the study. 5. Writing a protocol. 6. Obtaining ethical approval and funding. 7. Piloting the methodology and project management. 8. Collecting data. 9. Analysing the data. 10. Writing up and disseminating the results. The paper outlines the steps that authors should take when seeking to publish the results of research in peer-reviewed journals and how to disseminate results through presentations at scientific conferences. These steps represent the final stage in the research process.

  3. Doing Things Differently: The Outcomes of Teachers Researching Their Own Practice in Teaching Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Limbrick, Libby; Buchanan, Pauline; Goodwin, Marineke; Schwarcz, Helen

    2010-01-01

    In this study we investigated whether teachers' pedagogical and content knowledge of writing would increase as an outcome of teachers taking a research lens to their practice to raise students' writing achievement. Using student achievement data as a baseline, teachers examined and refined their practice using an inquiry process. The study took…

  4. Writer's Workshop vs. Writing Prompts: The Effect on First Graders' Writing Ability and Attitude towards Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Carroll, Stacy; Feng, Jay

    2010-01-01

    In the county schools, students are assessed every nine weeks based on a writing prompt using a rubric supplied by the county, but the students are often taught using Writer's Workshop. This action research attempted to determine if Writer's Workshop and the use of writing prompts have different effects on first graders' writing ability and…

  5. Top 10 "Secret Writing Tips" to Boost Your Productivity: Part 2

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Berk, Ronald A.

    2011-01-01

    This is the sequel and companion piece to the first five tips published in this journal's winter 2010 issue. To recap, the first five tips are: (1) Write Everyday; (2) Write Everywhere; (3) Conquer Distractions and Interruptions; (4) Write for a Niche; and (5) Write with a Purpose. Now, in this article, the other five tips are discussed: (6) Write…

  6. Special Section: Write On! Introduction [and] Preparing Research for Publication [and] Transforming an Oral Presentation for Publication.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bluh, Pamela, Ed.; Giesecke, Joan; Di Vecchio, Jerry

    1998-01-01

    This special section includes papers from the 1997 Library Administration and Management Association (LAMA) Systems and Services Section (SASS) preconference, "Write On!" which introduced participants to the tenets of effective writing. Four topics of interest to librarians include: writing a research paper, transforming an oral presentation into…

  7. Researching Writing Events: Using Mediated Discourse Analysis to Explore How Students Write Together

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rish, Ryan M.

    2015-01-01

    This article addresses how mediated discourse theory and related analytical tools can be used to explore how students write together. Considered within a sociocultural framework that conceptualises writing as involving distributed, mediated and dialogic processes of invention, this article presents an investigation of how three high school…

  8. Write Strategy for Dual-Layer Digital Versatile Discs

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Tabata, Hiroshi; Tokui, Kenji; Higuchi, Shinji; Moriizumi, Hirokazu; Matsumoto, Ikuo

    2006-02-01

    A novel write strategy for rewritable dual-layer digital versatile discs (DVDs) was studied. This new strategy involves the erase top pulse which is included in the conventional write strategy for single-layer DVDs in present market. By thermal calculations, it was confirmed that this erase top pulse has an affect on the rapid heating of recording films. We observed that this new strategy enabled the improvement in data qualities on the layer near the laser incident (L0) effectively in 2 × and 4 ×-speed recordings even if L0 had a high optical transparency. Furthermore we also demonstrated a combination of what with the 2T-period strategy on the layer far from the laser incident (L1) realized a well-balanced signal performance for dual-layer DVD media.

  9. Writing a Mixed Methods Report in Social Work Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bronstein, Laura R.; Kovacs, Pamela J.

    2013-01-01

    This article briefly chronicles the development of mixed methods research and its use in social work. We then move onto a discussion of terms and designs, reasons for (and for not) using mixed methods. Drawing upon exemplars, we address how to write up a mixed methods study when (1) the sample is single; single for one part, with a subset for the…

  10. "Your Writing, Not My Writing": Discourse Analysis of Student Talk about Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hales, Patrick D.

    2017-01-01

    Student voice is a difficult concept to capture in research. This study attempts to provide a vehicle for understanding student perceptions about writing and writing instruction through a case study supported by discourse analysis of student talk. The high school students in this study participated in interviews and focus groups about their…

  11. Factors Influencing Effective Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Muccino, Mary Ann; And Others

    Focusing on procedures and strategies suitable for teaching writing to students in grades 4, 6, and 8, this paper examines the factors that have been shown through research to influence effective writing. The paper divides the research examined into the categories of metacognition; socially-based writing strategies; theory-tested approaches to…

  12. Scaffolding EFL Students' Writing through the Writing Process Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Faraj, Avan Kamal Aziz

    2015-01-01

    This research reports a study conducted at Koya University/English Language Department, and it aims at presenting the effect of scaffolding on EFL students' writing ability through the writing process. In this study, the students have taken the role of writers, so they need to follow the same steps that writers apply during their writing process.…

  13. Employing open/hidden administration in psychotherapy research: A randomized-controlled trial of expressive writing

    PubMed Central

    Tondorf, Theresa; Kaufmann, Lisa-Katrin; Degel, Alexander; Locher, Cosima; Birkhäuer, Johanna; Gerger, Heike; Ehlert, Ulrike

    2017-01-01

    Psychotherapy has been shown to be effective, but efforts to prove specific effects by placebo-controlled trials have been practically and conceptually hampered. We propose that adopting open/hidden designs from placebo research would offer a possible way to establish specificity in psychotherapy. Therefore, we tested the effects of providing opposing treatment rationales in an online expressive writing intervention on affect in healthy subjects. Results indicate that it was possible to conduct the expressive writing intervention both covertly and openly, but that participants in the hidden administration condition did not fully benefit from the otherwise effective expressive writing intervention in the long-run. Effect sizes between open and hidden administration groups were comparable to pre-post effect sizes of the intervention. While this finding is important for the understanding of psychotherapy's effects per se, it also proves that alternative research approaches to establish specificity are feasible and informative in psychotherapy research. Trial registration: German Clinical Trials Register DRKS00009428 PMID:29176768

  14. Developmental Patterns of Metadiscourse in Second Language Writing*

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kobayashi, Yuichiro

    2017-01-01

    The present study aimed to profile the developmental patterns of discourse in second language (L2) writings among different first language (L1) groups. Applying the list of metadiscourse markers proposed by Ken Hyland to learner language, this study investigates variation of metadiscourse across proficiency levels, as well as across L1…

  15. 37 CFR 2.191 - Business to be transacted in writing.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... Trademark Cases § 2.191 Business to be transacted in writing. All business with the Office should be... 37 Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Business to be transacted in writing. 2.191 Section 2.191 Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE...

  16. 37 CFR 1.2 - Business to be transacted in writing.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... Correspondence § 1.2 Business to be transacted in writing. All business with the Patent and Trademark Office... 37 Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Business to be transacted in writing. 1.2 Section 1.2 Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE...

  17. "Good" Academic Writing in Hebrew: The Perceptions of Pre-Service Teachers and Their Instructors

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ezer, Hanna; Sivan, Tamar

    2005-01-01

    This study explores the perceptions of different groups of L1 and L2 Israeli pre-service teachers and their instructors regarding "good" academic writing. The study further investigates whether those perceptions accurately reflect their knowledge of academic writing. Eighty-one participants graded three different essays written by…

  18. 26 CFR 301.6103(l)(2)-2 - Disclosure of returns and return information to Department of Labor for purposes of research and...

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-04-01

    ... Department of Labor for purposes of research and studies. 301.6103(l)(2)-2 Section 301.6103(l)(2)-2 Internal... returns and return information to Department of Labor for purposes of research and studies. (a) General... Department of Labor for purposes of, but only to the extent necessary in, conducting research and studies...

  19. 26 CFR 301.6103(l)(2)-2 - Disclosure of returns and return information to Department of Labor for purposes of research and...

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-04-01

    ... Department of Labor for purposes of research and studies. 301.6103(l)(2)-2 Section 301.6103(l)(2)-2 Internal... returns and return information to Department of Labor for purposes of research and studies. (a) General... Department of Labor for purposes of, but only to the extent necessary in, conducting research and studies...

  20. Promoting Students' Paragraph Writing Using EDMODO: An Action Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Al-Naibi, Is'haq; Maryem Al-Jabri; Al-Kalbani, Iman

    2018-01-01

    This paper reports the findings of an action research that was carried out to measure the effectiveness of integrating a social networking website "Edmodo" in students' writing performance in an EFL classroom at Arab Open University (Oman Branch). The participants were 25 students studying English in the Foundation Programme. Along with…

  1. Writing by Academics: A Transactional and Systems Approach to Academic Writing Behaviours

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kempenaar, Larissa Elisabeth; Murray, Rowena

    2016-01-01

    The literature on academic writing in higher education contains a wealth of research and theory on students' writing, but much less on academics' writing. In performative higher education cultures, discussions of academics' writing mainly concern outputs, rather than the process of producing them. This key component of academic work remains…

  2. Bilingual Literacy or Substantive Bilingualism? L1 and L2 Reading and Writing Performance among Grade 7 Learners in Three Township Schools Gauteng Province, South Africa

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Manyike, T. V.

    2013-01-01

    Language diversity in South Africa continues to problematise educational provision and the realisation of equitable educational opportunities for all learners in various ways. This article presents the findings of ongoing research which explores the effect of language in education policy on the L1 and L2 proficiency of Grade 7 learners in township…

  3. Syntactic Complexity as a Predictor of Second Language Writing Proficiency and Writing Quality

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Park, Ji-Hyun

    2017-01-01

    Syntactic (i.e., grammatical) complexity refers to the range and the degree of sophistication of the forms that appear in language production (Ortega, 2003). This concept has long been regarded as an important construct of language proficiency and has been actively investigated in the field of second language (L2) writing. Syntactic complexity is…

  4. Articulating Breath: Writing Charcot's Hysteric with "Performance Writing"

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Worden, Jessica

    2014-01-01

    The overlap between the visual and textual in practice research provides an opportunity to explore ways of presenting knowledge through "performance writin". The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how a performance writing practice can be incorporated into and shape research writing. This text uses descriptions of Jean-Martin…

  5. Automatic Detection of Preposition Errors in Learner Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    De Felice, Rachele; Pulman, Stephen

    2009-01-01

    In this article, we present an approach to the automatic correction of preposition errors in L2 English. Our system, based on a maximum entropy classifier, achieves average precision of 42% and recall of 35% on this task. The discussion of results obtained on correct and incorrect data aims to establish what characteristics of L2 writing prove…

  6. Dynamic Assessment of Writing: The Impact of Implicit/Explicit Mediations on L2 Learners' Internalization of Writing Skills and Strategies

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alavi, Sayyed Mohammad; Taghizadeh, Mahboubeh

    2014-01-01

    Dynamic assessment is a procedure in which development is simultaneously assessed and improved with regard to the individual's or group's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD; Lantolf & Poehner, 2004). This study aimed to follow dynamic assessment and investigate the impact of three types of implicit and explicit feedback on the essay writing of…

  7. Writing Groups for Doctoral Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Aitchison, Claire

    2009-01-01

    There is a burgeoning interest in how best to support and facilitate the development of writing and writing output of research students. One pedagogy is the use of writing groups for and beyond the period of the doctorate; however, there is relatively little empirical research that helps explain "how" the pedagogies of research writing…

  8. Enhancing the research and publication efforts of health sciences librarians via an academic writing retreat.

    PubMed

    Bullion, John W; Brower, Stewart M

    2017-10-01

    This case study describes the South Central Chapter of the Medical Library Association (SCC/MLA) initiative to develop an academic writing retreat for members who sought the necessary time and support to advance their research projects toward publication. SCC/MLA staged a dedicated writing retreat to coincide with the organization's 2012, 2013, and 2014 annual meetings. Each cohort met over two days to write and to workshop their peers' manuscripts. Organizers distributed an online survey one month after each retreat to evaluate attendees' perceptions. Three years' worth of writing retreats yielded fourteen peer-reviewed articles and one book chapter. Participants indicated that the retreat helped them meet or exceed their writing goals by offering protected time and a setting conducive to productivity. The format of the retreat is cost effective and easily adaptable for fellow professionals who wish to organize a formal event as a conference offering or simply support a writing group at their home institutions. In SCC/MLA, the retreat revitalized interest in writing and demystified the scholarly publication process.

  9. Beyond Deficit: Graduate Student Research-Writing Pedagogies

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Badenhorst, Cecile; Moloney, Cecilia; Rosales, Janna; Dyer, Jennifer; Ru, Lina

    2015-01-01

    Graduate writing is receiving increasing attention, particularly in contexts of diverse student bodies and widening access to universities. In many of these contexts, writing is seen as "a problem" in need of fixing. Often, the problem and the solution are perceived as being solely located in notions of deficit in individuals and not in…

  10. Fostering critical thinking and collaborative learning skills among medical students through a research protocol writing activity in the curriculum.

    PubMed

    Sahoo, Soumendra; Mohammed, Ciraj Ali

    2018-06-01

    This intervention was aimed to analyse the effect of academic writing and journal critiquing as educational approaches in improving critical thinking and collaborative learning among undergraduate medical students. A research proposal writing format was created for the 4th year medical students of Melaka Manipal Medical College, Malaysia during their ophthalmology clinical postings. The students worked in small groups and developed research protocols through an evidence based approach. This was followed by writing reflective summaries in academic portfolios about the activity undertaken. A mixed methods study was designed to explore the possible role of collaborative research proposal writing in enhancing critical thinking and collaborative learning. Analysis of reflections submitted by 188 medical students after the intervention indicate that majority of them found an improvement in their skills of critical thinking and collaborative learning as a result of research protocol writing. All participants agreed that the model helped in applying concepts to new situations in the form of designing their own study, which reflected in enhanced higher order cognitive skills. This study shows that the introduction of a structured module in the core medical curriculum that focuses on research writing skills embedded with collaborative and reflective practices can enhance collaborative learning, critical thinking, and reasoning among medical students.

  11. Fostering critical thinking and collaborative learning skills among medical students through a research protocol writing activity in the curriculum

    PubMed Central

    2018-01-01

    Purpose This intervention was aimed to analyse the effect of academic writing and journal critiquing as educational approaches in improving critical thinking and collaborative learning among undergraduate medical students. Methods A research proposal writing format was created for the 4th year medical students of Melaka Manipal Medical College, Malaysia during their ophthalmology clinical postings. The students worked in small groups and developed research protocols through an evidence based approach. This was followed by writing reflective summaries in academic portfolios about the activity undertaken.A mixed methods study was designed to explore the possible role of collaborative research proposal writing in enhancing critical thinking and collaborative learning. Results Analysis of reflections submitted by 188 medical students after the intervention indicate that majority of them found an improvement in their skills of critical thinking and collaborative learning as a result of research protocol writing. All participants agreed that the model helped in applying concepts to new situations in the form of designing their own study, which reflected in enhanced higher order cognitive skills. Conclusion This study shows that the introduction of a structured module in the core medical curriculum that focuses on research writing skills embedded with collaborative and reflective practices can enhance collaborative learning, critical thinking, and reasoning among medical students. PMID:29860777

  12. Software Writing Skills for Your Research - Lessons Learned from Workshops in the Geosciences

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Hammitzsch, Martin

    2016-04-01

    Findings presented in scientific papers are based on data and software. Once in a while they come along with data - but not commonly with software. However, the software used to gain findings plays a crucial role in the scientific work. Nevertheless, software is rarely seen publishable. Thus researchers may not reproduce the findings without the software which is in conflict with the principle of reproducibility in sciences. For both, the writing of publishable software and the reproducibility issue, the quality of software is of utmost importance. For many programming scientists the treatment of source code, e.g. with code design, version control, documentation, and testing is associated with additional work that is not covered in the primary research task. This includes the adoption of processes following the software development life cycle. However, the adoption of software engineering rules and best practices has to be recognized and accepted as part of the scientific performance. Most scientists have little incentive to improve code and do not publish code because software engineering habits are rarely practised by researchers or students. Software engineering skills are not passed on to followers as for paper writing skill. Thus it is often felt that the software or code produced is not publishable. The quality of software and its source code has a decisive influence on the quality of research results obtained and their traceability. So establishing best practices from software engineering to serve scientific needs is crucial for the success of scientific software. Even though scientists use existing software and code, i.e., from open source software repositories, only few contribute their code back into the repositories. So writing and opening code for Open Science means that subsequent users are able to run the code, e.g. by the provision of sufficient documentation, sample data sets, tests and comments which in turn can be proven by adequate and qualified

  13. Yeki Bood/Yeki Na Bood: Writing and Publishing as a Teacher Researcher.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fecho, Bob

    2003-01-01

    Discusses considerations faced by practitioner researchers as they write for publication, particularly as they encounter the template of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). Argues that some APA conventions--such as beginning an article with theory rather than the story of the research--do not suite the purposes…

  14. Moving from I to Us: The Power of Action Research To Improve Students' Writing Performance.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Miller, A. Christine; Cross, Lorraine

    Project WATCH! (Writing Across the Curriculum Hawks!) was the 1999-2000 schoolwide action research project at the A.D. Henderson University School grades K-8. The study question, "How can teachers build schoolwide capacity to support improved student writing across the curriculum?", examined whole-school collaboration where all teachers understand…

  15. The Philanthropic Recommendation Research Report: Group Project for Engl317, Writing for Business and Industry

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mahin, Linda

    2007-01-01

    English 317 is a second writing course designed for business majors primarily but available to all students who need to fulfill the second writing course requirement. The purpose of the philanthropic research recommendation report is to familiarize students with the ways that corporations envision and enact social responsibility as depicted on…

  16. Roles of Position, Stress, and Proficiency in L2 Children's Spelling: A Developmental Perspective

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hong, Su Chin; Chen, Shu Hui

    2011-01-01

    This study investigated the roles of phoneme position, stress, and proficiency in L2 spelling development by Taiwanese students learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL), an alphabetic writing system typologically different from the learners' L1 logographic system. Structured nonword spelling tests were administered to EFL sixth-graders with…

  17. Writing with Computers in ESL Classroom: Enhancing ESL Learners' Motivation, Confidence and Writing Proficiency

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hadi, Marham Jupri

    2013-01-01

    Researcher's observation on his ESL class indicates the main issues concerning the writing skills: learners' low motivation to write, minimum interaction in writing, and poor writing skills. These limitations have led them to be less confidence to write in English. This article discusses how computers can be used for the purpose of increasing…

  18. Easing Your Pain: A Method for Evaluating Research Writing from Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jensen, Barbara E.; Martin, Kathleen A.; Mann, Betty L.; Fogarty, Tracey

    2004-01-01

    Throughout their undergraduate and graduate careers, students are assigned various types of papers that require scientific writing style. The scope of these assignments include laboratory reports that require only graphing and statements of findings; abstract assignments with critical summaries included; abbreviated research papers, including…

  19. Does Writing as Process = Writing as Social Practice?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cazden, Courtney B.

    The workplace research of Sylvia Scribner provides a model with which to study relationships between socially and institutionally organized practices and individual cognitive processes as well as to explore relationships between practices and processes in writing and the teaching of writing. Observations and conversations in one inner-city,…

  20. Grammar Correction in the Writing Centre: Expectations and Experiences of Monolingual and Multilingual Writers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Eckstein, Grant

    2016-01-01

    Although most writing centres maintain policies against providing grammar correction during writing tutorials, it is undeniable that students expect some level of grammar intervention there. Just how much students expect and receive is a matter of speculation. This article examines the grammar-correction issue by reporting on a survey of L1, L2,…

  1. Impact of Writing Proficiency and Writing Center Participation on Academic Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bielinska-Kwapisz, Agnieszka

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: Given that there exists in the literature relatively little research into the effectiveness of writing centers at universities, the purpose of this paper is to show the impact of university writing centers on first-year business seminar student writing. Design/methodology/approach: This quantitative study involved 315 first-year…

  2. Research on Writing Conventions: U R What U Write

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nelson, Leah; Feinstein, Sheryl G.

    2007-01-01

    The purpose of this quantitative study is to determine how secondary students use conventions in classroom composition assignments compared to the Internet writing outlets of e-mail, instant messaging, and blogs. Thirty-two ninth grade students were identified to participate in this study. Half of the participants were deeply involved in online…

  3. Writing as a Learning Tool: Integrating Theory and Practice. Studies in Writing, Volume 7.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tynjala, Paivi, Ed.; Mason, Lucia, Ed.; Lonka, Kirsti, Ed.

    This book, the seventh volume in the Studies in Writing International Series on the Research of Learning and Instruction of Writing, is an account of the current state of using writing as a tool for learning. The book presents psychological and educational foundations of the writing across the curriculum movement and describes writing-to-learn…

  4. Implementing a Contributory Scoring Approach for the "GRE"® Analytical Writing Section: A Comprehensive Empirical Investigation. Research Report. ETS RR-17-14

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Breyer, F. Jay; Rupp, André A.; Bridgeman, Brent

    2017-01-01

    In this research report, we present an empirical argument for the use of a contributory scoring approach for the 2-essay writing assessment of the analytical writing section of the "GRE"® test in which human and machine scores are combined for score creation at the task and section levels. The approach was designed to replace a currently…

  5. Grant-Writing Bootcamp: An Intervention to Enhance the Research Capacity of Academic Women in STEM.

    PubMed

    Smith, Jessi L; Stoop, Chatanika; Young, Micaela; Belou, Rebecca; Held, Suzanne

    2017-07-01

    Broadening the participation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) fields is more than a social-justice issue; diversity is paramount to a thriving national research agenda. However, women face several obstacles to fully actualizing their research potential. Enhancing the research capacity and opportunity of women faculty requires purposeful changes in university practice. Therefore, we designed an intervention, a grant-writing bootcamp informed by self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan 2012), to support the participants' feelings of relatedness, autonomy, and competence. Three grant-writing bootcamps were run over an 18-month period. Using a pre- and post-test design over the span of 1 year (and contrasting results with a comparison sample who were not part of the intervention) showed that the women participating in the grant-writing bootcamp significantly increased the number of external grants submitted, the number of proposals led as principal investigator, the number of external grants awarded, and the amount of external funding dollars awarded.

  6. Grant-Writing Bootcamp: An Intervention to Enhance the Research Capacity of Academic Women in STEM

    PubMed Central

    Smith, Jessi L.; Stoop, Chatanika; Young, Micaela; Belou, Rebecca; HELD, Suzanne

    2017-01-01

    Abstract Broadening the participation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) fields is more than a social-justice issue; diversity is paramount to a thriving national research agenda. However, women face several obstacles to fully actualizing their research potential. Enhancing the research capacity and opportunity of women faculty requires purposeful changes in university practice. Therefore, we designed an intervention, a grant-writing bootcamp informed by self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan 2012), to support the participants’ feelings of relatedness, autonomy, and competence. Three grant-writing bootcamps were run over an 18-month period. Using a pre- and post-test design over the span of 1 year (and contrasting results with a comparison sample who were not part of the intervention) showed that the women participating in the grant-writing bootcamp significantly increased the number of external grants submitted, the number of proposals led as principal investigator, the number of external grants awarded, and the amount of external funding dollars awarded. PMID:29599541

  7. Predicting writing development in dual language instructional contexts: exploring cross-linguistic relationships.

    PubMed

    Savage, Robert; Kozakewich, Meagan; Genesee, Fred; Erdos, Caroline; Haigh, Corinne

    2017-01-01

    This study examined whether decoding and linguistic comprehension abilities, broadly defined by the Simple View of Reading, in grade 1 each uniquely predicted the grade 6 writing performance of English-speaking children (n = 76) who were educated bilingually in both English their first language and French, a second language. Prediction was made from (1) English to English; (2) French to French; and (3) English to French. Results showed that both decoding and linguistic comprehension scores predicted writing accuracy but rarely predicted persuasive writing. Within the linguistic comprehension cluster of tests, Formulating Sentences was a strong consistent within- and between-language predictor of writing accuracy. In practical terms, the present results indicate that early screening for later writing ability using measures of sentence formulation early in students' schooling, in their L1 or L2, can provide greatest predictive power and allow teachers to differentiate instruction in the primary grades. Theoretically, the present results argue that there are correlations between reading-related abilities and writing abilities not only within the same language but also across languages, adding to the growing body of evidence for facilitative cross-linguistic relationships between bilinguals' developing languages. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  8. Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tardy, Christine M.

    2010-01-01

    As students move from writing personal essays to writing formal academic texts in English, they face several new challenges. Writing tasks in higher education often require students to draw upon outside sources and to adopt the styles and genres of academic discourse. They must conduct research, summarize and paraphrase, cite sources, adopt genre…

  9. Enhance the Value of a Research Paper: Choosing the Right References and Writing them Accurately.

    PubMed

    Bavdekar, Sandeep B

    2016-03-01

    References help readers identify and locate sources used for justifying the need for conducting the research study, verify methods employed in the study and for discussing the interpretation of results and implications of the study. It is extremely essential that references are accurate and complete. This article provides suggestions regarding choosing references and writing reference list. References are a list of sources that are selected by authors to represent the best documents concerning the research study.1 They constitute the foundation of any research paper. Although generally written towards the end of the article-writing process, they are nevertheless extremely important. They provide the context for the hypothesis and help justify the need for conducting the research study. Authors use references to inform readers about the techniques used for conducting the study and convince them about the appropriateness of methodology used. References help provide appropriate perspective in which the research findings should be seen and interpreted. This communication will discuss the purpose of citations, how to select quality sources for citing and the importance of accuracy while writing the reference list. © Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 2011.

  10. Nursing students' attitudes toward research and development within nursing: Does writing a bachelor thesis make a difference?

    PubMed

    Uysal Toraman, Aynur; Hamaratçılar, Güler; Tülü, Begüm; Erkin, Özüm

    2017-04-01

    The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of writing a bachelor's thesis on nursing students' attitudes towards research and development in nursing. The study sample consisted of 91 nursing students who were required to complete a bachelor's thesis and 89 nursing students who were not required to complete a bachelor's thesis. Data were collected via self-report questionnaire that was distributed in May and June 2012. The questionnaire comprised 3 parts: (1) demographic items; (2) questions about "scientific activities," and (3) the nursing students' attitudes towards and awareness of research and development within nursing scale (version 2). The mean age of the students was 23 (1.3) years. The students who wrote a bachelor's thesis achieved a median score of 110.0, whereas the students in the other group had a median score of 105.0 on the scale. All the items were assigned a 3 or higher. A statistically significant difference was found between the 2 groups in their attitudes towards and awareness of research (U = 3265.5; P = .025). The results of this study suggest that writing a thesis in nursing education has a positive influence on nursing students' attitudes towards and awareness of research and development in nursing. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

  11. Ways of Research: The Status of the Traditional Research Paper Assignment in First-Year Writing/Composition Courses

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hood, Carra Leah

    2010-01-01

    I created my Exploratory Survey on the Status of the Research Paper Assignment in First-year Writing/Composition Courses to learn whether the traditional research paper remained as common an assignment in 2009 as it had been in the past. My survey updates results from two previous surveys on the status of this assignment. Ambrose N. Manning's…

  12. Writing and Communicating in the Geosciences: A 1-credit required course to prepare undergraduates for independent research

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    St John, K. K.; Courtier, A. M.; Pyle, E. J.

    2013-12-01

    With increasing numbers of majors (currently 130) and an independent research requirement of all undergraduates in our program, the Department of Geology and Environmental Science at James Madison University sought a means to streamline and formalize instruction of research practices we deem fundamental to all sub-disciplines in the geosciences. Therefore, in Fall 2010, we developed a research preparation course called 'Writing and Communicating in the Geosciences,' which is now required for all Geology BS and Earth Science BA undergraduate students. This 1-credit course must be completed prior to students' senior year, and is a pre-requisite to a minimum of 2-credits of independent research required of all majors. 'Writing and Communicating in the Geosciences' is designed to prepare students for independent research by providing them with opportunities to develop, practice, and gain feedback on a variety of writing and communication skills. It is our goal that after taking this course, students are able to identify primary literature using the library data-based systems, critically discuss peer-reviewed papers, write abstracts, use accepted referencing styles in bibliographies, and effectively make scientific posters and give oral presentations. The class is offered every semester and is always co-taught by two faculty members from the department. Curriculum and instruction is designed to balance student workload, faculty workload, and strategies toward meeting the course learning objectives. Students informally report at the time of enrollment that this is a perceived as a rigorous 'rite-of-passage' course. Informal feedback from past students has been positive, suggesting that the greatest benefits manifest later, as former students apply the course-developed skills to projects in their upper-level courses, their independent research projects, and their graduate research. Faculty feedback has been similarly positive, with department colleagues commenting that

  13. Second Language Writing Classification System Based on Word-Alignment Distribution

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kotani, Katsunori; Yoshimi, Takehiko

    2010-01-01

    The present paper introduces an automatic classification system for assisting second language (L2) writing evaluation. This system, which classifies sentences written by L2 learners as either native speaker-like or learner-like sentences, is constructed by machine learning algorithms using word-alignment distributions as classification features…

  14. Improving Students' Chinese Writing Abilities in Taiwan with the "Conditioned Writing System"

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Liu, Yuan-Chen; Lee, Wan-Chun; Huang, Tzu-Hua; Hsieh, Hsiao-Mei

    2012-01-01

    This research investigates students' performance while writing Chinese essays using an interactive online writing system. Participants include students from two seventh-grade classes of a junior high school in Taoyuan County, Taiwan. The experimental group uses the conditioned writing interactive online system, while the control group receives…

  15. MBA Students' Workplace Writing: Implications for Business Writing Pedagogy and Workplace Practice

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lentz, Paula

    2013-01-01

    Employers frequently complain about the state of their employees' writing skills. Much of the current research on this subject explores workplace writing skills from the employer's perspective. However, this article examines workplace writing from the employees' perspective. Specifically, it analyzes MBA students' responses to a course assignment…

  16. Writes of Passage: Writing up Qualitative Data as a Threshold Concept in Doctoral Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Humphrey, Robin; Simpson, Bob

    2012-01-01

    Effective writing is an essential skill for all doctoral students, yet it is one that receives relatively little attention in training and supervision. This article explores extensive feedback from participants in a series of workshops for doctoral candidates engaged with writing up qualitative data. The themes arising from the data analysis are…

  17. Diary Time: The Life History of an Occasion for Writing. Research Series No. 106.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Clark, Christopher M.; Florio, Susan

    Opportunities for and limits upon diary writing in one second/third-grade classroom are examined with the purpose of stimulating critical thinking about two issues: (1) the diary's potential within the school writing curriculum, and (2) the classroom as an environment for the teaching and learning of writing. Field notes, teacher journal entries,…

  18. Attitudes towards Online Feedback on Writing: Why Students Mistrust the Learning Potential of Models

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Strobl, Carola

    2015-01-01

    This exploratory study sheds new light on students' perceptions of online feedback types for a complex writing task, summary writing from spoken input in a foreign language (L2), and investigates how these correlate with their actual learning to write. Students tend to favour clear-cut, instructivist rather than constructivist feedback, and guided…

  19. Transferring Generic Features and Recontextualizing Genre Awareness: Understanding Writing Performance in the ESP Genre-Based Literacy Framework

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cheng, An

    2007-01-01

    Despite the impact of the ESP genre-based framework of teaching discipline-specific writing to L2 learners, especially to L2 graduate students, the writing performance of learners in such a framework is still not fully explored. In this paper, I analyze three article introductions written by a Chinese-speaking graduate student in electrical…

  20. Medical Writing Competency Model - Section 2: Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Behaviors.

    PubMed

    Clemow, David B; Wagner, Bertil; Marshallsay, Christopher; Benau, Dan; L'Heureux, Darryl; Brown, David H; Dasgupta, Devjani Ghosh; Girten, Eileen; Hubbard, Frank; Gawrylewski, Helle-Mai; Ebina, Hiroko; Stoltenborg, Janet; York, J P; Green, Kim; Wood, Linda Fossati; Toth, Lisa; Mihm, Michael; Katz, Nancy R; Vasconcelos, Nina-Maria; Sakiyama, Norihisa; Whitsell, Robin; Gopalakrishnan, Shobha; Bairnsfather, Susan; Wanderer, Tatyana; Schindler, Thomas M; Mikyas, Yeshi; Aoyama, Yumiko

    2018-01-01

    This article provides Section 2 of the 2017 Edition 2 Medical Writing Competency Model that describes the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors that professional medical writers need in order to perform effectively within the life sciences industry. What a medical writer should know, what they should be able to do, and how they should use this knowledge and these skills to facilitate their primary work function is a focus. Regulatory, publication, and other scientific writing as well as management of writing activities are covered. The full Model also includes Section 1, which covers the core work functions and associated tasks and activities related to professional medical writing within the life sciences industry; Section 1 is included in a companion article. The Model was developed to aid medical writers and managers within the life sciences industry regarding medical writing hiring, training, expectation and goal setting, performance evaluation, career development, retention, and role value sharing to cross-functional partners.

  1. "I Ain't Changing Anything": A Case-Study of Successful Generation 1.5 Immigrant College Students' Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Riazantseva, Anastasia

    2012-01-01

    The purpose of this case-study was to understand the relationship between success in college and L2 academic writing of three Generation 1.5 Russian-speaking middle-class college students and to describe the factors that could have contributed to the levels of academic literacy that these students developed. The following research questions were…

  2. Can Higher-Proficiency L2 Learners Benefit from Working with Lower-Proficiency Partners in Peer Feedback?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yu, Shulin; Hu, Guangwei

    2017-01-01

    Informed by Vygotsky's conceptualization of the Zone of Proximal Development, this case study investigated the benefits of peer feedback on second language (L2) writing for students with high L2 proficiency and the factors that may influence their learning in peer feedback in the Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language context. Specifically, the…

  3. Writing Editorials.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pappas, Marjorie L.

    2003-01-01

    Presents a thematic unit for middle schools on editorial writing, or persuasive writing, based on the Pathways Model for information skills lessons. Includes assessing other editorials; student research process journals; information literacy and process skills; and two lesson plans that involve library media specialists as well as teachers. (LRW)

  4. The Effect of Online Translators on L2 Writing in French

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    O'Neill, Errol Marinus

    2012-01-01

    Online translation (OT) sites such as Free Translation and Babel Fish are freely available to the general public and purport to convert inputted text, from single words to entire paragraphs, instantly from one language to another. Discussion in the literature about OT for second-language (L2) acquisition has generally focused either on the…

  5. An Approach for Embedding Critical Thinking in Second Language Paragraph Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chason, Lisa; Loyet, Dianne; Sorenson, Luann; Stoops, Anastasia

    2017-01-01

    Writing textbooks for English language learners frequently teach a paragraph pattern that is limited to topic sentence, support, and concluding sentence. Although beginning second language (L2) writers benefit from having a structured way to organize their ideas, as they advance, this type of writing can sound trite and uncritical. To provide a…

  6. Bodily Writing and Performative Inquiry: Inviting an Arts-Based Research Methodology into Collaborative Doctoral Research Vocabularies

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Buono, Alexia; Gonzalez, Charles H.

    2017-01-01

    In this article, the authors (then two doctoral students) describe their methodology of engaging in an interdisciplinary, collaborative doctoral arts-based research (ABR) project. Education and the arts were integrated utilizing dance methods of bodily writing and performative inquiry to strengthen the analysis of dissertation findings in the…

  7. Mapping the Gaps in Services for L2 Writers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Patton, Martha Davis

    2011-01-01

    Given complaints about preparation of international students for their writing-intensive courses, a director of first-year writing and an undergraduate researcher at a Midwestern research university conducted a needs assessment based on Kaufman's model. Instruments used included a survey, interviews, and analysis of commentary on sample papers.…

  8. Self-Regulated Strategy Development as a Tier 2 Writing Intervention

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Johnson, Evelyn S.; Hancock, Christine; Carter, Deborah R.; Pool, Juli L.

    2013-01-01

    In a response to intervention framework, the implication of limited writing instruction suggests an immediate need for Tier 2 interventions to support struggling writers while at the same time addressing instructional gaps in Tier 1. Many schools struggle with implementing writing intervention, partly because of the limited number of…

  9. The Relationship between Writing Anxiety and Writing Disposition among Secondary School Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cocuk, Halil Erdem; Yanpar Yelken, Tugba; Ozer, Omer

    2016-01-01

    Problem Statement: Writing is important in secondary schools because it underpins the performance of students in most examinations. Writing disposition, which specifically deals with the aspects of students' attitudes toward writing, has also been studied by some researchers. Purpose of the Study: This study reports on the result of a study on the…

  10. Research-Based Integrated Reading and Writing Course Development

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pierce, Calisa A.

    2017-01-01

    With the continuing national emphases on acceleration and completion, an integrated reading and writing course (a combined developmental reading and developmental writing course, with all levels compressed into a single course) is one way to move students more quickly and efficiently through the developmental sequence while still maintaining…

  11. Investigating the Reading-to-Write Processes and Source Use of L2 Postgraduate Students in Real-Life Academic Tasks: An Exploratory Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McCulloch, Sharon

    2013-01-01

    Existing studies of source use in academic student writing tend to i), focus more on the writing than the reading end of the reading-to-write continuum and ii), involve the use of insufficiently "naturalistic" writing tasks. Thus, in order to explore the potential of an alternative approach, this paper describes an exploratory case study…

  12. The Relation of College Student Self-Efficacy toward Writing and Writing Self-Regulation Aptitude: Writing Feedback Perceptions as a Mediating Variable

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ekholm, Eric; Zumbrunn, Sharon; Conklin, Sarah

    2015-01-01

    Despite the powerful effect feedback often has on student writing success more research is needed on how students emotionally react to the feedback they receive. This study tested the predictive and mediational roles of college student writing self-efficacy beliefs and feedback perceptions on writing self-regulation aptitude. Results suggested…

  13. Teaching the Writing Process

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Keen, John

    2017-01-01

    This article outlines some cognitive process models of writing composition. Possible reasons why students' writing capabilities do not match their abilities in some other school subjects are explored. Research findings on the efficacy of process approaches to teaching writing are presented and potential shortcomings are discussed. Product-based…

  14. Conversations on Collaboration: Graduate Students as Writing Program Administrators in the Writing Center

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hewerdine, Jennifer M.

    2017-01-01

    This research sought to ascertain through a phenomenological approach whether and how collaboration occurs in writing center administration. The reflections and perceptions of former writing center gWPAs provided insight into a variety of institutional contexts and experiences present in writing center collaboration. The participants perceived…

  15. Power of Writing

    MedlinePlus

    ... of Cancer Navigating Cancer Care Coping With Cancer Research and Advocacy Survivorship Blog Commenting Guidelines Guest Posting Policies Cancer.Net Podcasts Tags About Us You are here Blog > The Power of Writing Request Permissions The Power of Writing ...

  16. Research Implications for Writing in the Content Areas. What Research Says to the Teacher. Second Edition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yates, Joanne M.

    The ideas of John Dewey and his fellow progressives have resurfaced in a movement called "writing across the curriculum." Interdisciplinary studies are now being seen as a way to break down the artificial boundaries between subject areas. Research has confirmed that language learning and experience are at the heart of education. The implications…

  17. Effects of Dicto-Comp and Dictation on the Writing Skill of Female Adult Iranian EFL Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Adel, Rahil; Hashemian, Mahmood

    2015-01-01

    This study was an attempt to clarify and remind L2 learners/teachers of 2 kinds of writing: dicto-comp and dictation. We explored the effect of controlled writing on the accuracy of the writing of adult Iranian EFL learners. Prior to the study, the homogeneity of 30 adult EFL learners was checked through an OPT test. Thirty participants were…

  18. Children Writing Ethnography: Children's Perspectives and Nomadic Thinking in Researching School Classrooms

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hohti, Riikka

    2016-01-01

    This article makes a connection between narrative ethnography, childhood studies and new materialist theories in studying children's perspective on school. It presents "children writing ethnography" as an approach based on complexity and involving participatory research. The question of "what is happening in the classroom" is…

  19. Speaking and Writing, K-12: Classroom Strategies and the New Research.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Thaiss, Christopher J., Ed.; Suhor, Charles, Ed.

    To translate the recent research in writing and oral communication into useful suggestions for classroom practice, to focus on ways teachers can help their students grow as writers and speakers, and to stress activities that do not isolate the language arts into units and sever skills from content learning, the articles in this book were prepared…

  20. Writing for Change: Research as Public Pedagogy and Arts-Based Activism. Critical Qualitative Research. Volume 8

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Robson, Claire

    2012-01-01

    In its analysis of the potential and realities of narrative inquiry, "Writing for Change" is both theoretical and highly practical, offering a way to conceptualize this kind of research and providing concrete suggestions as to how it might be conducted. With its emphasis on arts-based activist education, the book also contributes to current…

  1. Assessing the Writing of Deaf College Students: Reevaluating a Direct Assessment of Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schley, Sara; Albertini, John

    2005-01-01

    The NTID Writing Test was developed to assess the writing ability of postsecondary deaf students entering the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and to determine their appropriate placement into developmental writing courses. While previous research (Albertini et al., 1986; Albertini et al., 1996; Bochner, Albertini, Samar, & Metz, 1992)…

  2. Importance of Technical Writing in Engineering Education

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Narayanan, M.

    2010-12-01

    It is important to recognize technical writing as a creative vehicle to communicate with the audience. It is indeed possible to motivate a reluctant learner by encouraging student writing combined with reading and research. John Kosakowski is of the opinion that writing assignments actually help to strengthen the self-confidence of a lethargic learner (Kosakowski, 1998). Researchers in the area of cognitive science and educational psychology are also of the opinion that encouraging students to writing actually helps the learners cultivate a positive attitude toward the subject matter in question. One must also recognize the fact that the students are indeed very reluctant to devote time and effort that requiress descriptive long writing assignments. One has to be more creative towards assignments that utilize problem-solving pedagogy (Saxe, 1988; Senge, 1990; Sims, 1995; Young & Young, 1999). Education World writer Gloria Chaika (Chaika, 2000) states that “Talent is important, but practice creates the solid base that allows that unique talent to soar. Like athletes, writers learn by doing. Good writing requires the same kind of dedicated practice that athletes put in. Young writers often lack the support they need to practice writing and develop their talent to the fullest, though.” Writing assignments have several key elements and the author has outlined below, some ideas for conducting assessment. 1. Identification of a purpose. 2. Focusing on the subject matter. 3. Attracting the attention of audience. 4. Format, flow and familiarity of the structure. 5. Observation of formality, voice and tone. 6. Promotion of critical thinking. 7. Importance of Logic and evidence-based reasoning. 8. Follows a realistic time line. 9. Process and procedure are properly outlined. References: Barr, R. B., & Tagg, J. (1995, November/December). From teaching to learning: A new paradigm for undergraduate education. Change: The Magazine of Higher Education, 13-24. Cox, M. D

  3. The Effect of Cooperative Writing Activities on Writing Anxieties of Prospective Primary School Teachers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Erdogan, Ozge

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this research is to determine the effect of cooperative writing activities on the writing anxieties of prospective primary school teachers. The study group of the research is composed of 30 prospective primary school teachers. A mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative research methods was used in the collection,…

  4. Reflective writing: the student nurse's perspective on reflective writing and poetry writing.

    PubMed

    Coleman, Dawn; Willis, Diane S

    2015-07-01

    Reflective writing is a mandatory part of nurse education but how students develop their skills and use reflection as part of their experiential learning remains relatively unknown. Understanding reflective writing in all forms from the perspective of a student nurse is therefore important. To explore the use of reflective writing and the use of poetry in pre-registered nursing students. A qualitative design was employed to explore reflective writing in pre-registered nursing students. A small university in Scotland. BSc (Hons) Adult and Mental Health Pre-registration Student Nurses. Two focus groups were conducted with 10 student nurses during March 2012. Data was analysed thematically using the framework of McCarthy (1999). Students found the process of reflective writing daunting but valued it over time. Current educational methods, such as assessing reflective accounts, often lead to the 'narrative' being watered down and the student feeling judged. Despite this, reflection made students feel responsible for their own learning and research on the topic. Some students felt the use of models of reflection constricting, whilst poetry freed up their expression allowing them to demonstrate the compassion for their patient under their care. Poetry writing gives students the opportunity for freedom of expression, personal satisfaction and a closer connection with their patients, which the more formal approach to reflective writing did not offer. There is a need for students to have a safe and supportive forum in which to express and have their experiences acknowledged without the fear of being judged. Crown Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. The Impact of Computer-Assisted Writing on Improving Writing Scores for Urban Eighth-Grade Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Williams-Butler, LaTilya

    2016-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact standards-based aligned computer-assisted writing instruction had on improving writing scores for eighth-grade students that attend an urban middle school. The researcher wanted to remedy the problem of low writing achievement of eighth-grade students and determine if writing across the…

  6. Opportunities to Write: An Exploration of Student Writing during Language Arts Lessons in Norwegian Lower Secondary Classrooms

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Blikstad-Balas, Marte; Roe, Astrid; Klette, Kirsti

    2018-01-01

    Research suggests that student development as writers requires a supportive environment in which they receive sustained opportunities to write. However, writing researchers in general know relatively little about the actual writing opportunities embedded in students' language arts lessons and how students' production of texts in class is framed.…

  7. A Developmental Writing Scale. Research Report. ETS RR-08-19

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Attali, Yigal; Powers, Don

    2008-01-01

    This report describes the development of grade norms for timed-writing performance in two modes of writing: persuasive and descriptive. These norms are based on objective and automatically computed measures of writing quality in grammar, usage, mechanics, style, vocabulary, organization, and development. These measures are also used in the…

  8. Practitioner Action Research on Writing Center Tutor Training: Critical Discourse Analysis of Reflections on Video-Recorded Sessions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pigliacelli, Mary

    2017-01-01

    Training writing center tutors to work collaboratively with students on their writing is a complex and challenging process. This practitioner action research uses critical discourse analysis (Gee, 2014a) to interrogate tutors' understandings of their work, as expressed in their written reflections on video-recorded tutoring sessions, to facilitate…

  9. Blog-Integrated Writing with Blog-Buddies: EAP Learners' Writing Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Asoodar, Maryam; Atai, Mahmood Reza; Vaezi, Shahin

    2016-01-01

    This article reports a mixed-method research probing the effect of utilizing a blog-buddy system on English for academic purposes learners' writing performance. Sixty Iranian undergraduate engineering students at Iran University of Science and Technology Virtual Campus participated in this study. Our analysis of the students' writings indicated…

  10. "I Write It in a Way that People Can Read It": How Teachers and Adolescent L2 Writers Describe Content Area Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kibler, Amanda

    2011-01-01

    Adolescent writers in second language settings often spend the majority of their school days in content area courses, such as math, science, and social studies, where they must negotiate challenging literacy tasks in their second languages with little explicit writing instruction. While genre scholars have built an extensive body of knowledge…

  11. Writing Cancer Grant Applications | Center for Cancer Research

    Cancer.gov

    This course focuses on how to write clear and persuasive grant applications. The purpose is to increase the quality of your grant application by successfully communicating scientific data and ideas. Emphasis is placed on how to use the title abstract and introduction sections to draw in reviewers and how to write an organized and focused proposal using specific scientific aims.

  12. Upgrading the Research Paper toward "Real Writing" by Using Prewriting Ploys, Critical Probe-Questions, and Audience-Relating.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Beck, James

    Prewriting, critical probe questions, and post-writing-recasting for plural audiences-(audience-relating) are three tactics that can be used in research paper instruction to help college students gain skill in "real world" writing and in critical assessment of issues and evidence. The prewriting tactics of freewriting, listing specifics,…

  13. Learners' Uses of Two Types of Written Feedback on a L2 Writing Revision Task

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sachs, Rebecca; Polio, Charlene

    2007-01-01

    This study examines the effectiveness of written error corrections versus reformulations of second language learners' writing as two means of improving learners' grammatical accuracy on a three-stage composition-comparison-revision task. Concurrent verbal protocols were employed during the comparison stage in order to study the learners' reported…

  14. Focus Article: Replication in Second Language Writing Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Porte, Graeme; Richards, Keith

    2012-01-01

    This paper discusses the meaning and range of replication in L2 research from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. In the first half of the paper, it will be argued that key quantitative studies need to be replicated to have their robustness and generalizability tested and that this is a requirement of scientific inquiry. Such research…

  15. Multiple Regression as a Flexible Alternative to ANOVA in L2 Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Plonsky, Luke; Oswald, Frederick L.

    2017-01-01

    Second language (L2) research relies heavily and increasingly on ANOVA (analysis of variance)-based results as a means to advance theory and practice. This fact alone should merit some reflection on the utility and value of ANOVA. It is possible that we could use this procedure more appropriately and, as argued here, other analyses such as…

  16. The Potential Role(s) of Writing in Second Language Development

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Williams, Jessica

    2012-01-01

    Writing is often seen as having a minor role in second language learning. This article explores recent research that suggests that writing can have a facilitative role in language development. In particular, it focuses on three features of writing: (1) its slower pace, and (2) the enduring record that it leaves, both of which can encourage…

  17. Writing for understanding: The effect of using informational writing on student science achievement

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Parson, Atiya

    The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate whether or not informational writing in the science curriculum would impact fifth grade students' science achievement and conceptual understanding. The population of this study came from a metropolitan school district in the state of Georgia for school year 2012-2013. The quantitative data included students' pretest, posttest, and writing assessment scores. Examination approaches for this study included (a) examining theories and research on learning views for children, (b) determining how writing across the curriculum has worked, and (c) developing a research design for the present study that was based on findings from previous studies. The study was designed to find (a) whether there is a significant differences in science achievement between fifth-grade students who use informational writing weekly during science instruction and ones that do not, and (b) whether there is a significant differences in conceptual understanding of fifth-grade science content for students who use informational writing weekly and fifth-grade students who do not. To answer these questions, students pretest and posttest results were compared to determine if a statistical significance existed after informational writing was implemented in the experimental group for 10 weeks. The results indicate that there was no significant difference in test scores between students receiving the informational writing intervention and students without this intervention. However, this study found that students receiving informational writing intervention had better performance scores on conceptual writing assessment than the students without the intervention.

  18. Processfolio: Uniting Academic Literacies and Critical Emancipatory Action Research for Practitioner-Led Inquiry into EAP Writing Assessment

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pearson, Jayne

    2017-01-01

    This article reports on the design and implementation of an alternative form of writing assessment in a UK English for Academic Purposes (EAP) pre-sessional course. The assessment, termed processfolio, was a response to research inquiry into how writing assessment in a local context negated student agency and inculcated disempowering models of…

  19. College Writing: A Personal Approach to Academic Writing. Third Edition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fulwiler, Toby

    The affirmation of individual creativity in writing is what sets this book apart from other process-oriented rhetorics. Conversational in tone, the book's third edition boasts a writer-to-writer perspective that will put students at ease. The book "walks" students through the main elements of writing from discovery and research to…

  20. Writing implementation research grant proposals: ten key ingredients

    PubMed Central

    2012-01-01

    Background All investigators seeking funding to conduct implementation research face the challenges of preparing a high-quality proposal and demonstrating their capacity to conduct the proposed study. Applicants need to demonstrate the progressive nature of their research agenda and their ability to build cumulatively upon the literature and their own preliminary studies. Because implementation science is an emerging field involving complex and multilevel processes, many investigators may not feel equipped to write competitive proposals, and this concern is pronounced among early stage implementation researchers. Discussion This article addresses the challenges of preparing grant applications that succeed in the emerging field of dissemination and implementation. We summarize ten ingredients that are important in implementation research grants. For each, we provide examples of how preliminary data, background literature, and narrative detail in the application can strengthen the application. Summary Every investigator struggles with the challenge of fitting into a page-limited application the research background, methodological detail, and information that can convey the project’s feasibility and likelihood of success. While no application can include a high level of detail about every ingredient, addressing the ten ingredients summarized in this article can help assure reviewers of the significance, feasibility, and impact of the proposed research. PMID:23062065

  1. Phase Transitions in Development of Writing Fluency from a Complex Dynamic Systems Perspective

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Baba, Kyoko; Nitta, Ryo

    2014-01-01

    This study explored patterns in L2 writing development by focusing on one of the linguistic features of texts (fluency) from a complex dynamic systems perspective. It investigated whether two English-as-a-foreign-language university students would experience discontinuous change (phase transition) in their writing fluency through repetition of a…

  2. Analyzing Pauses in Computer-Assisted EFL Writing--A Computer-Keystroke-Log Perspective

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Xu, Cuiqin; Qi, Yan

    2017-01-01

    Using computer keystroke logs, this study investigated how writing skill affected L2 writers' pausing patterns to gain insights into their management of the cognitive writing processes. The 59 participants, 29 in the more-skilled group and 30 in the less-skilled group, were recruited from a college English course at a key Chinese university. The…

  3. Detecting Breakdowns in Local Coherence in the Writing of Chinese English Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wang, Y.; Harrington, M.; White, P.

    2012-01-01

    This paper introduces "CTutor", an automated writing evaluation (AWE) tool for detecting breakdowns in local coherence and reports on a study that applies it to the writing of Chinese L2 English learners. The program is based on Centering theory (CT), a theory of local coherence and salience. The principles of CT are first introduced and…

  4. An Introduction to the Work (and Play) of Writing Studies Research Methods through Micro Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Aiken, Suzan; Beard, Emily J.; McClure, David R. E.; Nickoson, Lee

    2013-01-01

    This article addresses the benefits and challenges involved with assigning small-scale research projects in one research methods class as means of introducing new(er) researchers to the work and rewards of empirical writing research. The following discussion does not claim to offer examples of cutting-edge methodological work. That is not our goal…

  5. 1980 Bibliography of Technical Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Book, Virginia Alm; And Others

    1981-01-01

    Offers resources on technical writing that were published in 1980. Arranges the citations under 12 categories: bibliographies, books, reviews, and articles on theory and philosophy; pedagogy; writing technical articles and reports; research; technical writing and the computer; graphic/visual aids; correspondence; technical speech; and designing…

  6. 1981 Bibliography of Technical Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Book, Virginia Alm; And Others

    1982-01-01

    Offers resources on technical writing published in 1981. Arranges the citations under the following categories: bibliographies, books, reviews, and articles on the profession; theory and philosophy; pedagogy; technical speech; research; designing degree programs; technical writing and the computer; writing technical articles and reports;…

  7. Writing for professional publication. Part 2: Subject matter.

    PubMed

    Fowler, John

    Motivation is the first step in writing for professional publication: the next question is, what should you write about? Whatever your area of practice or level of experience, your writing will be suitable for one of the wealth of journals covering all aspects of healthcare and nursing. In this second part of a series of articles, John Fowler, an experienced nursing lecturer and author, presents some tips and suggestions to inspire you as you take your first steps on the road to writing for professional publication.

  8. "I write to know what I think": a four-year writing curriculum.

    PubMed

    Lister, Elena; Kravis, Nathan; Sandberg, Larry; Halpern, Jeffrey K; Cabaniss, Deborah L; Singer, Meriamne B

    2008-12-01

    The four-year writing curriculum of the Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research has as its main objective to teach candidates to learn about analysis through writing. Learning to write about analyses ultimately entails learning to clarify and then express how one thinks and functions as an analyst. Since its inception ten years ago, the program has evolved into its current structure, a stepwise approach through the years of candidate training based on a didactic method called "layering." For each level of the course, candidates' typical writing difficulties are examined, and examples given of write-ups and how they were used in teaching. The essential role of the faculty experience is also described.

  9. Universal Screening for Writing Risk in Kindergarten

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Coker, David L., Jr.; Ritchey, Kristen D.

    2014-01-01

    Early identification of students at risk for writing disabilities is an important step in improving writing performance. Kindergarten students (n = 84) were administered a set of researcher-developed writing tasks (letter writing, sound spelling, word spelling, and sentence writing) and school-administered reading tasks ("Dynamic Indicators…

  10. "Writing My First Academic Article Feels Like Dancing around Naked": Research Development for Higher Education Lecturers Working in Further Education Colleges

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Turner, Rebecca; Brown, Tony; Edwards-Jones, Andrew

    2014-01-01

    Growing emphasis on research output has spawned initiatives to enhance writing practices, often targeted at groups less familiar with academic research practices. This paper discusses a collaborative writing group project for higher education lecturers working in further education colleges. Participants had previously undertaken funded pedagogic…

  11. Process Writing and Communicative-Task-Based Instruction: Many Common Features, but More Common Limitations?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bruton, Anthony

    2005-01-01

    Process writing and communicative-task-based instruction both assume productive tasks that prompt self-expression to motivate students and as the principal engine for developing L2 proficiency in the language classroom. Besides this, process writing and communicative-task-based instruction have much else in common, despite some obvious…

  12. Getting It in Writing: The Quest to Become Outstanding and Effective Teachers of Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stankevich, Deborah M., Ed.

    2011-01-01

    Sixteen teachers. Sixteen journeys. All on a quest to become outstanding teachers of writing. All taking different paths to acquire and hone those skills that make a teacher effective. From kindergarten to college, teachers are faced with the daunting task of instilling the art of writing in their students. From creative writing to research, the…

  13. A guide to writing a scientific paper: a focus on high school through graduate level student research.

    PubMed

    Hesselbach, Renee A; Petering, David H; Berg, Craig A; Tomasiewicz, Henry; Weber, Daniel

    2012-12-01

    This article presents a detailed guide for high school through graduate level instructors that leads students to write effective and well-organized scientific papers. Interesting research emerges from the ability to ask questions, define problems, design experiments, analyze and interpret data, and make critical connections. This process is incomplete, unless new results are communicated to others because science fundamentally requires peer review and criticism to validate or discard proposed new knowledge. Thus, a concise and clearly written research paper is a critical step in the scientific process and is important for young researchers as they are mastering how to express scientific concepts and understanding. Moreover, learning to write a research paper provides a tool to improve science literacy as indicated in the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards (1996), and A Framework for K-12 Science Education (2011), the underlying foundation for the Next Generation Science Standards currently being developed. Background information explains the importance of peer review and communicating results, along with details of each critical component, the Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Specific steps essential to helping students write clear and coherent research papers that follow a logical format, use effective communication, and develop scientific inquiry are described.

  14. A Guide to Writing a Scientific Paper: A Focus on High School Through Graduate Level Student Research

    PubMed Central

    Petering, David H.; Berg, Craig A.; Tomasiewicz, Henry; Weber, Daniel

    2012-01-01

    Abstract This article presents a detailed guide for high school through graduate level instructors that leads students to write effective and well-organized scientific papers. Interesting research emerges from the ability to ask questions, define problems, design experiments, analyze and interpret data, and make critical connections. This process is incomplete, unless new results are communicated to others because science fundamentally requires peer review and criticism to validate or discard proposed new knowledge. Thus, a concise and clearly written research paper is a critical step in the scientific process and is important for young researchers as they are mastering how to express scientific concepts and understanding. Moreover, learning to write a research paper provides a tool to improve science literacy as indicated in the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards (1996), and A Framework for K–12 Science Education (2011), the underlying foundation for the Next Generation Science Standards currently being developed. Background information explains the importance of peer review and communicating results, along with details of each critical component, the Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Specific steps essential to helping students write clear and coherent research papers that follow a logical format, use effective communication, and develop scientific inquiry are described. PMID:23094692

  15. A Wor(l)d Apart: Understanding Cultural Differences in an International Student Graduate Writing Workshop

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kyser, Christine; McKenna, Kelly

    2017-01-01

    This paper introduces and describes a mixed methods research project conducted with international doctoral students from Non-Western countries that explored students and faculty members' experiences in a writing workshop. In this "Perspectives" piece, we offer insight into our journey of fostering relationships with our students and…

  16. Graduate Writing across the Disciplines, Introduction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brooks-Gillies, Marilee; Garcia, Elena G.; Kim, Soo Hyon; Manthey, Katie; Smith, Trixie

    2015-01-01

    While the editors of "Across the Disciplines" were working at the Michigan State University (MSU) Writing Center in 2011, they began focusing on the issues of graduate writing support through their involvement with the graduate writing groups hosted through the MSU Writing Center, conducting research on the benefits of such groups. When…

  17. The Effects of Stimulus Writing Modality To Produce Writing Fluency in the Primary Grades.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Duross, Christine; And Others

    An action research project set out to increase students' writing fluency and investigate whether writing fluency varies as a function of writing prompts and directions given to students. Subjects were 62 students in a first-grade class, a second-grade class, and a fifth/sixth-grade Special Day class (all in this class are learning disabled) in a…

  18. Characteristics and User Acceptance of Peer Rating in EFL Writing Classrooms

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Saito, Hidetoshi; Fujita, Tomoko

    2004-01-01

    Lack of research on the characteristics of peer assessment in EFL writing may inhibit teachers from appreciating the utility of this innovative assessment. This study addressed the following research questions: (1) How similar are peer, self- and teacher ratings of EFL writing?; (2) Do students favour peer ratings?; and (3) Does peer feedback…

  19. Teaching Science Writing in an Introductory Lab Course

    PubMed Central

    Holstein, Sarah E.; Mickley Steinmetz, Katherine R.; Miles, John D.

    2015-01-01

    One challenge that many neuroscience instructors face is how to teach students to communicate within the field. The goal of this project was to improve students’ scientific writing in an introductory psychology laboratory course that serves as a feeder course into the neuroscience curriculum. This course included a scaffolded approach - breaking assignments into different sections that build upon each other to allow for more direction and feedback on each section. Students were also provided with examples of scientific writing, given direction on finding and reading journal articles, and were taught how to effectively peer review a paper. Research papers were assessed before (Year 1) and after (Year 2) this scaffolded approach was instituted. The assessment included measures of “Genre Knowledge” for each section of a research paper (abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion) as well as measures of “Writing Elements” (grammar, formatting, clarity, transitions, building to the hypothesis, using evidence). The results indicated that there was an improvement for Genre Knowledge scores when comparing Year 1 to Year 2. However, there was no systematic improvement in Writing Elements. This suggests that this teaching technique was most effective in improving students’ ability to write within the scientific genre. The logistics of implementing such an approach are discussed. PMID:25838801

  20. Writing in the Eskimo Classroom. Cahiers linguistiques d'Ottawa (Ottawa Linguistics Papers), Vol. 7, No. 3.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hofmann, T. R.

    There are several practical reasons for preferring syllabic writing in teaching the Eskimo language to non-Eskimos: (1) the use of syllabic writing avoids the Roman letters t, l, n, s, g, and r, which stimulate the pronunciation habits of French or English; (2) syllabic writing is well-suited to Eskimo because of its small number of vowels; (3)…

  1. Why Real-Life Writing Benefits Students.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wheeler, John

    1987-01-01

    Recent research indicates that journalistic reporting and writing techniques effectively develop language arts competency. Such writing techniques should be taught long before the student enters high school. Benefits of real-life writing to students are discussed. (MT)

  2. The Use of Epistemic Markers as a Means of Hedging and Boosting in the Discourse of L1 and L2 Speakers of Modern Greek: A Corpus-Based Study in Informal Letter-Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Efstathiadi, Lia

    2010-01-01

    The paper investigates the semantic area of Epistemic Modality in Modern Greek, by means of a corpus-based research. A comparative, quantitative study was performed between written corpora (informal letter-writing) of non-native informants with various language backgrounds and Greek native speakers. A number of epistemic markers were selected for…

  3. Children's Advertisement Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Burrell, Andrew; Beard, Roger

    2010-01-01

    This paper explores primary school children's ability to engage with "the power of the text" by tackling persuasive writing in the form of an advertisement. It is eclectically framed within genre theory and rhetorical studies and makes use of linguistic tools and concepts. The paper argues that writing research has not built upon earlier…

  4. Perceptions and Writing Experiences of Nursing Students: A Mixed Methods Exploration of Writing Self-Efficacy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sprenger, Lori

    2013-01-01

    The investigated research problem was the need to identify the facilitators and barriers to competent academic writing by examining writing self-efficacy and academic writing experiences of entry-level BSN students. The study's participants included entry-level bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) students in a Midwestern state. The mixed methods…

  5. Writing in Young Deaf Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Williams, Cheri; Mayer, Connie

    2015-01-01

    The authors conducted an integrative review of the research literature on the writing development, writing instruction, and writing assessment of young deaf children ages 3 to 8 years (or preschool through third grade) published between 1990 and 2012. A total of 17 studies were identified that met inclusion criteria. The analysis examined research…

  6. The Transformative Potential of Action Research and ICT in the Second Language (L2) Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Farren, Margaret; Crotty, Yvonne; Kilboy, Laura

    2015-01-01

    This study shows the transformative potential of action research and information and communications technology (ICT) in the second language (L2) classroom. Two enquiries from teacher-researchers are detailed in the article. Their engagement in a collaborative professional development Masters programme was pivotal in designing and implementing ICT…

  7. Using Self-Referential Pronouns in Writing: The Effect of Explicit Instruction on L2 Writers at Two Levels of Proficiency

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Abbuhl, Rebekha

    2012-01-01

    Skilled writers have at their disposal a range of rhetorical strategies for positioning themselves as competent members of a particular discourse community, including the judicious use of self-referential pronouns (e.g. "I," "she," "he") to overtly signal authorial presence. However, while researchers routinely recommend that second language (L2)…

  8. Writing Center Administration and/as Emotional Labor

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jackson, Rebecca; McKinney, Jackie Grutsch; Caswell, Nicole I.

    2016-01-01

    Scholars have offered research and theory about emotional labor and the feeling of emotion in rhetoric and composition, but we have little if any such research on writing center work specifically. Drawing on data from a year-long qualitative study of writing center directors' labor, this article examines writing center directors' emotional labor…

  9. What Happens When I Write? Pupils' Writing about Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Barbeiro, Luis Filipe

    2011-01-01

    This article presents pupils' awareness of writing as elicited through a metawriting task, in other words a task in which pupils from the third, fourth and sixth forms (grades) were required to write about writing. The analysis of the texts revealed the pupils' increasing ability to write texts focusing on writing and on the subject's relationship…

  10. Teaching Writing in the Shadow of Standardized Writing Assessment: An Exploratory Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brimi, Hunter

    2012-01-01

    This exploratory study results from interviews with five high school English teachers regarding their writing instruction. The researcher sought to answer these questions: (1) How had the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program's (TCAP) Writing Assessment affected their teaching as gauged by the teachers' statements regarding the assessment,…

  11. Review of Recent Research (2002-2009) on Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching with Specific Reference to L2 German (Part 2)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Eckerth, Johannes; Tschirner, Erwin

    2010-01-01

    This review of research on the learning, teaching, and assessment of L2 German may be particularly timely due to developments from within the profession as well as recent political changes which continue to have a strong bearing on the way L2 German is promoted, learned, taught and assessed. Far from representing an isolated field of research…

  12. Critical Pedagogy in Undergraduate English Writing Classes in Taiwan

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chi, Gen-Hua

    2011-01-01

    This one-year study explores the possibility of integrating critical pedagogy into undergraduate English writing classes in Taiwan. The participants were the students in 2 first-year writing classes taught by the researcher. For these classes, I reinvented Freire's (2000) pedagogy of the oppressed, which emphasizes problem-posing, dialogue, and…

  13. A novel approach to improving writing skills: ClimateSnack

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Reeve, Mathew

    2014-05-01

    Writing is a huge part of any research career. We can think of writing as a research tool we find in any research laboratory. Much like any research tool, we have to understand how to calibrate, adjust and apply it in order to achieve the very best experimental outcomes. We can learn how to use this tool with advice from writing workshops, online writing courses, books and so on. Unfortunately, when it comes to working with this tool, we often have to do it alone. But, like in any laboratory, the most rewarding way to learn and to achieve the best results is to interact with others. Through this interaction, we can improve our writing and remain motivated. ClimateSnack aims to help early career scientists understand how they can use writing as an effective research tool. We encourage the formation of writing groups at different universities and institutes. Members write short popular science articles and read them aloud at group meetings. The group uses knowledge from different learning resources to discuss the articles and give feedback. The author then improves their writing further before publishing on the ClimateSnack website. If early-career scientists can successfully increase their control of writing, they will more likely write memorable high-impact scientific articles, and confidently communicate their science via varied media to varied audiences.

  14. On Reviewing and Writing a Scholarly Article

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bettis, Jerry L., Sr.

    2012-01-01

    This article provides guidelines for reviewing and writing scholarly articles for the professional who reads and writes them for his/her own work and/or for publication in scientific journals. It outlines the purpose and contents of each section of a research article and provides a checklist for reviewing and writing a research article. This…

  15. Investigating Differences in the Writing Performance of International and Generation 1.5 Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    di Gennaro, Kristen

    2009-01-01

    Practitioners working closely with second language (L2) writers in the US recognize at least two types of L2 students: international (IL2) and Generation 1.5 (G1.5) students. Some argue that specific differences in each group's writing performance are evident (cf. Harklau, 2003; Reid, 2006); however, investigations into observable and measurable…

  16. Research on Three-Part Argumentative Writings for English Majors in China

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mingli, Luo

    2012-01-01

    Writing is a kind of creative thinking activity. The teaching of three-part argumentative writing is crucial in college English instruction. Many English majors that fail to write well lack sufficient input of English argumentative reading materials, use Chinese thinking and structure to express their ideas, and lack frequent and sufficient…

  17. Using Student Scholarship To Develop Student Research and Writing Skills.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ware, Mark E.; Badura, Amy S.; Davis, Stephen F.

    2002-01-01

    Focuses on the use of student publications in journals as a teaching tool. Explores the use of this technique in three contexts: (1) enabling students to understand experimental methodology; (2) teaching students about statistics; and (3) helping students learn more about the American Psychological Association (APA) writing style. (CMK)

  18. Tips on Teaching Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Today's Education, 1982

    1982-01-01

    Techniques for stirring students' interest in writing include: (1) exposing them to eloquent language use; (2) group poetry-writing (each student writes one line of a class poem); and (3) adapting why-and-because outlines intended for teaching college writing for use by younger students. Suggestions for obtaining writing quantity and quality are…

  19. From Fake to Fiction: Young Children Learn about Writing Fiction.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Taberski, Sharon

    1987-01-01

    Presents five strategies for helping elementary school students learn to write fiction: (1) stress topic selection; (2) use literature to teach fiction writing; (3) stress main character change or problem solving; (4) emphasize reality-based stories; and (5) encourage students to research their fiction. (SKC)

  20. An Axiomatic Theory of Cognition and Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Grunig, James E.; And Others

    Noting that although a great deal of empirical research has been done to investigate the writing rules commonly taught, this paper points out that no one has yet constructed a deep theory of the relationship between cognition and writing that confirms the writing rules and explains how they work. The paper then uses theories and research in the…

  1. Imagining Writing Futures: Photography, Writing, and Technology

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McLean, Cheryl A.; Rowsell, Jennifer

    2015-01-01

    The article examines high school students' writing composition practices in multimodal instructional environments. We use Rosenblatt's transactional theory to look across the findings of 2 studies that blend traditional and digital modes of instruction in order to explore how modal switching can support students' reading and writing. We also…

  2. Technical Writing, Revision, and Language Communities.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Petersen, Bruce T.

    To examine the writing process of personnel who write as part of their jobs and the relation of that process to the context in which they worked, a study was undertaken in a major corporation. Its aim was to research a model for teaching technical writing students that would bridge the gap between the classroom and the probable writing situations…

  3. The development of writing skills in 4-year-old children with and without specific language impairment.

    PubMed

    Pavelko, Stacey L; Lieberman, R Jane; Schwartz, Jamie; Hahs-Vaughn, Debbie; Nye, Chad

    2017-01-01

    Research shows that many preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulty acquiring literacy skills including phonological awareness, print concepts, and alphabet knowledge. Limited research suggests that preschool children with SLI also have difficulty with emergent writing tasks such as name writing and word writing. In typically developing children, research indicates that emergent writing skills are acquired in a developmental sequence: (1) linearity, (2) segmentation, (3) simple characters, (4) left-right orientation, (5) complex characters, (6) random letters, and (7) invented spelling. This study compared the emergent writing skills of 4-year-old children with SLI (n = 22) to their age- and gender-matched peers (n = 22). Results indicated that children with SLI demonstrate difficulty with a variety of writing tasks, including letter writing, name writing, word writing, and sentence writing when compared to their typically-developing peers. Children with SLI followed the same developmental sequence in acquiring writing skills as their typically-developing peers.

  4. Writing Cover Letters That Address Instructor Feedback Improves Final Papers in a Research Methods Course

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Daniel, Frances; Gaze, Catherine M.; Braasch, Jason L. G.

    2015-01-01

    We examined how writing cover letters to the instructor influenced final papers in research methods courses. After receiving instructor feedback on drafts of each section of an American Psychological Association style research paper throughout the semester, students in two classes wrote cover letters to the instructor explaining how the instructor…

  5. The New Digital Scholar: Exploring and Enriching the Research and Writing Practices of NextGen Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McClure, Randall, Ed.; Purdy, James P., Ed.

    2013-01-01

    "The New Digital Scholar" presents innovative thinking and groundbreaking research on the challenges NextGen students face with research-writing projects. Reminding readers of the history of the academic research paper and the scope of the recent information explosion, editors McClure and Purdy open a discussion long silent in academic…

  6. Working with Disciplinary Artifacts: An Introductory Writing Studies Course for Writing Majors

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ostergaard, Lori

    2015-01-01

    WRT 329: Introduction to Writing Studies is a course in Oakland University's (OU) Writing and Rhetoric major program that provides students with a survey of composition studies as an academic discipline. It includes an examination of the history, theories, research, curricula, and pedagogies associated with composition studies in the university.…

  7. The L2 Motivational Self System and L2 Achievement: A Study of Saudi EFL Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moskovsky, Christo; Assulaimani, Turki; Racheva, Silvia; Harkins, Jean

    2016-01-01

    The research reported in this article explores the relationship between Dörnyei's (2005, 2009) Second Language Motivational Self System (L2MSS) and the L2 proficiency level of Saudi learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Male and female participants (N = 360) responded to a questionnaire relating to the main components of L2MSS, the…

  8. An academic writing needs assessment of English-as-a-second-language clinical investigators.

    PubMed

    Wang, Min-Fen; Bakken, Lori L

    2004-01-01

    Academic writing for publication is competitive and demanding for researchers. For the novice English-as-a-second-language (ESL) researcher, the pressure to publish compounds the difficulties of mastering the English language. Very few studies have used ESL graduate and post-graduate students as academic writing research subjects. The purpose of this project was to assess the learning needs of ESL clinical investigators regarding academic writing for English scholarly publication. A qualitative evaluation approach was used to examine the gap between the current and desired proficiency level for the academic writing of ESL clinical investigators. We considered the perspectives of seven ESL clinical investigators plus three mentors and three writing instructors. Semi-structured questions were asked. Field notes were organized using a field-work recording system. They were analyzed using the constant comparative method. ESL clinical investigators do not accurately perceive their writing deficiencies. They have little knowledge of criteria for academic writing and they are influenced by their prior English learning experiences in their home culture, which engender passive attitudes toward seeking appropriate writing resources. Adequate time is especially needed to develop successful writing skills. Four basic steps are recommended to guide program planners in developing ESL writing activities for professional learning: (1) recognize discrepancies, (2) establish clear standards and performance criteria for scholarly writing, (3) develop individual plans, and (4) organize long-term writing assistance.

  9. Students as Researchers: What and Why Seventh-Grade Students Choose to Write When Investigating Their Own Research Question

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bjørkvold, Tuva; Blikstad-Balas, Marte

    2018-01-01

    All scientists depend on both reading and writing to do their scientific work. It is of paramount importance to ensure that students have a relevant repertoire of practices they can employ when facing scientific content inside and outside the school context. The present study reports on students in seventh grade acting as researchers. Over an…

  10. Action Research: The Implementation of Writing Workshop in the Third Grade.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Strech, Lorie L.

    By the 1980s, the whole language philosophy (Goodman, 1986), based on the idea that reading and writing should be done for authentic purposes, gained credibility. As the movement gained momentum, more teachers began to adopt the student-centered writing workshop as a way of teaching writing. A study of a class of 27 culturally diverse third…

  11. L1 Use in L2 Vocabulary Learning: Facilitator or Barrier

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Liu, Jing

    2008-01-01

    Based on empirical research and qualitative analysis, this paper aims to explore the effects of L1 use on L2 vocabulary teaching. The results show that, during L2 vocabulary teaching process, the proper application of L1 can effectively facilitate the memorization of new words, and the bilingual method (both English explanation and Chinese…

  12. How to do a postgraduate research project and write a minor thesis.

    PubMed

    Duke, Trevor

    2018-05-26

    Many universities and colleges in low-income and middle-income countries require a masters dissertation or thesis for as part of postgraduate training, and some colleges offer a 1-year to 2-year diploma of child health as a clinical qualification to enable skills in child health for generalists, or as part of the early phase of paediatric training. This paper describes the stages of doing a research project for such a masters or diploma, and describes in detail how to write a minor thesis. The paper is designed to provide a practical approach for junior researchers, and their supervisors. Colleges differ in their formal requirements of a minor thesis (word count, line spacing, referencing style), but this paper outlines the principles and practical issues rarely covered elsewhere. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

  13. Strategies to Advance College-Ready Writing Competencies

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wang, Manhui Amy

    2013-01-01

    While many college students at two-year public colleges need Basic Writing classes before entering college-level writing courses, only 34% have successfully passed their Basic Writing classes (Ternes, 2008). Troyo (2000) maintained that the reason students failed in Basic Writing classes was that more research-based effective teaching strategies…

  14. Matching Vocabulary Learning Process with Learning Outcome in L2 Academic Writing: An Exploratory Case Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ma, Qing

    2013-01-01

    This exploratory case study of two undergraduates links vocabulary learning approaches with lexical quality measured in academic writing. Employing an array of qualitative data, it is shown that in a "semi-language-rich" learning context, Chinese learners may dispense with rote learning and engage in a more natural learning approach in which…

  15. Teaching Writing in Economics

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schmeiser, Katherine

    2017-01-01

    In this article, the author provides motivation and a template for integrating and teaching writing in a variety of economics courses: core theory or introductory courses, topic courses, and economic writing/research courses. For each assignment, pedagogical reasoning and syllabus integration are discussed. Additionally, the author shows that…

  16. Exploring the Feasibility of Using Writing Process Features to Assess Text Production Skills. Research Report. ETS RR-15-26

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Deane, Paul; Zhang, Mo

    2015-01-01

    In this report, we examine the feasibility of characterizing writing performance using process features derived from a keystroke log. Using data derived from a set of "CBAL"™ writing assessments, we examine the following research questions: (a) How stable are the keystroke timing and process features across testing occasions?; (b) How…

  17. Enhancing Writing Self-Efficacy Beliefs of Students with Learning Disabilities Improves Their Writing Processes and Products

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    de Caso, Ana Maria; Garcia, Jesus Nicasio; Diez, Carmen; Robledo, Patricia; Alvarez, Maria Lourdes

    2010-01-01

    Introduction: The use of self efficacy has been suggested as an effective classroom intervention procedure. The present research examined the use of self-efficacy training on the writing of Spanish elementary student with learning disabilities. Objectives: We present a research study focused on the improvement of the writing product and the…

  18. Writing for publication: institutional support provides an enabling environment.

    PubMed

    Kramer, Beverley; Libhaber, Elena

    2016-04-18

    Due to the excessive service delivery loads in public hospitals supported by academic institutions in developing environments, researchers at these institutions have little time to develop scientific writing skills or to write up their research. It is imperative to expand the writing skills of researchers and train the next generation of health sciences academics in order to disseminate research findings. This study reports on the implementation of approaches for writing and publication and the extent of support to staff suffering from the overload of service delivery and of heavy teaching duties. Workshops in scientific writing and writing retreats were initiated and were offered to all staff. Feedback from participants of the writing skills workshops indicated that the workshops provided an injection of confidence and proficiency. Protected writing time resulted in 132 papers submitted to journals and 95 in preparation from 230 participants of the writing retreats over a two year period. Staff commended the off-site, collegial environment, which also supported future collaboration with new-found colleagues. This enabling environment facilitates not only the development of writing skills per se, but also the dissemination of the generated scientific knowledge. In addition, the training in writing skills of this generation will be of value in the training of future cohorts in countries with similar health care deliverables.

  19. Riding Elvis's Motorcycle: Using Self-Regulated Strategy Development To PLAN and WRITE for a State Writing Exam.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    De La Paz, Susan; Owen, Bonnie; Harris, Karen R.; Graham, Steve

    2000-01-01

    This article describes implementation of the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) approach to help students learn a specific essay writing strategy in preparation for a state writing test. It also reviews the theoretical and research bases for using SRSD to teaching writing strategies. (Contains references.) (DB)

  20. Undertaking and writing research that is important, targeted, and the best you can do.

    PubMed

    McLeod, Sharynne

    2014-04-01

    Conducting and writing research is a privilege. It is a privilege because researchers can change lives through their findings and can influence public knowledge and debate. It is also a privilege because researchers are reliant on the time and goodwill of participants (and colleagues), and research is often underpinned by funding raised by the public, either through taxes or philanthropic donations. This privilege comes with responsibility. Researchers have a responsibility to undertake research that is important, targeted, and of high quality. This editorial aims to inspire, challenge, and bolster the research efforts of individuals and teams.

  1. Elaborations on L2 Interactional Competence: The Development of L2 Grammar-for-Interaction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pekarek Doehler, Simona

    2018-01-01

    This paper argues for a broadening of the analytic scope of research on L2 interactional competence so as to embrace systematic investigation of the linguistic resources that L2 speakers put to use for the specific purpose of coordinating social interaction. The paper first offers a conceptualisation of interactional competence in terms of…

  2. Supporting English Language Learners' Writing Abilities: Exploring Third Spaces

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Assaf, Lori Czop

    2014-01-01

    Research on the sociocultural processes of writing and its impact on writing instruction in the middle grades has gained increased attention in educational research. Less attention has been devoted to research on writing with middle grade English learners (ELs) who are mainstreamed into English only classrooms. National assessment data, reports,…

  3. Using Authentic Picture Books and Illustrated Books to Improve L2 Writing among 11-Year-Olds

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Birketveit, Anna; Rimmereide, Hege Emma

    2017-01-01

    The case study investigates what impact extensive reading of authentic picture books/illustrated books had on the learners' writing skills in a Norwegian EFL (English as a foreign language) classroom of 11-year-olds. Furthermore, the study also looks into the importance the pictures/illustrations had for the learners and what type of picture-text…

  4. Embodied Writing: Choreographic Composition as Methodology

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ulmer, Jasmine B.

    2015-01-01

    This paper seeks to examine how embodied methodological approaches might inform dance education practice and research. Through a series of examples, this paper explores how choreographic writing might function as an embodied writing methodology. Here, choreographic writing is envisioned as a form of visual word choreography in which words move,…

  5. Classroom Research and Experiential Learning: Three Successful Experiences--Outcomes of Writing Competency.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mizell, Kay

    1991-01-01

    Describes a study conducted at Collin County Community College to assess the writing performance of different student populations. Offers observations about writing assessment for external validity. Suggests simple procedures for quantifying writing competency. Includes a proposal for portfolio assessment. (DMM)

  6. Mitigation of Disagreement in Peer Review among L2 Learners and Native Speakers in a College Writing Class (Mitigación del Impacto de las Opiniones de Desacuerdo en el Proceso de Revisión por Pares entre Estudiantes de una Segunda Lengua y Hablantes Nativos en una Clase de Escritura a Nivel Universitario)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Christoffersen, Katherine O'Donnell

    2015-01-01

    Peer review is now a commonplace practice in process-oriented writing instruction. A crucial aspect of peer review is assessing another classmate's work, which encompasses the act of disagreement. Given its prevalence in the classroom, it is necessary to analyze how L2 learners mitigate disagreement in the context of peer review with other L2

  7. Improving Writing: What Principals Can Do

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Urquhart, Vicki

    2005-01-01

    Only one out of five high school teachers believes that students are learning to write well according to research from Public Agenda. Test results confirm their opinion. In 1998, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) administered a writing assessment to gauge fourth- and eighth-grade students' proficiency in writing narrative,…

  8. Writing Interview Protocols and Conducting Interviews: Tips for Students New to the Field of Qualitative Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jacob, Stacy A.; Furgerson, S. Paige

    2012-01-01

    Students new to doing qualitative research in the ethnographic and oral traditions, often have difficulty creating successful interview protocols. This article offers practical suggestions for students new to qualitative research for both writing interview protocol that elicit useful data and for conducting the interview. This piece was originally…

  9. The Evolution of a Writing Program.

    PubMed

    White, Bonnie J; Lamson, Karen S

    2017-07-01

    Scholarly writing is required in nursing, and some students are unable to communicate effectively through writing. Faculty members may struggle with the grading of written assignments. A writing team, consisting of a nursing faculty member, the school of nursing library liaison, and members from academic support services, implemented strategies including workshops, handouts, and use of exemplars to improve student writing and to provide support to faculty. Few students sought help from the writing team. An online writing center within the existing learning management system was developed to address nursing students' and faculty's scholarly writing needs. The writing center includes guides, tutorials, and exemplars. Anecdotal evidence indicates the use of the writing center during afternoons and evenings and prior to due dates of written assignments. Online writing resources were used more frequently than face-to-face support. Further research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(7):443-445.]. Copyright 2017, SLACK Incorporated.

  10. Construction of meaning in the authentic science writing of deaf students.

    PubMed

    Lang, H G; Albertini, J A

    2001-01-01

    This study examines how students construct meaning through writing during authentic science activities. To determine how well students understood science concepts, we analyzed 228 writing samples from deaf students in grades 6 through 11 as well as the explanatory and reflective comments of their teachers. The analyses indicate that certain process writing strategies were differentially useful in helping deaf students to construct meaning and in allowing teachers to evaluate the constructed meaning. Three instructional conditions and two teacher variables were found to play roles in determining the accuracy and adequacy of the writing: (1) the writing prompts the teachers used, (2) the focus for the writing, (3) follow-up to the initial writing activity, (4) the teacher's content knowledge, and (5) the teacher's ability to interpret student writing. The authors recommend future applications of writing-to-learn strategies and suggest directions for further research and changes in teacher education.

  11. Effects of disfluency in writing.

    PubMed

    Medimorec, Srdan; Risko, Evan F

    2016-11-01

    While much previous research has suggested that decreased transcription fluency has a detrimental effect on writing, there is recent evidence that decreased fluency can actually benefit cognitive processing. Across a series of experiments, we manipulated transcription fluency of ostensibly skilled typewriters by asking them to type essays in two conditions: both-handed and one-handed typewriting. We used the Coh-Metrix text analyser to investigate the effects of decreased transcription fluency on various aspects of essay writing, such as lexical sophistication, sentence complexity, and cohesion of essays (important indicators of successful writing). We demonstrate that decreased fluency can benefit certain aspects of writing and discuss potential mechanisms underlying disfluency effects in essay writing. © 2016 The British Psychological Society.

  12. On the effects of L2 perception and of individual differences in L1 production on L2 pronunciation

    PubMed Central

    Kartushina, Natalia; Frauenfelder, Ulrich H.

    2014-01-01

    The speech of late second language (L2) learners is generally marked by an accent. The dominant theoretical perspective attributes accents to deficient L2 perception arising from a transfer of L1 phonology, which is thought to influence L2 perception and production. In this study we evaluate the explanatory role of L2 perception in L2 production and explore alternative explanations arising from the L1 phonological system, such as for example, the role of L1 production. Specifically we examine the role of an individual’s L1 productions in the production of L2 vowel contrasts. Fourteen Spanish adolescents studying French at school were assessed on their perception and production of the mid-close/mid-open contrasts, /ø-œ/ and /e-ε/, which are, respectively, acoustically distinct from Spanish sounds, or similar to them. The participants’ native productions were explored to assess (1) the variability in the production of native vowels (i.e., the compactness of vowel categories in F1/F2 acoustic space), and (2) the position of the vowels in the acoustic space. The results revealed that although poorly perceived contrasts were generally produced poorly, there was no correlation between individual performance in perception and production, and no effect of L2 perception on L2 production in mixed-effects regression analyses. This result is consistent with a growing body of psycholinguistic and neuroimaging research that suggest partial dissociations between L2 perception and production. In contrast, individual differences in the compactness and position of native vowels predicted L2 production accuracy. These results point to existence of surface transfer of individual L1 phonetic realizations to L2 space and demonstrate that pre-existing features of the native space in production partly determine how new sounds can be accommodated in that space. PMID:25414678

  13. Syntactic Complexity, Lexical Variation and Accuracy as a Function of Task Complexity and Proficiency Level in L2 Writing and Speaking

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kuiken, Folkert; Vedder, Ineke

    2012-01-01

    The research project reported in this chapter consists of three studies in which syntactic complexity, lexical variation and fluency appear as dependent variables. The independent variables are task complexity and proficiency level, as the three studies investigate the effect of task complexity on the written and oral performance of L2 learners of…

  14. Scientific Writing: Strategies and Tools for Students and Advisors

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Singh, Vikash; Mayer, Philipp

    2014-01-01

    Scientific writing is a demanding task and many students need more time than expected to finish their research articles. To speed up the process, we highlight some tools, strategies as well as writing guides. We recommend starting early in the research process with writing and to prepare research articles, not after but in parallel to the lab or…

  15. Writing interventions in older adults and former children of the World War II: impact on quality of life and depression.

    PubMed

    Schmidt, Silke; Hahm, Stefanie; Freitag, Simone

    2017-06-05

    The aim of the current study was to analyze whether biographical writing interventions have an impact on depression and QoL compared to daily diary writing. We also wanted to investigate differential effects between structured and unstructured interventions. In two Northern regions of Germany, 119 older adults aged 64-90 were randomly assigned to three different types of narrative writing interventions: written structured and unstructured biographical disclosure as well as daily diary writing. Depression (PHQ-9), QoL (SF-12, EUROHIS) and trauma-related symptoms (PCL-C) were obtained pre- and post-interventions as well as at three-month follow-up. Follow-up measures were obtained from 85 participants (29% loss to follow-up; mean age = 73.88; 68.2% female). Results of repeated measurement analysis demonstrated a significant effect on depression with the daily diary writing group showing lower depressive symptoms than structured biographical writing. We did not find a significant impact on QoL. Post-hoc analyses showed that posttraumatic symptoms lead to increases in depressive symptoms. In a non-clinical sample of community-dwelling older adults, biographical writing interventions were not favorable to daily diary writing concerning the outcomes of the study. This might be related to the association of traumtic reminiscences of former children of World War II and outcome measures.

  16. Extraction and utilization of the repeating patterns for CP writing in mask making

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Shoji, Masahiro; Inoue, Tadao; Yamabe, Masaki

    2010-05-01

    In May 2006, the Mask Design, Drawing, and Inspection Technology Research Department (Mask D2I) at the Association of Super-Advanced Electronics Technologies (ASET) launched a 4-year program for reducing mask manufacturing cost and TAT by concurrent optimization of Mask Data Preparation (MDP), mask writing, and mask inspection [1]. Figure 1 shows an outline of the project at Mask D2I at ASET. As one of the tasks being pursued at the Mask Design Data Technology Research Laboratory we have evaluated the effect of reducing the writing shot counts by utilizing the repeating patterns, and that showed positive impact on mask making by using CP writing. During the past four years, we have developed a software to extract repeating patterns from fractured OPCed mask data and have evaluated the efficiency of reducing the writing shot counts using the repeating patterns with this software. In this evaluation, we have used many actual device production data obtained from the member companies of Mask D2I. To the extraction software, we added new functions for extracting common repeating patterns from a set of multiple masks, and studied how this step affects the ratio of reducing the shot counts in comparison to the case of utilization of the repeating patterns for single mask. We have also developed a software that uses the result of extracting repeating patterns and prepares writing-data for the MCC/CP writing system which has been developed at the Mask Writing Equipment Technology Research Laboratory. With this software, we have examined how EB proximity effect on CP writing affects in reducing the shot count where CP shots with large CD errors have to be divided into VSB shots. In this paper we will report on making common CP mask from a set of multiple actual device data by using these software, and will also report on the results of CP writing and calculation of writing-TAT by MCC/CP writing system.

  17. Materials for Assessing the Writing Skill

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nimehchisalem, Vahid

    2010-01-01

    This paper reviews the issues of concern in writing scale development in English as Second Language (ESL) settings with an intention to provide a useful guide for researchers or writing teachers who wish to develop or adapt valid, reliable and efficient writing scales considering their present assessment situations. With a brief discussion on the…

  18. On the Role of L1 Markedness and L2 Input Robustness in Determining Potentially Fossilizable Language Forms in Iranian EFL Learners' Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nushi, Musa

    2016-01-01

    Han's (2009, 2013) selective fossilization hypothesis (SFH) claims that L1 markedness and L2 input robustness determine the fossilizability (and learnability) of an L2 feature. To test the validity of the model, a pseudo-longitudinal study was designed in which the errors in the argumentative essays of 52 Iranian EFL learners were identified and…

  19. Setting Writing Revision Goals after Assessment for Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Huang, Shu-Chen

    2015-01-01

    This study examined the effects of goal setting for revision in an EFL writing classroom where principles of assessment "for" learning (AfL) were followed. Following draft writing, instruction, and assessment, college freshmen were put into control, goal, and goal+ groups. Before students started to revise their drafts, individuals in…

  20. Improving Cohesion in L2 Writing: A Three-Strand Approach to Building Lexical Cohesion

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Johnson, Mark

    2017-01-01

    This article presents a three-strand approach to help L2 writers in English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) instructional contexts achieve greater cohesion in their written work. The approach focuses on (1) the analysis of authentic texts, (2) the development of productive vocabulary, and (3) information…

  1. Kanji Recognition by Second Language Learners: Exploring Effects of First Language Writing Systems and Second Language Exposure

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Matsumoto, Kazumi

    2013-01-01

    This study investigated whether learners of Japanese with different first language (L1) writing systems use different recognition strategies and whether second language (L2) exposure affects L2 kanji recognition. The study used a computerized lexical judgment task with 3 types of kanji characters to investigate these questions: (a)…

  2. Improving Students' Summary Writing Ability through Collaboration: A Comparison between Online Wiki Group and Conventional Face-To-Face Group

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wichadee, Saovapa

    2013-01-01

    Wikis, as one of the Web 2.0 social networking tools, have been increasingly integrated into second language (L2) instruction to promote collaborative writing. The current study examined and compared summary writing abilities between students learning by wiki-based collaboration and students learning by traditional face-to-face collaboration.…

  3. Student perception of writing in the science classroom

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Deakin, Kathleen J.

    This study examines factors that shape four student's perceptions of writing tasks in their science classroom. This qualitative retrospective interview study focuses on four students concurrently enrolled in honors English and honors biology. This research employs a phenomenological perspective on writing, examining whether the writing strategies students acquire in the Language Arts classroom manifest in the content areas. I also adopt Bandura's theoretical perspective on self-efficacy as well as Hillock's notion of writing as inquiry and meaning making. This study concludes that students need ample opportunity to generate content and language that will help reveal a purpose and genre for writing tasks in the content areas. Although all four students approached the writing tasks differently in this study, the tasks set before them were opportunities for replication rather than inquiry Through the case studies of four students as well as current research on content writing, this project works to inform all content area teachers about student perceptions of writing in the content areas.

  4. Writing an Independently Composed Sentence by Spanish-Speaking Children with and without Poor Transcription Skills: A Writing-Level Match Design

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Garcia, Eduardo; Crespo, Patricia; Bermúdez, Ivana

    2017-01-01

    The main objective of this research was to analyze the impact of transcription skills of Spanish writers when writing an independently composed sentence within a writing-level design. The free-writing sentence task from the "Early Grade Writing Assessment" (Jiménez, in press) was used to examine the production, accuracy, speed, syntactic…

  5. Determining Change in Students' Writing Apprehension Scores in a Writing Intensive Course: A Pre-Test, Post-Test Design

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fischer, Laura M.; Meyers, Courtney

    2017-01-01

    Writing skills are one of the most important skills college graduates need to possess; however, college graduates struggle to complete written communications proficiently in the workforce. Previous researchers have explained that college instructors must understand the students' fears with writing in order to create effective writing curriculum.…

  6. Stepping back to move forward: Expressive writing promotes self-distancing.

    PubMed

    Park, Jiyoung; Ayduk, Özlem; Kross, Ethan

    2016-04-01

    Prior research indicates that expressive writing enhances well-being by leading people to construct meaningful narratives that explain distressing life experiences. But how does expressive writing facilitate meaning-making? We addressed this issue in 2 longitudinal studies by examining whether and how expressive writing promotes self-distancing, a process that facilitates meaning-making. At baseline in both studies, participants reflected on a distressing life experience. In Study 1 participants were then randomly assigned to write about their distressing experience or a non-emotional topic for 15 min on 3 consecutive days; in Study 2 participants were randomly assigned to write or think about their distressing experience or write about a non-emotional topic for the same amount of time. One day following the intervention, expressive writing participants in both studies self-distanced more when they reflected over their distressing experience compared with participants in the other conditions, which in turn led them to experience less emotional reactivity 1 month (Studies 1 and 2) and 6 months (Study 2) after the intervention. Analyses using data from both studies indicated that expressive writing reduced physical symptoms indirectly through its effects on self-distancing and emotional reactivity [that is, expressive writing group (vs. comparison groups) → greater self-distancing → less emotional reactivity → fewer physical symptoms]. Finally, linguistic analyses using essays from both studies indicated that increased use of causation words and decreased use of negative emotion words and first-person singular pronouns predicted increases in self-distancing over time. These findings demonstrate that expressive writing promotes self-distancing and illustrate how it does so. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  7. Grant Writing for Beginners: Part 2--Five More Tips on How to Write an Effective Grant Application

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brooks, Douglas

    2008-01-01

    In this article, Part 2, the author discusses five more steps on how to write an effective grant application. Suggestions include: (1) Start with the goals; (2) Create a project timeline from the goals; (3) Create an evaluation plan from the timeline; (4) Group edit using a large-screen projector and laser pointers; and (5) Create the application…

  8. Read, Write, Touch: Co-Construction and Multiliteracies in a Third-Grade Digital Writing Exercise

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cordero, Kristina; Nussbaum, Miguel; Ibaseta, Valentina; Otaíza, María José; Chiuminatto, Pablo

    2018-01-01

    Many researchers and educators believe that reading and writing instruction needs to change in order to reflect the multimodal, technological, interactive nature of communication today. To date, few studies have examined how touchscreen devices may influence primary school students' reading and writing practices. Guided by Vygotsky's notion of…

  9. L1-L2 Convergence in Clausal Packaging in Japanese and English

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brown, Amanda; Gullberg, Marianne

    2013-01-01

    This study investigates L1-L2 convergence among bilinguals at an intermediate (CEFR-B2) level of L2 proficiency, focusing on the clausal packaging of Manner and Path of motion. Previous research has shown cross-linguistic differences between English and Japanese in this domain (Allen et al., 2003; Kita & Ozyurek, 2003, though note Brown &…

  10. Writing Essays: Does Self-Efficacy Matter? The Relationship between Self-Efficacy in Reading and in Writing and Undergraduate Students' Performance in Essay Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Prat-Sala, Merce; Redford, Paul

    2012-01-01

    Self-efficacy beliefs have been identified as associated with students' academic performance. The present research assessed the relationship between two new self-efficacy scales (self-efficacy in reading [SER] and self-efficacy in writing [SEW]) and students' writing performance on a piece of assessed written coursework. Using data from first and…

  11. Student Progress in a Social Work Writing Course: Self-Efficacy, Course Objectives, and Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Woody, Jane D.; Zeleny, Mary G.; D'Souza, Henry J.; Harder, Jeanette; Reiser, Jacqueline; Szto, Peter

    2014-01-01

    Although instructors express concerns about social work students' writing skills, little research has been conducted. One remedy is a social work-focused writing course. This study assessed a required writing course with a sample of 49 baccalaureate students. From online pre- and posttest surveys, 2 student outcomes improved significantly:…

  12. To Enter the Castle of Fear: Engendering Children's Story Writing from Home to School at KS2

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Millard, Elaine

    2005-01-01

    This paper describes a small-scale writing project in which a class of KS 2 primary pupils were invited to import their own narrative interests into a task designed by their teacher and the researcher within the constraints of the National Literacy Strategy. By employing an adventure genre, based on problem and puzzle solving, pupils were…

  13. Promoting Writing in Mathematics: Prospective Teachers' Experiences and Perspectives on the Process of Writing When Doing Mathematics as Problem Solving

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kuzle, Ana

    2013-01-01

    Despite a great deal of research on the benefits of writing in mathematics, writing plays a minimal role, if any, in secondary and tertiary mathematics education. In order for teachers to use writing in their classrooms, they themselves have to experience writing mathematics within the teacher education programme. The present paper reports on a…

  14. Writing, Teaching, and Researching: An Interview with Rene Saldana, Jr.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Saldana, Rene, Jr.; Moore, David W.

    2010-01-01

    Rene Saldana, Jr., an assistant professor at Texas Tech University, is a writer of short stories, poetry, and novels. In order to get his storytelling right, he has relied on his memory when writing memoirs and consulted popular culture and family when writing fiction. In order to get his university teaching right, he reads seminal texts on…

  15. The Quarterly of the National Writing Project and the Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy, 1996.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Loofbourrow, Peggy Trump, Ed.; Peterson, Art, Ed.

    1996-01-01

    This publication is devoted to concerns surrounding the teaching and learning of writing, and offers resources and ideas for professionals, including articles, interviews with prominent members of the field, book reviews, and brief updates on research by the National Center for the Study of Writing and National Writing Project activities. Articles…

  16. Assessing the writing of deaf college students: reevaluating a direct assessment of writing.

    PubMed

    Schley, Sara; Albertini, John

    2005-01-01

    The NTID Writing Test was developed to assess the writing ability of postsecondary deaf students entering the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and to determine their appropriate placement into developmental writing courses. While previous research (Albertini et al., 1986; Albertini et al., 1996; Bochner, Albertini, Samar, & Metz, 1992) has shown the test to be reliable between multiple test raters and as a valid measure of writing ability for placement into these courses, changes in curriculum and the rater pool necessitated a new look at interrater reliability and concurrent validity. We evaluated the rating scores for 236 samples from students who entered the college during the fall 2001. Using a multiprong approach, we confirmed the interrater reliability and the validity of this direct measure of assessment. The implications of continued use of this and similar tests in light of definitions of validity, local control, and the nature of writing are discussed.

  17. Keystroke Logging in Writing Research: Using Inputlog to Analyze and Visualize Writing Processes

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Leijten, Marielle; Van Waes, Luuk

    2013-01-01

    Keystroke logging has become instrumental in identifying writing strategies and understanding cognitive processes. Recent technological advances have refined logging efficiency and analytical outputs. While keystroke logging allows for ecological data collection, it is often difficult to connect the fine grain of logging data to the underlying…

  18. The Social Nature of Written Text: A Research-Based Review and Summary of Conceptual Issues in the Teaching of Writing. Concept Paper No. 8.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sperling, Melanie

    This paper reviews and summarizes research studies in writing and related language areas that help educators to understand how writing is socially based. The purpose of the paper is to cast classroom practice in the variously dim and gleaming lights of research and theory, linking practice, research, and theory by looking with a close-up lens at…

  19. Investigating Persuasive Writing by 9-11 Year Olds

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Beard, Roger; Burrell, Andrew; Homer, Matt

    2016-01-01

    Within research into children's persuasive writing, relatively little work has been done on the writing of advertisements, how such writing develops in the primary school years and the textual features that help to secure this development. Framed within rhetoric, writing and linguistics, an exploratory study was undertaken in which a standardised…

  20. Fostering Cognitive Growth Through Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sternglass, Marilyn S.

    Recent research studies and texts in composition demonstrate the growing belief that students' difficulties with the writing tasks assigned to them are inextricably linked with their difficulties in handling complex cognitive processes. Through appropriate writing activities, students can be provided with practice in the intellectual functions…