Students are expected to interpret the complexities and nuances of literary texts yet might struggle with interpreting texts in ways that are valued in literary studies. Examining students' language choices can support instructors and students with developing concrete, explicit understandings of the ways language creates meanings in discourse.…

In this article, I make sense of my encounters with the language of objectivity as a student, tutor, mentor, and researcher. I rely on Dorothy E. Smith's conceptualisation of the ethic of objectivity, a practice that requires the student to devalue their embodied experience while ripping it from their experiential knowledge, which in turn they…

Purpose: This paper aims to show how an Academic Literacies lens can contribute to a deeper understanding of writing for a professional doctorate (PD) by focusing both on the language of supervisors' written feedback and on student and supervisor perspectives on feedback throughout Year 1 (Y1). Design/methodology/approach: Firstly, written…

Broadly defined, academic language (AL) is a set of lexical-grammatical norms and registers commonly used in educational and academic discourse. Mastery of academic language in writing is an important aspect of writing instruction and assessment. The purpose of this study was to use Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools to examine the extent to…

Background: This exploratory writing analytics study uses argumentative writing samples from two performance contexts--standardized writing assessments and university English course writing assignments--to compare: (1) linguistic features in argumentative writing; and (2) relationships between linguistic characteristics and academic performance…

Corpus-based studies of lexical bundles have opened new avenues for language teaching research. The fact that naturally occurring language consists of patterns of lexical repetition and multi-word units has given rise to the question of chunkiness in learner language. This study was designed to examine lexical bundles and their functions in a…

This study is an investigation of the effects of linguistic features on quality of second language (L2) writers' essays for writing course placement at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB), and by implication at other universities and colleges. This study addresses the following research questions: (1) To what extent do selected linguistic…

This study examined the differences and similarities among the writing of three types of developmental English and advanced ESL United States community college students, comparing the writing of resident English learners (RL2), whose home language was not English but who attended United States public schools for five years or more, to that of…

This study describes academic literacy development during mid-adolescence, when learners need to adjust to the demands of academic discourse as a gateway to linguistic adulthood. Unlike most research to date, which is cross-sectional and detached from disciplinary content, this study provides a two-year longitudinal description of academic…

This paper outlines the research agenda of a framework that integrates corpus- and genre-based approaches to academic writing research and pedagogy. This framework posits two primary goals of academic writing pedagogy, that is, to help novice writers develop knowledge of the rhetorical functions characteristic of academic discourse and become…

Source-based writing is a complex and frequently occurring task type in postsecondary education. While a large body of research now exists investigating source-based student writing, few studies have used corpus-based methods to investigate L1 student performance on source-based writing tasks and to connect this performance to the holistic quality…

Classroom assessment practices can be confusing for many teachers. Terminology is numerous and elusive. Different types of assessment serve different purposes. This short discussion paper's contribution originates from my own attempt to determine whether analytic scales would be more appropriate than holistic scales for assessing the L2 writing…

Because few studies of disciplinary business writing have examined whether language features play a role in instructor assessment of student writing, this study explored the relationship between student language use and instructor essay scores. Undergraduate business students wrote a case study critique as part of their final exam, and their…

Peer review is generally regarded as a useful learning tool for students, providing them with opportunities to interact with their peers when engaging in the process of critical reading and critical thinking, thus possibly raising students' motivation to learn. For peer review to be a manageable task for students, appropriate scaffolding is…

Voice is considered essential in academic writing, and metadiscourse is an important device contributing to voice. This study explores the use of metadiscourse and voice construction in Bachelor of Arts (BA) theses written at the onset and final stages by university undergraduates majoring in English in China. A corpus consisting of the discussion…