Research on second language (L2) collaborative writing (CW) has proliferated over the recent decade and will continue to bloom due to the changing landscape of writing and learning in the digital age. This article provides a research agenda on CW in L2 classrooms. We illustrate six research themes for future research inquiry by pointing out the…

Due to its authenticity as an academic writing task, integrated writing assessment has become widely used for assessing the writing ability of English for academic purposes (EAP) students (Plakans & Gebril, 2017). However, apart from validation studies focusing on a common set of standardized test rubrics (e.g., Chan, Inoue, & Taylor,…

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…

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…

Second language (L2) writing teaching and research in China have enjoyed a rich history and have had remarkable achievements. However, the extensive L2 writing literature created in China has not yet been analyzed comprehensively from theoretical, methodological, and philosophical perspectives. This research synthesis provides a metadisciplinary…

A teacher's response is a key element in students' motivation and achievement in college writing courses. The area of Written Corrective Feedback (Ferris, 1999; Truscott, 1996) has been extensively studied in second language (L2) writing scholarship, but that research, to date, has not elucidated why individual instructors respond to students'…

Despite the growing interest in investigating the pedagogical application of Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) systems, studies on the process of AWE-supported writing are still scant. Adopting activity theory as the framework, this qualitative study aims to examine how students incorporated AWE feedback into their writing in an English as a…

Although the concept of contrastive rhetoric has received considerable attention in research on second language writing, it has not been adequately examined in a linguistically complex context such as Tunisia. This study is an attempt to contribute to the growing body of research on second language writing through investigating the validity of the…

Much research has been completed that focused on the role of drafting strategies in first language (L1) writing, but its role in second language (L2) writing is missing. The present study investigated the impact of outlining and free writing strategies on L2 academic writing in terms of overall quality, as well as more specifically in terms of…

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…

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…

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…

Think-aloud protocols (TAPs) are frequently used in research on essay rating processes. However, there are very few empirical studies of the completeness of TAP data and the effects of this technique on rater performance (i.e., rating processes and outcomes). This study aims to start to address this research gap. As part of a larger study on rater…

Despite the debate among writing researchers about its viability as a pedagogical tool in writing instruction [e.g., Helms-Park, R., & Stapleton, P. (2003). "Questioning the importance of individualized voice in undergraduate L2 argumentative writing: An empirical study with pedagogical implications." "Journal of Second Language Writing," 12 (3),…

Examines the responses of 10 veteran teachers to an essay written by an ESL student and concludes that most teachers continue to mark only surface errors, even in ESL essays. (DF)