Purpose: Punctuation is traditionally seen to represent grammatical structures in writing, but some authors argue that it can also reflect the intonation and pauses of speech. In two experiments, we examined the influence of grammar and prosody on adults' judgments of comma placement. Method: University students rated the appropriateness of commas…

In this conceptual paper, borne from the experiences of two academic literacy lecturers at the NWU, we ask, regarding elements of assessment, how we can sensibly adapt an intervention-style writing course in a post-COVID higher education context. We propose a course correction model, applicable to academic literacy writing courses, to address the…

Writing is an important part of creative thinking as it is the reflection of a person's thoughts and reasoning. The aim with this study was to create a comprehensive and effective educational model that combines the teaching and practice of writing as a process and creative writing in a collaborative environment in the education of prospective…

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) software is an increasingly popular tool for English second language learners. However, research on the accuracy of such software has been both scarce and largely limited in its scope. As such, this article broadens the field of research on AWE accuracy by using a mixed design to holistically evaluate the…

Whether dealing with their native or a foreign language, both teachers and students have consistently found writing skills to be difficult to achieve. Students are concerned about initiating and structuring their thoughts, while teachers struggle to inspire their students to improve their writing capabilities. Hence, this experimental study…

This study offers a bibliometric overview of the English language assessment research from 1992 to 2024. It aims to uncover the current state, research trends, and future directions of the field. A total of 927 articles published in Web of Science (WoS) were analyzed using the VOSviewer bibliometric software tool. Based on the sample of 927…

With the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) frameworks (e.g., the generative pre-trained transformer [GPT]), a growing number of researchers have started to explore its potential as an automated essay scoring (AES) system. While previous studies have investigated the alignment between human ratings and GPT ratings, few…

This study aimed to compare the impact of e-portfolios on the motivation and autonomy of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Ninety intermediate learners were selected from 120 volunteers at a Tehran Language Institute. They were divided into three groups: two experimental groups using eportfolios and the other using paper-based…

This study explores how connecting reading and writing through a process-genre approach enhances EFL learners' academic writing competence. Based on quantitative and qualitative data, the study demonstrates that students made statistically significant improvements across seven writing traits, with the most substantial gains observed in discourse…

The halo effect is raters' undesirable tendency to assign more similar ratings across rating criteria than they should. The impacts of the halo effect on ratings have been studied in rater-mediated L2 writing assessment. Little is known, however, about the extent to which rating criteria order in analytic rating scales is associated with the…

Automated writing scoring can not only provide holistic scores but also instant and corrective feedback on L2 learners' writing quality. It has been increasing in use throughout China and internationally. Given the advantages, the past several years has witnessed the emergence and growth of writing evaluation products in China. To the best of our…

Students will very often write incomplete explanations when asked to do so. This may be due to various reasons, including but not limited to a lack of understanding of the content or a lack of motivation. Developing an understanding of how students form and orally express scientific explanations (i.e., participating in scientific discourse) and…

Traditionally, the previous writing learning enterprise strictly focused its concern on gaining the fixed results from EFL educators in the form of scores or judgments. However, nowadays writing learning venture gradually abandons this old method to be replaced by formative assessment approach. It is strongly believed by worldwide researchers that…

This study aimed to elucidate the organization and developmental sequences of macro-structure elements in the written narratives of 44 students in Japan, aged 7-11 years and attending the same school, who were deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). A high-point analysis of oral paper puppet play storylines revealed that the students were able to develop…

This study seeks to investigate the relationship between text formality and writing quality by quantifying text formality in EFL English writing. In order to conduct the research, 548 English argumentation compositions were evaluated in terms of the five Coh-Metrix text formality dimensions: narrativity, syntactic simplicity, word concreteness,…