Second Language (L2) writing has always been a matter of difficulty for foreign language learners and an appealing topic for researchers of the field. Following a quasi-experimental method, this study aimed to investigate the comparative effects of shared, interactive, and independent writing on Lebanese EFL learners' writing accuracy and complexity. To achieve this aim, 74 non-Iranian female EFL learners were selected through convenience sampling technique. The results of Oxford placement test indicated that their level of English proficiency was intermediate. Afterward, the participants were assigned to three experimental groups (i.e., shared, interactive, and independent writing groups). The syntactic accuracy was gauged in terms of t-units and complexity was calculated based in the number of the words in t-units. The results of statistical analysis manifested that the group which used interactive writing strategies outperformed the other two groups, and no significant differences were found between shared and independent writing groups. Moreover, the performance of the interactive writing group differed significantly from those of the other two groups. Hence, it was concluded that interactive writing strategy may lead to a more accurate and complex writing performance. This study might have implications for language instructors, EFL learners, material developers, and also syllabus designers.

The present study explores the effect of providing different types of written corrective feedback (WCF) on 79 Iranian EFL learners’ writings over time through a pre-test, immediate post-test and delayed post-test. In this way, the study first aims to investigate the extent to which different types of WCF result in improved accuracy in writing over a period of two months, and then maintains to see if there is a differential effect on accuracy when the students are required to revise their writings based on the feedback provided to them over this period. However, to narrow down the scope of the study, considering the level of the learners, and the type and complexity level of the expected writing tasks, it was decided to use the three linguistic errors (capitalization errors, the correct use of definite and indefinite articles, and simple present tense verb) which occurred mostly frequently during the participants' first writing tasks as the target linguistic structures of the work. After analyzing the collected data, it was found that providing WCF indeed contributes to the accuracy of the students’ writings because the results indicated each type of feedback employed in the treatment groups could clearly bring about writing improvement at varying degrees. In particular, the findings suggested that direct feedback might bring about greater effects on students’ writing accuracy, whereas different types of feedback are more likely to produce rather long term improvement and/or learning over time.

The present study investigates whether the type of feedback (direct or indirect) given to 41 intermediate EFL learners on six types of errors (verb tense, noun ending, word choice, sentence structure, article and preposition) results in improved accuracy both in the short and long terms. To this purpose, English students in a writing class at the University of Guilan divided randomly into direct, indirect and control groups were presented with the same topics to write about. The errors on pretest, posttest 1 and posttest 2 in each group were detected and the means of errors were investigated by ANOVA analysis. At last, the study found a significant effect for the indirect feedback on accuracy improvement in the use of the verb tense, noun endings, sentence structure and articles in both short and long term periods, but no significant effect for the preposition in the long term and word choice in either time periods. Although the direct feedback significantly affected the accuracy level for the use of noun endings, prepositions, articles and sentence structure in the short term, it did not demonstrate any statistical significance in the long term. Moreover, no effect on verb errors and wrong words were found in either time periods. Finally, the indirect group outperformed the direct one on accuracy improvement for the total number of errors. The study also considered the use of avoidance strategy due to the provided corrective feedback and found that, in spite of the probability of the tendency towards using it, providing corrective feedback is still necessary in improving L2 writing accuracy.

The usefulness of error correction in improving students’ grammatical accuracy has been the focus of attention in the past decades, and hot debates have raged on over this issue. There is yet no clear answer, to date, as to the efficacy of feedback and its various types. The aim of this study is, thus, to shed more light on the relative effectiveness of feedback per se and also the efficiency of some types of grammatical feedback, delivered electronically through MS Word software, over the others in improving students’ written accuracy. Research questions Is there any effect, whatsoever, for different types of feedback (i. e. direct, indication only & indication plus location) when delivered electronically in improving students’ level of grammatical accuracy? Is there any priority for each of the above feedback types over the others? Method Participants The participants of this study included 85 Iranian English majors. Of the total participants, 53 were female and 32 were male. The number of females and males were 15 and 11, 13 and 6, 12 and 8 and, 13 and 7 for control group, direct feedback group, indication group and indication and location group respectively. Design and procedure This study employed a pretest-treatment-posttest format. Of the four groups involved in the study, three were treatment groups and one was the control group. In the first treatment group, direct feedback group, the correct form of the students’ grammatical errors was provided. The two other treatment groups were, however, both provided with indirect feedback. In one of them, the indication-only group, the students were provided with an indication in the margin of the line in which the error was committed to show that an error or errors have occurred. The indication and location group was provided with feedback as to the exact word or phrase in the text that included a grammatical error. Analysis To answer the first research question (i. e. its three sub-questions), three paired sample T-test were used. The second research question (i. e. its three sub-questions) was answered using one-way ANOVA. Results Significant difference was found between the pretest and the posttest of the direct feedback group in the mean rate of errors (t=3. 475; p‹ . 05). It means that the provision of direct written corrective feedback has been effective in improving students’ level of accuracy to a statistically significant level. However, the second group of the study, the indication only group, did not show any significant improvement in accuracy from the pretest to the posttest (t=1. 627; p› . 05). No significant improvement in grammatical accuracy was also observed for the indication and location group. The primary result of the analysis indicated that there was a significant difference between the four groups with respect to their improvement from the pretest to the posttest (F=6. 771; p‹ . 001). To further investigate the details of this comparison Tukey’ s post hoc measure was used. Tukey’ s index indicated that there were significant differences between direct feedback group on the one hand and control group (p‹ . 001), indication only group (p‹ . 05) and indication and location group (p‹ . 05). It was, in fact, the direct corrective feedback group whose improvement in accuracy was statistically significantly higher than the other groups. No other significant difference was found between other pairs of the groups with respect to accuracy improvement. Conclusion An explanation for the findings of the first question can be offered with regard to Schmidt (1990) noticing hypothesis. Among the three types of feedback offered to the groups of the study, direct feedback is apparently the most noticeable. This characteristic may lend this type of feedback to longer retention and quicker internalization. Comparison of the means of improvement for the three treatment groups clearly indicates that the direct group made the most substantial improvement of all. The second substantial improvement is made by indication and location group and the lowest improvement was made by the indication only group. This ranking of improvement is in other words a ranking of noticeability of feedback, and although not consistent with many parts of the literature, is totally consistent with some others especially Schmidt’ s noticing hypothesis. The findings of the second research question can also be interpreted and justified in light of the noticing hypothesis. This point that the direct feedback turned out to make a significant difference and is significantly different from other types of feedback can be justified in light of the fact that the participants of this study were roughly (and not definitely) of the intermediate level of proficiency. For these students, getting involved in problem solving (as the indirect types of feedback requires) while at the same time involved in the quite demanding task of following the ideas might be rather over-demanding, hence distracting their attention. Also, there are many grammatical points which are yet totally unknown to intermediate students and therefore any involvement in problem solving will lead nowhere, no matter how much effort the student makes. This point is also well recognized by Ferris and Roberts (2001) who suggest that direct feedback is perhaps more efficient than indirect corrective feedback with writers of low levels of proficiency.

Following previous studies reporting a beneficial effect for pre-task planning on learners' task performance, the present research takes into account the possible effects of directing learners' attention to meaning and form of language on their written production while they have one- and five-minute strategic planning time. The study randomly categorized 48 intermediate learners of English into six groups and asked them to undertake a narrative task under form focused, meaning focused, and unguided planning conditions each with one or five minutes of strategic planning time. Their performances were analyzed by a set of fluency and accuracy measures whose results were put into one-way ANOVA. As for the comparison under one-minute planning condition, form focused planners outperformed the other two groups in both measures. Similar results were obtained under the five-minute planning condition. The results also showed that five-minute planning condition enhanced the learners' fluency of production more than their accuracy, unlike one-minute planning condition. It is proposed that the form focused planning condition better promotes writing processes than meaning focused and unguided planning conditions; besides, the longer the planning time is, the more fluency is fostered whereas the shorter the planning time is, the more accurate the learners' production would be.

This study investigated whether formative and summative self-assessments have any differential effect on the writing performance and self- rating accuracy of Iranian EFL learners. In so doing, sixty homogenized intermediate EFL learners were assigned to two assessment conditions. After the administration of a paragraph writing pretest, the self-rating scale was introduced to the students of both groups. In the formative group, the students practiced self- assessment after each writing assignment during the term. Self- assessment error scores were, then, computed, and the students could see their accuracy extent in their self-assessment during the term. In the summative group, the students’ accuracy of self- assessment during the term was considered in their final term score. To check the students’ improvement in writing and rating accuracy, a posttest self-assessment was administered. ANCOVA results revealed under both conditions, equal improvement occurred in the students' writing. However, the summative group students improved much more significantly in self-rating accuracy.

Objective(s): To evaluate accuracy of writing of published papers in biomedical scientific journals in Tehran, Iran.Methods: In this cross sectional study, all original articles published in two scientific journals in 2010 were evaluated.Different topics of articles, including abstract, introduction, methods and materials, results, discussion and references were assessed. Totally, 52 items were evaluated and classified as 3 categories of “correct”, “relatively correct” and “incorrect”.Results: Seventy-seven original articles were evaluated in two journals. Accuracy of writing were as follows: 47% correct, 50.5% relatively correct, and 2.5% incorrect. Inaccuracy among incorrect writing articles were: abstract 31.65%t, introduction 35.5%, methods and materials 44%, results 21%, discussion 68.6%, and references 41.35%.Conclusion: The findings suggest that there is considerable inaccuracy in published articles of scientific research journals.Implementation of measures to prevent such scientific mistakes seems necessary.

Background: According to growing increase of scientific journals in Iran and importance of precise methodology and validity of findings, and also lack of information about quality of published articles, this study was designed to evaluate accuracy of article writing of articles published in dentistry journals in 2006. Materials and methods: In this descriptive study, all original articles of dentistry journals were evaluated. Research methodology in different topics of articles, including abstract, introduction, methods and materials, results, discussion and references were assessed. Totally, 52 items were evaluated and classified as 3 categories of “correct”, “relatively correct” and “incorrect”. Data analysis was done by Chi-square. Results: one-hundred original articles were published in the study period. Mean (± standard deviation) number of authors was 2.9±0.84. The most frequent type of study was experimental-in vitro study (46%), followed by descriptive (33%), clinical trial (10%) and historical cohort (6%). The frequency of instrument validity report absence was 96%, no exact calculation of sample size 93%, unjustification of article publication 73%, and lack of restriction and valuable findings report 87%. Conclusion: There are great defects in published articles of dentistry journals. Implementations for reducing mistakes in article writing result in increasing validity of articles and application of true study results.

This quasi-experimental study set out to examine the effect of peer corrective feedback on feedback givers and receivers in L2 writing. The forms in focus were a/an, the, and the past tense. The study was conducted in an EFL classroom setting with 45 learners of English in three writing classes which served as the feedback givers, receivers, and the control group. Over four sessions of treatment, the givers reviewed the writing of the receivers with two functions of English articles (a/an as the first mention and the as the anaphoric reference) and simple past tense (regular and irregular) as the features in focus without receiving any comments from others on their writing. The receivers received feedback from peers, but were excluded from giving any feedback to others. The control group neither gave nor received any peer feedback. The study followed a pretest, immediate post-test, delayed post-test design. Statistical analyses run on the data obtained from a picture description task and a grammaticality judgment task indicated that the givers group improved significantly more than the receivers group and the receivers group, in turn, improved significantly more than the control group in terms of the forms targeted. The results obtained imply that learners’ involvement in peer writing correction can result in significant L2 writing accuracy.