Different topics, different discourse: Relationships among writing topic, measures of syntactic complexity, and judgments of writing quality

Yang, Weiwei; Lu, Xiaofei; Weigle, Sara Cushing

doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2015.02.002

Cited by 240 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Choosing argumentative writing in the context of Flanders has the consequence that the findings on the aspects mentioned above are highly dependent on this context. In other words, more research should be done on the extent to which the conclusions of this study can be replicated when other texts are assessed (Yang, Lu, & Weigle, 2015) within another country or using another type of assessor. Meanwhile, this study gives a thorough insight into how argumentative writing is understood by the teachers in Flanders.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When teachers compare argumentative texts: Decisions informed by multiple complex aspects of text quality

Lesterhuis¹,

Daal²,

Gasse³

et al. 2018

L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature

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Insight into aspects that guide teachers' decisions when assessing student text quality is crucial to an understanding of the validity of text scores. Such research has been lacking in the context of comparative methods which are, however, increasingly being used for text assessment purposes. This study reports on the aspects of argumentative texts that guide Flemish teachers' decisions when using the comparative judgement method. In using this method, teachers indicate which text of a pair is of higher quality. 27 teachers explained 23 comparative judgements in a decision statement, when comparing randomly selected texts written by 135 students in their fifth year of general secondary education. This resulted in 596 statements referring to 2054 segments of aspects of text quality. Firstly, an inductive analysis revealed that teachers consider a wide range of aspects with regard to text quality when making comparison decisions. Secondly, the deductive aggregation of these aspects showed that most decisions are informed by the organisation and argumentation of the texts. Lastly, almost all statements reported complex aspects of text quality, whereas half of the decision statements also showed a reflection on the rule-applying aspects of text quality. We conclude that comparative judgement encourages teachers to make decisions on complex and multiple aspects of text quality. Further research should elaborate on whether the aspects that informed teachers' decisions are related to the text they choose, and whether teachers differ in the aspects to which they refer.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When teachers compare argumentative texts: Decisions informed by multiple complex aspects of text quality

Lesterhuis¹,

Daal²,

Gasse³

et al. 2018

L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature

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show abstract

“…A number of cross-sectional studies have examined the extent to which different syntactic complexity measures reliably index L2 writers' global proficiency (e.g., Ai & Lu, 2013;Bardovi-Harlig & Bofman, 1989;Ferris, 1994;Lu, 2011;Sotillo, 2000) or writing quality (e.g., Taguchi et al, 2013;Yang et al, 2015). For example, Lu (2011) analyzed a large collection of essays written by Chinese learners of English from different college years using 14 syntactic complexity measures and recommended a subset of those measures as good candidates of proficiency indices.…”

Section: Syntactic Complexity and Second Language Writingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The importance of syntactic complexity in second language (L2) writing research and pedagogy has long been recognized, as evidenced in the large number of studies that have examined the relationship of syntactic complexity in L2 writing to L2 proficiency (e.g., Ai & Lu, 2013;Lu, 2011;Norrby & Håkansson, 2007;Ortega, 2000Ortega, , 2003Stockwell & Harirington, 2003;Vyatkina, 2013;Wolfe-Quintero, Inagaki, & Kim, 1998) or the quality of L2 writing (e.g., Taguchi, Crawford, & Wetzel, 2013;Yang, Lu, & Weigle, 2015) over the past two decades. Results from such studies have shown that some measures of syntactic complexity may be reliably used to differentiate levels of L2 proficiency, and some to predict the quality of L2 writing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Results from such studies have shown that some measures of syntactic complexity may be reliably used to differentiate levels of L2 proficiency, and some to predict the quality of L2 writing. Meanwhile, researchers have also found that syntactic complexity in L2 writing may be affected by various learner-, task-, and context-related factors, such as topic, genre, planning time, and instructional setting, among others (e.g., Ellis & Yuan, 2004;Lu, 2011;Ortega, 2003;Sotillo, 2000;Way, Joiner, & Seaman, 2000;Yang et al, 2015). Collectively, these studies have yielded very useful insights into how the construct of syntactic complexity should be conceived and utilized in L2 writing research and pedagogy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Syntactic complexity in college-level English writing: Differences among writers with diverse L1 backgrounds

2015

Journal of Second Language Writing

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252

119

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“…Cross-sectional studies like those by Lorenzo and Rodríguez (2014), and Yang, Lu, and Weigle (2015) investigate written development. Lorenzo and Rodríguez (2014) approached the appearance and evolution of academic written language structures in a second language, in formal bilingual contexts.…”

Section: Review Of the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of EFL Writing in Secondary Education

Lahuerta-Martínez¹

EPiC Series in Language and Linguistics

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The aim of this paper is to examine secondary education learners' performance in L2 writing production using the complexity, accuracy, and fluency constructs. Results show that the measures of fluency, accuracy, grammatical and lexical complexity progress in a significant way: fourth grade students outperform first graders in the aforementioned measures. Secondly, fewer correlations between the writing measures used and the general quality of the compositions are found among the older students than among the younger ones, indicating that the correlations change depending on learners' age. Thirdly, 1st year students exhibit a higher ratio of errors, both in general and also by error category, although only two types decrease significantly in 4th year students: syntactic and spelling errors. Lastly, we find that errors tend to develop in a non-linear way.

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Different topics, different discourse: Relationships among writing topic, measures of syntactic complexity, and judgments of writing quality

Cited by 240 publications

References 35 publications

When teachers compare argumentative texts: Decisions informed by multiple complex aspects of text quality

When teachers compare argumentative texts: Decisions informed by multiple complex aspects of text quality

Syntactic complexity in college-level English writing: Differences among writers with diverse L1 backgrounds

Analysis of EFL Writing in Secondary Education

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