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Introduction:
The article "Improving Undergraduates’ and Postgraduates’ Academic Writing Skills with Strategy Training and Feedback," published in Frontiers in Education, investigates the effectiveness of different writing strategies and feedback types on the academic writing skills of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Authored by Anke Wischgoll from Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, the study provides valuable insights into how structured training and feedback can enhance writing quality.
Summary of Key Points:
The study explores three main writing strategies: text structure application, summarization, and language use. It also examines two types of feedback: informative tutoring feedback and try-again feedback. The research aims to determine whether these strategies and feedback types improve the coherence and overall quality of academic writing among students.
Key findings include:
• Text Structure Knowledge Application: This strategy positively affects academic writing skills by promoting coherence.
• Feedback Effectiveness: Undergraduates benefit more from informative tutoring feedback, while postgraduates show greater improvement with try-again feedback.
• Combination of Strategies and Feedback: The combination of writing strategies and feedback did not significantly enhance text quality beyond the individual effects of each.
Methodology:
The study involved 212 undergraduate and postgraduate students who participated in a 2-hour experimental intervention in a computer-based learning environment. Participants were divided into three groups, each receiving different writing strategy training. After writing an abstract of an empirical article, they received either try-again feedback or informative tutoring feedback while revising their drafts. The researchers used analyses of covariance to assess the impact of these interventions on writing skills and text quality.
Discussion and Implications:
The findings suggest that tailored writing strategy training and feedback can significantly improve academic writing skills. For educators, this means that implementing specific training programs and providing appropriate feedback can help students develop better writing habits. The study also highlights the importance of differentiating feedback based on the students' academic levels to maximize its effectiveness.
Conclusion:
Overall, the article makes a significant contribution to the field of educational psychology by demonstrating the benefits of strategy training and feedback in improving academic writing skills. The thorough methodology and clear presentation of results enhance the credibility of the study. These insights can inform the development of more effective writing support programs in higher education.
Personal Reflection:
As a reader, I found the article to be well-structured and informative. The authors effectively contextualize their findings within the broader literature on academic writing and feedback. This article is a valuable resource for educators and researchers looking to enhance the writing skills of undergraduate and postgraduate students.
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Hello, which question would you like to be answered?
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Academic writing is the core of all writings. If you want to improve your academic writing skills, it’s better to learn from experts. Striving for the best will help you grow. To aid you in that, I have prepared a set of tips with the help of professional research paper writers. Let it be the base of your improvement journey.
What Tips do you want to add here? I would love to hear from you:
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You may find several ideas in these discussions:
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Why did you choose to become an academic? Because you're curious? Are you a good observer? Do you have good language or writing skills? Do you want to be known and read? Is there some ego involved in this choice? And can it be done to make more money?
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I have chosen to become a researcher because I love research and I want to share my research with other researchers. In fact, my goal is to contribute something to academia. Research is meant to be published and shared with others, so that they can gain insights from it and replicate it in other contexts.
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How can we demonstrate the efficacy of multimodal composing in enhancing writing skills, particularly in the context of academic writing, given the prevalent skepticism surrounding its effectiveness in improving academic writing skills? are there any methods or techniques of analyzing students' multimodal products to showcase improvement in terms of macro or micro-skills of writing? concerning coherence, content, organization, etc.
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Hello, Nikhil
You can analyze students' traditional academic writing before and after engaging in multimodal projects using measures of writing quality like a rubric. Look for improvements from the baseline in areas like organization, coherence, evidence use, style etc. I also suggest you to consider using a survey. The survey should be addressed for students on their perceived improvements in writing skills after completing a multimodal project. Also survey their confidence levels in applying writing skills to academic tasks before and after. Good luck
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I think using ChatGPT and other AI tools is genuinely saving a lot of time. Yet, their inclusion in the academic sector is killing the creativities and writing skills of the students and academics. You are welcome to throw your comments!
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Using AI tools like chat GPT will increase benefits ,at the same time reduce human potentiality .It either enhance or reduce personal productivity, depending on how they are integrated into one's workflow and the nature of the tasks involved. It's essential for individuals and organizations to make a balance.
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I'm doing a research on writing skill and writing activities which are included in coursebooks that are used in colleges or in university preparatory programs in Turkey. I am planning to compare two coursebooks. I'd like to highlight the similarities and point out the differences of the wiritng activities, even the syllabi of these two coursebooks. Are there any evaluation criteria for this? Could you suggest me some dissertations or papers to read in order to create the basis of my research?
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Hi,
Thanks for the update. Sounds like you're doing thorough research. Best wishes.
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biotechnology
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Focus on your own PhD and writing it as articles in HI journals. Do not let anyone have access to your data :)
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I am in the process of writing a theoritical framework for teaching and learning the two productive language skills (speaking and writing) using technology, and I would like to explain that process relying on three theories, which are Vygotiskan theory, Swain's hypothesis of output and Long's interaction hypothesis. So, how should I organize the framework in an appropriate way, which can be well-organized and coherent?
Your guidance is really appreciated.
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A theoretical framework for teaching speaking and writing skills using technology could be organized as follows:
I. Introduction A. Background information B. Purpose of the study C. Research questions
II. Theoretical Framework A. Vygotiskan theory and its application in teaching-speaking and writing skills B. Swain's hypothesis of output and its relevance to teaching-speaking and writing skills C. Long's interaction hypothesis and how it can be used in teaching-speaking and writing skills D. Integration of the three theories
III. Technology-based Language Learning (TBLL) A. Definition and Explanation B. Advantages and Disadvantages of TBLL C. The role of TBLL in teaching-speaking and writing skills
IV. Methodology A. Research design B. Participants C. Data collection and analysis D. Ethical considerations
V. Results A. Analysis of TBLL B. Learners' perceptions about TBLL C. Results of the intervention
VI. Discussion A. Main findings and implications B. Theoretical contributions C. Practical contributions D. Limitations of the study and suggested areas for further research
VII. Conclusion A. Summary of the study B. Conclusion C. Recommendations
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I would like to improve the students' knowledge related to writing skill.
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Hola Rolando, puedes utilizar el método REAPSES, es una nueva metodología de enseñanza, se trabajan rincones de estilos de aprendizaje. En primer lugar, es necesario conocer qué estilos de aprendizaje se presentan en el aula (activos, pragmáticos, reflexivos, teóricos), después, se crean rincones según los estilos, posteriormente, se plantean actividades dirigidas a trabajar un tema en común y que cada rincón según sus habilidades aporten al conocimiento elaborando un producto según su forma de aprender (ya sea a través de una herramienta digital, infografías...)
Un saludo,
Reina Castellanos
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how can teacher mentoring approach enhance university teachers' research and writing skills
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Teacher mentoring can be a valuable approach for enhancing university teachers' research and writing skills.
A mentor can provide guidance and feedback on research and writing skills, including topics such as research design, data analysis, academic writing, and publishing strategies. This can help teachers to develop their skills in a targeted and personalized way, and to receive constructive feedback that can help them to improve.
A mentor who is a skilled researcher and writer can model good practices for their mentee, including how to write effective research proposals, conduct rigorous research, and publish in high-quality journals. This can help teachers to see examples of best practices in action and to learn from experienced researchers and writers.
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Hello!
My name is Barbara, and I am a current graduate student at Arizona State University in the MA Education program. I am in the midst of a research class. I am looking into strategies for improving reading comprehension and skills and writing skills for students with Dyslexia in elementary grades.
I hope to find more current research studies and gather professional opinions on this topic. Do you have any best strategies you would suggest for improving reading and writing skills with these learners?
Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my questions.
Regards,
Barbara Lucke
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1. Discuss the topic of the passage about to be read. Ask the student what words he thinks might appear in the story. You could perhaps write these words out ( the ones that actually do appear) and learn them ahead of time. Discussing the topic ahead of time regularly, will help the student understand how being sensitive to context is helpful in terms of predicting the next word.
2. Read from a bookstand. This will prevent the waste of valuable resources that could be being used for visual and language processing, being used instead to:
a) hold the head up when in a forward-leaning posture.
b) focusing ( accommodation)
c) eye-teaming
The change made in freeing up resources with the bookstand ( ideally for reading and writing) can be very significant indeed.
3. Besides knowing what words sound like, good spellers know what words look like. Training this vision skill (visualization) is essential for being a good speller, and to be good at mental arithmetic too. You need to be able to compare what you wrote with the image of the word generated in your brain. That's when we say " Hmmmm, that doesn't look write".
This is critical when working in the context of opaque orthographies.
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I would like to discuss about the writing skill capacity of the hearing impaired students and searching for good ideas for making new strategy.
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Developed by visual viewing of visual educational materials
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As I've been researching how to improve literacy skills in middle school students, I've found a lot of fascinating work being done, including this case study of morphological skills' role in literacy development. In my view, this study is another confirmation that there are proven methods of promoting writing skills that don't rely on rote memorization or endless drilling - it's all about producing MEANING for students! What other approaches are you aware of to help students better develop their literacy skills?
#researchisrelevant #coe501Summer22 #forksup
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You could organize some projects with your students that are meaningful to them and can be used on their daily life. For example; write a letter to a friend who moved to another country or gather information and write an essay about their favorite singer etc.
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I am currently a 3rd year Civil Engineering Undergraduate. I have a particular interest in the Geotechnical discipline, which I have come to learn that a good base of report writing skills are needed to convey your designs. Not to mention the various types of reports which I would needed to become familiar with.
Would anyone have any text books or courses they would recommend to improve my grammatical and writing skills, perhaps specifically catered towards Civil/Geotechnical Engineering Reports? I am taking this opportunity to prepare for both my thesis project next year and my future career.
Thank you everyone for your help in advance. Any advice will be highly appreciated.
Wil
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Dear Student,
You should take Academic writing courses from SWAYAM, NPTEL, it will not only improve your technical writing skills but also the certificate will add to your academic credit.
Academic Writing
By Dr Ajay Semalty
Effective Writing
By Prof. Binod Mishra  
Academic & Research Report Writing
By Dr. Samir Roy
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Greeting Scholars I am preparing to apply and begin my Doctorate journey in Higher Educational Leadership. I have not been a student in over 5 years and want to improve my research doctorate scholarly writing skills for the doctorate journey. Please recommend any courses - self-paced, on-line, and/or just support resources that some have used and/or recommend
As well as ones to stay away from
Thank you in advance
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Alisa Parmer I believe you will need to learn (a) scholarly writing style and (b) test/reference citation format. I can recommend a couple of videos and coaching courses. All are free (at least don't give out money until you have searched for more courses first).
More specifically I highly recommend the APA writing style likely it will be mandated by your university - check with your supervisor and also ask that person as well as your librarian if there are any resources at your own university which may help you! Hope this helps! My textbook discusses the research design and satistical methods across all disciplines so you may find that helpful or contact my colleague Narasimha Rao Vajjhala is you are planning to use a qualitative grounded theory approach. -Ken
Strang, K. D. (2015). Handbook of Research Design in Business and Management. New York: Springer-Palgrave-Macmillan. (pp. 1-565. Available). https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137484956 doi:10.1057/9781137484956.
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The theme of the above-noted article is comparable to this already published article: An author’s guide to mastering academic writing skills: Discussion of a medical manuscript.
I mean one is not so aware of journals in the discipline of Education and Teaching that may be suited for such scientific content? Or rather journals that bridge the gap between Education and Medicine?
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I intend to understand the common errors in writing Formal emails, understand the difficulties students face in academic writing. What are the common areas that students fail in academic writing? How does Online teaching impact/impair the students' academic writing Skills?
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I also agree with Ajit Singh. Thanks to Kezia Mkwizu and Norleen Soko for their contributions from which I also have benefited.
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Hope to have a good academic discussion going. Thanking all of you in advance for your ideas and comments.
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Hi Airil Haimi Mohd Adnan - absolutely. Given that many doctoral students will wish to continue an academic career following graduation, the ability to write like an academic (which often requires development) is an extremely important skill.
Very best wishes, James.
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I am currently working on my research paper about the Impact of Communication Disorders on Reading and Writing Skills of Special Education Learners, and I am currently working on my instrument. My Research Adviser suggested to look for instrument, but I can't find any thing.
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Dear Lica Rose Cortez Gares ,
Take a look at the following article:
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When using CLT, other than relying on explicitly pointing out syntactic slots, (Subj, Adv, etc.), to be filled with appropriate grammatical forms, (such as word, phrase and clause types), it seems that students do not fully understand how they can build sentences or even embed recursiveness. Without this learning of form they are merely trying to memorize situational vocabulary - with or without knowledge of strategic competence. Many forms or structures must be taught explicitly - at first, especially for learning upper level writing skills. When teaching ESL, even in Task Based Learning, language learning can not succeed without structural models and graphic strategies.
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Dear Author:
I am very glad to read your research about the vocabulary learning. Now I am doing a project about the vocabulary learning impact of reading. I would like to ask you that in a certain period, if teachers give more words to the kids, it can improve their reading?
thank
Juan Liu
Mert Kurnaz
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How can you develop your writing skills
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Practice this daily. Even if you don't have to write every day at work, practice writing in some way every day. Focus your time on the types of writing where you most need to improve.
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What are the advantages of of writing chapters in edited book?
Do they enhance writing skills?
Do they enhance Research aptitude?
Feedbacks are welcomed.
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Book chapters tend to be longer and tend to be more conceptual in nature than a journal article. If they are based on a research project, they need an extensive discussion.
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Hello folks,
I'm interested in knowing what support you and your institution give your students (e.g., teacher feedback, teacher-student conference, writing centre, etc.) to help them develop their English writing skills. Your answers are much appreciated. Cheers.
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it's great Rohaida a Rahmat . Thank you for your reply.
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Dear RG members,
Researchers and educators have concentrated on the development of creativity in education, and students’ creativity and innovation enhancement are considered to be a top goal in all societies. I have two questions here: How would one place great efforts to develop students’ writing skills in general and creativity in writing in particular? How would an individual assess creativity in writing?
Regards,
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to assess students’ creative thinking skills in writing requires the questions to be open. This will allow them to have more room to decide the theme, focus, gist and substance of their essay.
Criteria for Creativity Recognize the importance of a deep knowledge base and continually work to learn new things. Are open to new ideas and actively seek them out. Find source material in a wide variety of media, people, and events. Organize and reorganize ideas into different categories
Peer Assessment Creative Writing. Peer evaluation creative writin. Peer assessment is an educational practice where students are required to interact with each other as a peer assessment creative writing part of their assignments, Through which students are able to evolve by learning from each other alongside guidance from their instructors Creative.
Self assess creative writingThe items are written using kid-friendly terms These creative exercises should be practiced self assessment Diapaga self assessment creative writing creative writing without self-judgment, inner filters, or concern about what a self assessment creative writing reader might think Creative writing self-assessment allows writers pdf it only occurred because i can show students complete sentences and more capable writers pdf. Self-Assessment During Writing.
Assessment for learning. Teacher practice identifying student knowledge, skills and areas for growth. Assessment as learning. A student engages, reflects and monitors their learning. Assessment of learning. Evidence of student achievement against outcomes and standards.
Concept maps are excellent tools that can provide instructors with a formative assessment of students’ learning and misunderstandings, after the students were introduced to the new material. For example, the instructor can post an incomplete concept map where students are asked to fill in the blanks to build a complete map, which is then submitted to an instructor in class or via an online drop box.
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i am currently conducting my action research using color-coded cards(Colored cards )to the creative writing skills of my learners,do you have any recommendation for a standard rubric for my pre and post tests?Thank you
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My suggestion is that in assessing the essays, pay clear attention to the choice and framing of words which show propriety, pleasure and engagement. Therefore, it is apparent that you are assessing the creative vision propensity subsumed in the works.
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I'm working on my research problem, looking into the role of rote learning in developing the writing skills of students.
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نعم اعتقد ذلك وهي استراتيجية تشمل الحفظ والتذكر
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•Is the writing skill of CLIL students better than mainstream students of EFL classes regarding the use of linking words.
H1:
•The CLIL students outweigh the mainstream students in the use of cohesive markers, in this case linking words.
H2:
The CLIL students outweigh the mainstream students in a similar test after 2 months.
•To carry out the comparison of the CLIL students and EFL students in terms of the use of cohesive markers, in this case linking words, two cloze tests are distributed to both classes of equal number of students (50) once at the beginning of the term and once more two months later to see if there is any progress in any of the two classes regarding the use of linking words.
I highly appreciate your help to get rid of my doubts.
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Paired t test before and after if parametric,
Wilcoxon if want to use nonparametric
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My students often make a lot of mistakes when they write essays, whether in the exams or in the exercises that are part of the curriculum. These mistakes are basically related to the mechanics of writing (spelling, punctuation, grammar, sentence structure...). Thus, I would like to get new insights from experienced teachers on how to improve students` writing skills.
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WRITING SKILLS FROM A COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE IN THE CLASSROOM SETTING
Epistemological framework
From a cognitive perspective, Flower and Hayes (1981); White and Ardnt (1991) point out that academic writing involves goal setting, ideas discovery, and decision making processes that play out in the mind of the writer as well as the search for language with which to express the intended meaning. Like this manner, Swales (1990) indicates writing is a socio-culturally embedded activity, a defining characteristic of which is foregrounding of institutionally generated and valued discourse norms. Hence, Flower (1994) highlights that the successful writing of academic assignments by English Foreign Learners (EFL) students entails adopting the culture-specific discourse regularities of the English discourse community. As stated, then, by this author, in English academic communities, writing is recursive, generative, and exploratory in nature. From a cognitive perspective, instead of the prescriptive and linear view of writing, emphasis has been given on writing as a cyclical ‘process’. In that respect, Flower and Hayes (1981) emphasize that writing typically consists of planning (goal setting, idea exploration, and idea organization), translating (formulating texts), and reviewing (responding to different sources of feedback). More importantly, Tribble (1996: 160) lays emphasis on the process approach by stressing the creativity of the individual writer and by paying attention to the development of good writing practices rather than on the imitation of models”. Therefore, we could infer that this approach may result in students assuming more responsibility and autonomy. In doing so, consistent with Applebee (1986: 95), a collaborative learning environment may contribute to the establishment of an interactive relationship between teachers and students whereby the teacher would play the role of a facilitator to make possible the exercise of writing skills and to draw out students’ potential. In that regard, we would like to emphasize some authors such as Bialystok and Ryan, 1985 (cit. in O’Malley and Chamot, 1990), who suggest a way of addressing this question from a psycholinguistic perspective to us. They identify two skill components, which are involved in language acquisition:
  • Analysis of linguistic knowledge.
  • Control of linguistic processing.
They point out that different tasks tap these skills in different ways and suggests that the proficiency of learners can be described more specifically by reference to their mastery of each of the skill components. These authors propose a framework for analyzing task demands, and demonstrate how specific tasks can be mapped onto these two dimensions. It should be possible to predict how a language learner will perform on a given task if there is an assessment of the language learner’s level of analysis and control and a task analysis of the levels required by the problem. Bialystok and Ryan’s framework, which they report has already been applied successfully to reading tasks, could provide a useful starting point for investigating the processing of different language tasks.
Practical framework
From a practical perspective, the classroom setting, as stated by McDonough and Shaw (1993), may provide us with an environment for writing at each of the three main stages of (1) gathering ideas: pre-writing and planning, (2) working on drafts, and (3) preparing the final version. To this end, we could give the following example:
(1) Pre-writing and planning. The teacher, after learners have worked individually on vocabulary according to the Universal Grammar Model by Chomsky, establishes a collaborative, interactive framework in order for learners to work together in a workshop atmosphere. Odlin (1994) emphasize that the Model of Universal Grammar by Chomsky, at the practical level, suggests that more attention must be paid by teachers to the teaching of specifically syntactic aspects of vocabulary acquisition. In this way, the universal grammar model by Chomsky is a reminder of the cognitive nature of language: language learning is the creation of language knowledge in the mind as well as the creation of the ability to interact with other people. As a result, he/she divides the classroom into small groups so that learners can all think about their task in hand at the same time to create good ideas (brainstorming), as an introduction to develop the grammar rules regarding “reported speech”, “conditionals” and “modal verbs” for a correct syntax, especially on the basis of the previously learnt vocabulary.
(2) Working on drafts. Next, each group of learners obtains a wide range of sentences, by means of which the teacher prepares the communicative interaction and engages learners in conversation through a role-play.
(3) Preparing the final version. Finally, the teacher asks students to do the final version; here, the teacher’s role of marking, commenting and giving advice acquires special relevance; for example: “This is quite a good summary, but it would have been a good idea to put your writing in a more correctly organized way. Think more carefully about clear organization and clear, appropriate layout. As for as grammar and vocabulary are concerned, your writing is well organized in terms of plot, as you have used the reported speech as a way of quoting somebody’s thoughts or words without using the exact words that were actually said. Likewise, you have used some modal verbs, some types of conditional sentence and some variations on these, and introduced a number of words and phrases used to express conditions.” In order to achieve this, students must take into account the following:
(a) Correct grammar.
(b) Appropriate vocabulary.
(c) Good spelling.
(d) Clear organization.
(e) Clear, appropriate layout.
Moreover, an important way of improving students’ writing is to have a clear idea of things that they should check before they finish their work:
First check. Check that writing makes sense.
Second check. Check that students have used the right words.
Likewise, when making up the semantic unit, which is meant to be the actual text, in a determined context (coherence), students must begin from a wide range of utterances obtained by each group of learners in a brainstorming atmosphere. Then, they should establish a continuity and connection with each other, for example, by means of the subsequent cohesion devices:
First, we adjust the text to four main paragraphs through some linkers that are used for building up an argument, such as firstly, next, then and finally; that is, these suggest that the speaker has several interesting points to make, one after the other. Second, within each paragraph we have made use of causal linkers, such as consequently used to introduce the result of previous information; furthermore, additive linker used to give extra information; however or nevertheless, adversative linkers used to introduce information which contrasts with what has been mentioned previously. And third, we put to use reported speech, conditional sentences and modal verbs in conjunction with each other.
Bibliographical references
  • Applebee, A. N. (1986). The writing report card: Writing achievement in American schools. National Assessment of Educational Progress, Educational Testing Service, Rosedale Rd., Princeton, NJ 08541-0001.
  • Flower, L. (1994). The construction of negotiated meaning: A social cognitive theory of writing. SIU Press.
  • Flower, L., & Hayes, J. R. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College composition and communication, 32(4), 365-387.
  • McDonough, J. & Shaw, C. (1993). Materials and methods in English Language Teaching (a teacher’s guide), Cambridge University Press.
  • O’Malley, J.M. & Chamot, A. (1990). Learning strategies in Second Language Acquisition, Cambridge University Press.
  • Odlin, T. (1994). Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar. (Cambridge Applied Linguistics).
  • Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge University Press.
  • Tribble, C. (1996). Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • White, R., & Arndt, V. (1991). Process Writing. Harlow, UK. Longman. Widdowson, H.(2000) The theory and practice of critical discourse analysis. Applied Linguistics, 19(136), 51.
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It’s not only mendatory but also part and parcel fpr a researcher to publish his or her article in a high Impact factor journal. But it needs a good writing skill too. So how a researcher can develop his skill.
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reading and reading
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I work on reversible image steganography. If your writing skill is good and you wish to do a research in that field, just contact with me. The process is simple.
1. We will study a number of article.
2. We will try to critic on the state of art.
3. We will find solutions for the raised issue.
4. We will experiment the proposed model to test its justification.
5. You will write an article.
6. We will submit it to a journal
I may ensure you that we will publish at least one article in a year in an SCI/SCIE journal. But, you should have a good skill in writing English. I will teach you the research methodology.
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لا
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I would much appreciate that if other researchers will contribute or share their ideas , links , web tutorial or any personal techniques to improve the writing skills at the doctoral level ;which will be helpful to write concisely and authentically.
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Hello Bushra,
The simplest way is to read papers, articles, and theses in your field from reputable resources. The more you read, the more you get to know the language, phrases, and structures that are used in your field of study. Remember, the more you read high quality of papers, the better skills you gain.
There are a lot of websites that provide tips on improving writing skills. But, from my experience, it is better not to start with those websites until you are familiar with the writing requirements in your field.
You can also attend workshops on writing. Or seek for a one-to-one session to evaluate your writing skills. Some universities offer this service for free to their students.
Most important , practice, practice, practice. Writing improves by practice. Don't hesitate to write on any occasion and seek for feedback. Be open to all sort of comments.
But, before you begin any sort of writing sessions, you should know what sort of skills you need to improve or learn. To clarify this, I will share my personal experience. English is not my mother language. When I first started my PhD journey, I did not have any issues regarding grammar and structuring sentences. However, I wanted to focus on comprehension and the flow of the words. My educational background was in computer sciences, but my PhD was in managing information systems; i.e. social sciences. So, I was not familiar with the writing techniques in social sciences. I developed my writing skills in various ways. One powerful way was through attending creative writing sessions with novelists. This has improved my writing a lot.
So, you should first know the areas that you would like to improve, then look for what works for you. All the best.
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What kind of correlation, if any, is there between speaking and writing? How true is it that some good speakers cannot write well, and vice versa?
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it should be investigated. they are encoding skills but some learners are good at speaking but not writing. some commonalities and some varibilites can affect them
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I would like to improve my writing skills for my manuscripts.
Suggestions and personal experiences are really welcome!
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You can improve tour writing skills at your home. I am doing research following these books which explicitly explains everything. I recommend you to follow these books.
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Hi,
I am conducting a clinical trial in rural area of developing country with low education level and no reading/writing skills. We will be providing them some instructions to follow during the trial period. The instructions are available in written form and used in multiple research projects, however we want to convert the written instructions into a video and distribute the video amongst our participants.
Are there any specific rules/principles that need to be followed in doing so?
Kr
S
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This is depends on the local culture and symbols that are meaningful for them. Cross cultural communication can be a delicate matter
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Dear colleagues,
What can you tell me about conventional English writing skills ?
Is there any software that can help non-native English researchers ? Otherwise, any other solution ?
Thanks
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Academic writing (in English) can be a learnt skill, with ongoing improvements with practice. First, you have to learn the writing conventions in your discipline field. You can can learn the conventions by reading published peer-reviewed articles in top journals. By conventions I mean syntax, style, rhetorical devices, writing organization, and format. There are some software in the market that can help with editing, but I myself find that they are not really worth the value. Word MS can help with the basic reviewing in grammar and spelling.
Being aware of how you write academically is an important step to improve one's writing. Compare how you write a research paper with what it is expected in your field can be a lesson. This is what we call (intercultural) Contrastive Rhetoric and you can find more about it in U. Connor's work, for example.
Research Methodology is another point, and it depends on one's research field and tradition (e.g. quantitative and qualitative). There are various software nowadays to help organize data and perform statistics analysis; but again, you choose the methodology depending on your research questions and objectives.
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Do you think creative idea (science, literature etc.) and writing skill are two different qualities from intelligence and knowledge?
Or all of them are totally different qualities?
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Knowledge can be defined as the facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. Whereas intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Writing skill is a form of communication that allows people to put their feelings and ideas on paper, to organize their knowledge and beliefs into convincing arguments, and to convey meaning through well-constructed text.
So let me conclude like this: Up to a large extent these all are different. But intelligence leads to gathering of knowledge by which new ideas can be generated and can be given a shape in reality and that can be communicated and explained to the others if someone has good writing skill.
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Am planning to invest more time in research skills and writing research documents
any recommended full guidance, tutorials , resources , online-courses ?
Thank You
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The best strategy to use is to select a series of advertising groups (Elsevier, Taylor, MDPI, Springer, EDP, PLos, ...) and choose a journal of each contemplating your area of ​​research. Then to observe the writing style of each in various articles. Carefully observe all sections of articles, including references. After this step, search for articles of greater interest in your research that will be useful for your domain of knowledge and will serve as theoretical foundation and discussion of results. Possessing these articles prepare a table with the most relevant information and that will be possible to use in your future writing. Academic writing has some standards, but personal writing is dynamic. You can go logging everything that you are searching for, and then try to conform to the standards or templates from that journal you chose to submit your manuscript. It's difficult at first because it's possible to write parts of one section in another and so on. Daily contact with this activity will make a difference. The RD portal is a good source for specific information search.
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Now a days we can see high quality of work in lower impact journals, while papers containing fewer work were published in higher well renowned journals. It eventually demoralize the scholars suffering from rejections and unable to express there knowledge. I am curious to know how this technical writing skills can be improved.
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Technical writing skills develops with experience. But, it can be always developed by following certain important rules for different sections of a paper,for eg. how to give an appropriate title which refects important findings and to grasp audience, and similar and relevant things for others say abstract, introduction, result and discussion, conclusion. Many discussion are also available in RG platform on writing paper effectively. Not only data are important, but interpretation and presentation plays a great role.
Best wishes
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My mixed methods study is on the impact of feedback in the writing process and I have three questions (listed below). To resolve the first question, a repeated measures design was used to determine which form of feedback has the most impact. A survey design was used for the second question and a discourse analysis will be used to analyze the language for similarities and differences. After referring to Crewell and Plano Clark's book, I know that I can not use what I find in question three to explain question one and two. Based on my research questions and what I read in Crewell's book, I am thinking that this is not a true mixed methods and my study will not fall under any of the major mixed methods designs. Am I on the right track?? Please advise
1. What is the impact of feedback via teacher one-on-one writing conferences versus computer-based writing feedback on the writing skills of at-risk Pre-college students?
2. How do students who participated in the study perceive the effectiveness of teacher feedback versus computer-based feedback?
3. How is the discourse in teacher-student interactive feedback versus computer-based feedback alike and /or different
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What you are describing sounds like a QUANT --> qual design, where you use the QUANT results to design a qual study that will help you explain (and perhaps expand on) the original QUANT results.
This is known as an explanatory sequential design, so look for that term in the Cresell and Plano-Clark textbook.
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My research project is based on developing students' writing skills competence. it is quasi experimental study mixed method involved pre-test and post test nine weeks intervention. data were collected from think aloud protocol of group discussion based on three genres ( narrative, descriptive and argumentative) and semi structured interview was conducted on the key respondents students with the largest gained scores, medium and lowest on post-test. I am now confused which approach to use Inductive or Deductive for analysis of interview . deductive is based on predetermined concepts and its frequency of occurrences in the data set file whereas inductive looks for new or emerging themes from analysis of the interview data. I need help in this regard. Thank you!
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It sounds you like you are using a sequential explanatory design for your mixed methods, where the goal of the qualitative follow-up is to understand the outcomes of the original quantitative study. If so, then I would recommend using a more deductive approach that was explicitly linked to quantitative results.
Note, however, that you don't have use either an exclusively deductive or inductive approach. Instead, you can use a hybrid approach where you begin with a deductive framework and then add to it as you inductively encounter other important topics.
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And what classroom and self-study tasks would you recommend to deal with these challenges? I would appreciate answers that deal with any of the following areas:
- Different rhetorical patterns and discourse styles.
- Persistent grammatical or lexical errors that may on occasions impede comprehension or distract the reader.
-Frequent non-impeding, "non-distracting" errors which may lead to a negative evaluation of the writer's language level.
- Poor L1(Spanish) writing habits which may transfer to the L2 (English). For example, run-on sentences are frowned on in both English and Spanish, but tend to be used far more by Spanish writers. The transfer of this vice to English may have a stigmatizing effect.
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Hi Chris,
Are you teaching English for academic writting? I'm interested
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What are the best way to write a good quality research article? My English write-up is not good but I want to improve my English writing skills in relation to creative article writing. Please share your experiences. Thank You!
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In addition to what's already been said, if you're looking for more logistical advice, I'd say that the order in which you write things doesn't have to match the order in which it will be in the text: you don't have to write the beginning, middle, and end in that sequence. I ususally begin by writing the straightforward stuff like the methods because it's the section that I find easiest to write: it's basically just a description of what was already done or in the process of being completed. This also helps remind me of why certain things were done a certain way, which goes into the intro, so as I'm writing, I usually put notes for myself regarding things that I want to insert in given sections. The results section is also pretty straightforward too, and it helps with the discussion.
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Can you please share the best and successful methods you follow for teaching writing skills?
Thank you very much indeed!
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Hello! Have you ever tried https://storybird.com/? It's a very inspiring platform where you can write visual stories in seconds.
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Is there some good tool that can format the research paper automatically in IEEE ACM etc format.
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If you write your papers using LaTeX, you will soon realize that every publisher has a different stylesheet. Switching between them during the writing process is difficult, as every stylesheet requires you to structure your document differently, use a different bibliography style, and even use different commands to define the authors, institutions, etc.
One nice solution is to use PaperShell, which is a template paper project that comes with many common stylesheets already bundled, and has scripts that take care of many menial tasks. (Disclaimer: I am the author of PaperShell.) I have used it on an almost daily basis for many years, and it has greatly streamlined the way I write and process papers in LaTeX.
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Being a teacher and researcher, I have found my language learners so conscious of producing language in terms of writing skills. I may be due to the fear of committing errors in writing or a thinking process to make ideas coherent in the mind first than on the paper.
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I think that young people are VERY concerned about the possibility that they will be judged as less than perfect, in many parts of their lives, not just language learning.  This is why many language learners are reluctant to speak up in class.  This is true in L2, but some young people will not even ask questions in L1 classes, because "I doing want the other students to think I am dumb."
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Researchers write to keep records of their work for themselves, but more importantly also for the readers and peer researchers who are expecting a standard form, language, and style when reading research papers. Writing in a scientific style may be hard in the beginning for novices, but clear communication and concise writing have no magic involved. How the paper is written and the way it is published. The process leading to publication is equally important as the content, style, and organization of the published paper.
Once a paper is drafted, written, rewritten, and finished it deserves to be published validly. However, dealing with publishers, their editors, peer reviewer’s comments, deadlines, submission guidelines, and other obstacles on the way to the paper appearing in a printed volume can be one of the most time-consuming and exhaustive tasks in a researcher’s life.
Please share your comments and provide your support for further communication.
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Hello there,
A good question indeed, it is refreshing after all to find some glitter in between all the garbage. So thank you for posting this up.
To put it in a nutshell, before writing: delimiting your scientific paper is important, a good paper do not loose focus throughout the entirety of its form and on the structure of the paper. After writing the paper comes the time of reading your paper a few times in order to get everything perfect. Build your own checklist corresponding to your own problems you want to avoid. After this, your article can be submitted and will hopefully be accepted.
Good luck
Regards
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In writing a survey, would I use the words or phrases written by other people and add the proper citation for that. Sometimes the abstract could gib=ve an enough idea about the work which was conducted by the authors and I need just to summarize it.
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To avoid plagiarism, you are not allowed to use the same words or phrases written by others  and you have to add the relevant citation for that after  appropriately paraphrasing and rewriting these sentences in you own language.  
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While my descriptive statistics shows a degree of progress in students' performance after receiving academic writing instructions, the inferential statistics rejects the evidenced progress. Overall, 35 students took part in this study, but only 20 students completed the textual borrowing exercises. However, the small samples effected on the distribution of the variables, so the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was the only solution. Do I have to accept that the statistical contradictions have to do with the small samples or any other factors might have influenced the study? Any recommendation for overcoming the research difficulties and improving its power will be appreciated. 
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I doubt that your inferential statistics are inaccurate. If your descriptive statistics show only a "degree of progress," then it is highly likely that you small sample size is not enough to make this statistically significant. In general, it is very difficult to find significant differences in samples with N = 20, due to the "lack of power."
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Working at a bilingual school (two-way-immersion german & english) got me very interested in collecting some mid-term-data from the students, to monitor and analyze their progress in language learning. I'm still at the evry beginning and I'd be really happy for any suggestions/hints/reading suggestions on
a) what to consider when collecting the data
b) how to best analyze the texts, to really measure progress in language aquisition/proficiency
Thanks a lot in advance!!!
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I prefer the 6+1 Traits model from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.  See the attached rubric.  
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I'm doing my research about blogs and its influence on writing skills, but I would really appreciate if someone lets me know how I can measure the results of my research?.
Also, if you have some recommendations about my topic of the research.
Finally, do you think it would be a good idea if students use blogs to write anything they want or, should I focus on asking teachers for providing topics that they want students write in the blog.
Thanks for your suggestions
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I think its better if you ask students what they would be interested in for their writing. Attached is a conference paper in using social media for enhancing students English writing skills in which they were interested in writing about topics on film, fashion, music, etc. They would be more inclined to write on their preferred topics and you would probably get more participation in the exercise.
Many thanks,
Debra
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It is quite difficult to impart academic writing skills effectively without exactly knowing the important components and sequence of components to include while teaching. 
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Dear Dorji,
One of the most practical ways of improving academic writing is the use of mentor texts. These texts are stylistically idealized writing tasks  which teachers use in order to show to the learners how a particular writing task can be actualized. I have tried them in my TOEFL classes and the results were exceptional.
Best regards,
R. Biria
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hi there I want to know how can I write a book based on researches?
the book is about technology and related challenges in computer science.
what is the first step?
whatever you think is important about it is good.
feel free to ask or tell me anything you think is useful.
thanks for attention
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Hi Yasin,
Good to know that you are willing to contribute a book. First of all know ur target audience, whom u r writing d book for, design the table of content or index for ur reference. So that u r clear with what chapters covers what content precisely...
First of all know ur target audience, whom u r writing d book for, design the table of content or index for ur reference. So that u r clear with what chapters covers what content precisely...
design the table of content or index for ur reference. So that u r clear with what chapters covers what content precisely...
Read the existing literature and quote them well. 
Write simple english; understood by all. As if u r teaching someone...it should be in that such simple format,  explain it with may be some cases, examples, etc. for better understanding.
All the best. Will be looking forward for your book
Mukta
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What are your thoughts about how we can encourage students to use feedback to improve their writing skills?  Based on my research and years of teaching writing, error correction and feedback on organization and style (for both first and second language writers) seems to be useful for the student only some of the time.  I have found in teaching both undergraduate and graduate level academic writing, some of the students respond very quickly to my comments and suggestions, others don't.  Any ideas on how to make the feedback more effective?
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In addition, we have noted in our academic writing center (provides writing support for students) that much of the “writing” feedback is lost in the online correspondences between student and writing coach. As such, I suggest that you do a F2F conference with students who tend to overlook your feedback. I have also found that including links to examples of how errors can be corrected also makes it easy for students to make corrections.
Nevertheless, I accept that there is not one solution to this problem that we all face. Because academic writing is a foundational skill that students need to succeed in both under-graduate and graduate programmes, it is good that you are not giving up and seeking to find alternative ways to address this issue. I have also embarked on a developing an academic writing test website to help students to avoid some academic writing errors that may offer another alternative as shown in this article:
Best regards,
Debra
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Hellos Respected Scholars, Experts, Researchers, My research title is Improvement of Reading and Writing skills through web based tools. I have identified an experiment group for try out by using web based tool.
Can someone provide/offer me PRE-TEST and POST-TEST which contains the exercises of READING and WRITING SKILLS?
Heartily Thank you 
Regards
Chintan vaghela 
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thank you mam Debra Sharon Ferdinand
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Hello Respected Researchers,
My research title is Web Based learning : a tool to improve reading and writing skills, i have framed methodology and now i would like to show the effect of web based tools to improve reading and writing skills, so pre-test and post-test are necessary to conduct to show the impact of web based tools, so from where i can get pre-test and post-test regarding reading and writing skills. Is there anyone who can share/offer pre-test and post-test regarding reading and writing skills....
Thank You 
Regards 
Chintan Vaghela 
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Chintan:
You would need to ensure that you control for any intervening variables to ensure that your only your intervention was responsible for the results on the post-test. See the following RG link for related studies.
Best regards,
Debra
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Give special consideration to  the constraints instantiated by syntactic features of the first language which are at variance with those of the target language.
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The only way to improve reading is to read more, selecting work that is appropriate for your ability.  The only way to improve your writing is to write more. 
If you read and write a lot, you will get better, even if you do not receive outside feedback.  
As a teacher, help your students find things to read and write that are fun (student-centered).  
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Nominalization is the most typical structure of Ideational Grammatical Metaphor (IGM), particularly in scientific and political discourses as well as academic writing. Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) point out that information density, nominalization and GM are as the foremost lexico-grammatical features of the academic and written language. we are doing an empirical research based on the explicit teaching of Nominalization to advanced EFL learners to find out its impact on their writing skills. What do you think of it? State your informative experiences and advice please.
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I think it is important to remember that nominalisation is a central feature of academic discourse and texts - it is what makes both reading and writing in the university so difficult for so many students on entry. Alerting students to the fact that academic discourse is no-one's mother tongue helps them to recognise the strangeness of this particular use of language and that which sets it apart from everyday speech. So pointing out explicit evidence of how nominalisation works is, from my experience, very useful for all students. The fact that the use of the passive emerges is also crucial to draw attention to - the one response here shows how it works in the Sciences, but the other key work it does is to overtly conceal agency -  in many contexts, the deliberate choice to use the passive is underpinned by sinister motives. So yes, teach it, but don't go over the top with it. It will become more and more apparent to students anyway, as they progress through their studies. It is also possible to create authentic activities - within a discipline, derived from a relevant text s.
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Which web based tools are used to improve reading and writing skills?
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Timothy, you're a great teacher by passion demonstrated in the defense of non-digital book. I wonder: What variations introduced digital and resources in reading? And writing? You're referring to the order, sequence, to sustain the focus on a subject ... the odds linearity analog to digital hypertext book. New challenges !!!
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My research title is EFFECT OF WEB BASED LEARNING TOOLS  for the development of Reading and Writing skills. I want some sources in which it is clearly mentioned about the effect of web based learning tools for the development of Reading and Writing skills.
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Check out this article: http://tesl-ej.org/ej43/a3.html
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Is there research on how to improve writing skills among middle school students in inquiry science classrooms?
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  • Two-column note -taking lesson prepares the students for the writing project. The publication of a class news letter promotes the use of language to communicate what the students have learned and understood.
  • Paraphrasing, a strategy for translating the technical, dense language of science texts into a more common sense type of language that is comprehensible to the newspaper readership
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I want to design a lesson plan to teach "short story writing for elementry students" using the CREDE standards, so which three of the five standards is recommended? 
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Dear Douglas and Luisa,
Thanks for your comments. I really agree with you and appreciate your efforts.
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I am interested in carrying out a case study to see if the use of drama can improve children's understanding of language and help provide a context for language, in turn improving their creative writing skills. I think that this could also benefit children with EAL. I would specifically focus on KS1. Is there any existing research around this area?
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My own research suggested  connections between drama and writing were enriched when teachers seized the moment to write during tense moments in drama, when the imagined experience was perhaps most tangibly felt and the resultant writing fed the drama- much also depended upon role perspectives adopted.  This was small scale case study work.
If you are interested perhaps see
Cremin, T. ,Goouch, K., Blakemore, L., Goff, E. and Macdonald, R. (2006) Connecting Drama and Writing: seizing the moment to write, Research in Drama in Education 11 (3): 273-291.
  available at  http://oro.open.ac.uk/
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What are some resources others have found helpful? For context, I am teaching an undergraduate course called Culture, Ethnicity, and Mental Health at a university in New York City. Critical/analytical writing skills are not the primary focus of the course, but nevertheless very important skills for students to develop. I am interested in accessible, incremental approaches that will help my students learn these skills. Any and all ideas are welcome! 
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I recently used Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test in a study, and actually the manual itself says it can be used as a teaching tool. Although not specific to psychology, it includes several critical thinking skills which are relevant. You can find it here:
It might be a good starting point, or a base-line assessment.
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There are quite a few of us who are very concerned that plagiarism is rather prevalent.  When I was teaching in secondary school, I observed that student collaboration in science practicals and getting a result for a group seemed to lead 'quite naturally' to their copying when it comes to writing a report.  So I insisted on individual reports and I assessed their work separately.  
What ways have been identified through research to be effective to teach scientific communication skills in English, and writing skills so that students are equipped to write a thesis ethically and independently?
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One of the biggest problem for EFL learners is writing skill, does anybody have any new and efficient ideas, methods, technique to improve my students' writing skill?
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Get them to "edit forwards and proof backwards". Reading from the last line, aloud, to see their mistakes. Also, stress the importance of writing short sentences which they can control, before attempting to write longer sentences.
I have loads of suggestions, tried and tested, in my book (now being translated into Arabic): http://www.amazon.com/Study-Skills-International-Postgraduates-Palgrave/dp/140399580X
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As a law researcher, I always have the feeling that these three are the same. Therefore, I want to learn from your experiences in this area of research. The concise answers and comments here will be of immense help to novice and up coming scholars.
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A "literature review" should cover all of the scientific literature in a field that is defined by the author. Much of this is usually achieved by reference to previous reviews. By doing this, it is not necessary to review all of the past literature, but all studies that have been published since the most recent thorough review should be included. The amount and quality of analysis in a review may vary from little (i.e. a mostly descriptive review) to a lot (i.e. an analytical review).
A theoretical analysis would only include reference to those works that are necessary for the analysis (although subjectively omitting works that may run counter to the analysis is not acceptable in a scientific work). The analysis should be rigorous.
A conceptual analysis may be the same as a theoretical analysis, but this category allows for more flexibility and less rigour. In essence, it's the first step in analyzing an idea and may be floated for the purpose of stimulating feedback.
These publication categories overlap (they are not mutually exclusive) and journal editors may define them in their own distinctive ways.
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Nominalization is the most typical structure of Ideational Grammatical Metaphor (IGM), particularly in scientific and political discourses as well as academic writing. Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) point out that information density, nominalization and GM are as the foremost lexico-grammatical features of the academic and written language. We are doing empirical research based on the explicit teaching of Nominalization to advanced EFL learners to find out its impact on their writing skills. What do you think of this? State your informative experiences and advice please.
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Dear Alan Jones
Thany you so much for your informative remarks. I will surely get the papers and read them with scrutiny.
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Every author is keen to get his/her research published in international journals, sometimes in the most prestigious ones like Nature and Science. Failure to do so means frustration. The failures could result from gross overestimation of the outcome of their research and/or overconfidence due to their inexperience, thus, rejection of a paper from a journal of high-international standard. Inexperience and/or lack of confidence may debar a scientist from approaching Nature and Science, though the paper is of extremely high-standard, thus, ending up in another popular journal. Many researchers whose native language is not English may find it very difficult to highlight the value of their research, though it is worth an international publication, thus, may satisfy themselves with local journals or journals published in their native language. Even those who have good language skills may show deficiencies in proper presentation of data, thought provoking and stimulating in-depth discussions, and may sometimes come-up with conclusions that are inadequately supported with data. Everything done to an acceptable standard by the authors, personal biases on the part of the reviewers and/or editors could lead to an unfortunate rejection of a paper too. There could be numerous other reasons than summarized here. In the best interest of all authors, it will be useful to find-out, why and where do authors fail most?
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In my experience, researchers fail in writing most often for not explaining their research question: What it is, why it is important, what was done previously by others and how it is now answered.