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:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299657894_Online_Assessment_Product_Development_in_Academic_Writing_Maha_Journal_of_Education_Vol_2_No_1_2016_-_Impact_Factor_1109

Best regards,

Debra

Article Online Assessment: Product Development in Academic Writing (...

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:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299657894_Online_Assessment_Product_Development_in_Academic_Writing_Maha_Journal_of_Education_Vol_2_No_1_2016_-_Impact_Factor_1109

Best regards,

Debra

Article Online Assessment: Product Development in Academic Writing (...

I have ever red some  theory about feedback. A special one from Lyster and Ratna is very good to apply for teaching in Writing field.

I concur with the suggestion to hold a face to face conference with the students concerned. Provide a step by step manual that all can work through during the training. Give time for some group work and reporting back. Sometimes students take in points better when they hear the same points from their colleagues. The points from your feedback can be incorporated into your training manual.

Hi Paula, 

You may find the feedback strategies I have used and described in the following paper useful:

Incorporating formative assessment in Iranian EFL writing: a case study

Download link:

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/WkIkEY7Y7Zh4hCaUmdBh/full

I have the luxury of being an outside assistant in academic writing at the graduate level. I have found the same issue: some students take my feedback and incorporate it immediately, some do not take it, no matter how many times I provide it. I think it comes down to habits of thinking. People have habits of how they use language, which affects how they think -- the way they use words and wording in their thoughts -- so things tend to get filtered through these habits. Perhaps what we need to stress with folks is that they need to think of writing, particularly academic writing, as learning a new language. A good friend of mine in grad school voiced it that way to me, and it served her well. I have used that with some students to help, but it doesn't always help. 

I don't know if this response helps at all, because I don't generally work with groups of people. I love the idea of face to face, though, or even phone conversations, with the computer in front of both people, working on the same item at the same time. I've found that helpful with some people.

It might be useful to give suggestions about what is not appropriate in their writing rather than give readily available correction. Therefore, instead of "correcting" errors one could note the type of error that has been made. For example "register" or "sexist term" etc. This will have Ss think about their errors or inappropriacy and probably improve their writing skills. A code can be provided for this purpose, e.g R=register, O= organization, Sp= Spelling, Re= reference needed. 

Dear Paula,

Evidently, academic writing involves a plethora of factors influencing the learning outcome. Among these, correction has traditionally been used as a basis for making learners notice the standard ways of text creation. However, as you have rightly observed, students sometimes lose interest and they do not respond to corrections appropriately. One solution these days is to employ different types of feed back. In point of fact, teacher/student feedback is complemented by peer /peer feedback and fortified by digital technologies. Notably, a variety of various techniques in creating corrective feedback can sustain learners' interests  involved in the writing process and lead to more reliable outcomes. More recently, applying different formats of dynamic assessment (e.g., cake and sandwich) has played a pivotal role in providing corrective feedback embracing interactionist / interventionist approaches which control the socio-interactive nature of the communication process  between the expert and the novice.

R.Biria

Dear Paula,

Writing has always been a challenge to EFL students. Feedback is very instrumental in ensuring that students become aware of their mistakes and improve on their weaknesses. Teachers' feedback can be given generally as time constrain can be a very big challenge if a class had 40-80 students and students can be asked to improve their writing a second or even third round based on the feedback. Peer feedback can also be another option in terms of collaborative group work where the better students are put as group leaders and are given the responsibility to check their peers' work and give feedback with teachers' intervention when necessary. I have found this to be effective among my EFL learners.

Best Wishes!

Hi Paula,

If your institution uses Turnitin for submissions and marking, there is an option for giving audio feedback. This may work for you as it  can facilitate a more receptive atmosphere (tone of voice etc). 

Hello Paula,

Using feedbacks to help students to recognize and reprimand their writing weakness is actually the best effort an instructor can offer to help improve students writing skills. What i do  can be quite tedious and time consuming for many Instructors but I find it to be quite inspiring and encouraging for the students. When I correct students grammatical, syntactical and semantical mistakes, i usually offer alternatives on the paper itself. With that, the students can evaluate their own work and witness an academic writing alternative. Usually ,and quite often, students would come and see me for a F2F meeting on their own accord for a justification of their mistake and an explanation for the alternatives. 

In response to Dimitris Grigoriadis' answer to your question, Paula, while those codes and feedback can be helpful, I have found myself explaining to students how and why they received that feedback, and the sorts of changes that would be better wording choices. So the feedback can be useful, but I have found that faculty who use that sort of feedback might need it clarified in a way the student can understand, particularly as to what could be better.

I appreciate Norhena Hussein's recommendations, also. They are very time consuming, but I have found offering alternatives to be very useful to students, and like her, I have found students coming back to me to ask more clarification, which helps them care about building their writing skills. 

Thank you all for sharing your ideas!  

I have been teaching short courses in technical writing at universities, at companies, at technical conventions, and for technical organizations like The Society of Petroleum Engineers.  Bottom line, the participants have spanned from senior, professional technical writers with 20+ years of experience thru undergraduates.  I note this because of the variations in experience and motivation brought to the class by the participants.  What I have found, empirically speaking, is that students, except advance graduate students, don't bring enough experiences and thus motivation to relate and thus absorb many of the concepts within the course.  Simple, they have not been "battered" enough by editors and supervisors on documents that are critical to their work and professional progression to appreciate the many of the critical points and cornerstones of successful technical writing. Many of the undergrads that took my courses were forced to by faculty.  They just did not have necessary experiences to engage in the course.  In contrast the professionals who took the course engaged immediately and were hungry for ways to improve the success of their writing.  So, what I am saying?  I appreciate your question, but I think your fighting a losing battle.  Some students are interested in engaging in anything and everything, so you can never engage.  I suppose that's why we have a grading system.  Some earn A+'s, other barely squeak through.  I salute your attempt to find a way, but I think this battle is much bigger than simply finding a strategy or a gimmick or something similar.  Students are old enough to make choices, at least that's how we run our system.  Those who choose not to engage, do so knowing the consequences.  It is sort of like doing drugs.  No one today takes drugs not knowing the potential consequences.  It is an over choice.  I suggest you design your course to fill it with useful, beneficial, and needed information and let those "horses" who wish to drink from your "stream" do so.  They will wall away with the benefits of your course and interacting with such a concerned person.   ....  Well, that's how I see it.  -Cheers.