Working Papers
in Language Education and Research
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TEXTUAL HEALING: A
DOCUMENT ANALYSIS OF HOWFIRST DRAFTS IMPROVED
Brian. R. Morrison
ISSN 2187-4972

Corresponding author:
brian-m@kanda.kuis.ac.jp
Publication date: February, 2013

To cite this article

Morrison, B. R. (2013). Textual healing: A document analysis of
how first drafts improved. Working Papers in Language Education
and Research, 1 (1), 43 - 59.

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Working	
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  No.1.	
  February	  2013,	  43	
  -­‐	  59	  TEXTUAL HEALING: A DOCUMENT ANALYSIS OF HOWFIRST DRAFTS IMPROVED
Brian R. Morrison
Kanda University of International Studies, Japan
ABSTRACT
Much has been written on the role of error feedback in written work (forexample, Truscott, 1996; Ferris, 1999; Ellis, 2009). While validity in thearguments for and against specific types of feedback in error reduction
continues to be investigated, the focus on error is unlikely to address
perceptions of competency required for intrinsic motivation (Deci, 1996) and
implies that an effective piece of written work needs to be error-free. This paper
briefly outlines a short distance course that was designed to improve writing
through a genre-based approach to second language writing before indicating
how the feedback on each draft involved a different approach and went beyond
the written corrective feedback and the typology Ellis (2009) proposed. Resultsof an analysis of the first drafts of the initial and final essays are then presented
to identify how the written work became more effective as the course progressed.
Specific improvements are observed in the four categories investigated: task
achievement; cohesion and coherence; lexical resource; grammaticalcomplexity.

1. INTRODUCTION
There have been different approaches to writing pedagogy based on anamalgamation of intuition, insight and methodology. It is likely that teachers who
understand the approaches select from these to suit their teaching context and learners’
needs.

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  -­‐	  59	  White (2005) highlights four main developments in writing pedagogy
evolving from shifts in how writing is viewed, the study of what effective writers do
and pragmatic considerations of the purpose of a text. There is an underlying
assumption in a substantial amount of literature on process and genre approaches thatlearners want to compose academic texts (Flowerdew, 1993). For the course being
discussed in this research paper the students enrolled on an IELTS writing coursewith a view to postgraduate study in the UK and this influenced the choice ofapproach. The approaches are summarized below to provide rationale for the course.

Four approaches to writing
Product Focus: Controlled & Guided Writing
This approach is strongly influenced by behaviourist theories of language
learning. These theorists believe that stimuli and motivation are external and thatguided, controlled, text-production practice, where accuracy is paramount, will lead
to automatic and habitually accurate writing (Holzman, 2005). These views are
realised in the Audio-Lingual Method (ALM); a methodology that emphasises spoken
over written language. Accuracy is at sentence level and writing is seen as a way ofreinforcing good (accurate) behaviour, of consolidating form and of aiding language
learning rather than an end in itself.

With this approach, language is conceptualised

as a grammar frame with slots for vocabulary (Hyland, 2003), exemplified bysubstitution drilling. Writing from a model text thereby becomes a display of
manipulation, transformation and substitution judged on accuracy; communicative
purpose and competence are not considered.

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  -­‐	  59	
  Language Functions: Parallel Writing
The functional approach has different views about the construct of language
i.e. that function is not linked to form. However, writing is a similar enterprise of aframework with slots, the slots being larger and at function level rather than wordlevel. A model text is still presented followed by controlled and guided writing. As
White (2005) makes clear, the modelled product in these two approaches to writing
can be restricted to imitation.
Process Approaches
Influenced by cognitive psychology rather than applied linguistics (Hyland,2005), process approaches to writing hone in on the creativity of composition rather
than the analysis and reproduction of a model text. The complex and recursive,
non-linear nature of composition masked by the linearity of the written form isrecognised. White & Arndt’s (1991, p. 4) proposed model of writing processes (Fig.
1) aims to reflect this complexity and uses a non-linear sequence, although it should
be noted that in this model White and Arndt have neglected to include publishing intheir model (Caudery, 1997).

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  -­‐	  59	  DRAFTING

STRUCTURING

FOCUSING

RE-VIEWING

GENERATING IDEAS

EVALUATING

Figure 1. Model of writing processes (White & Arndt, 1991, p. 4)

The approach attempts to reflect the creative process by integrating thevarious aspects of the writing process within the pedagogic context. The teacher
reacts to the text more globally, with attention to meaning taking precedence overaccuracy of form. Feedback of the work in progress occurs during the writing rather
than merely post-composing feedback of the end product. The reader is also
considered in process writing (Tribble, 1996), although it is in genre approaches thatthe reader becomes the focus.
Genre Approaches
Genre approaches are the most recent addition to ELT writing pedagogy.
These, like process approaches, evolved from mainstream education. However, inprocess approaches the focus on the writer may result in ineffective texts if theyrecognise the reader but do not consider his or her expectations (Tribble, 1996). Since
texts are most often produced for another reader, proponents of genre approaches

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  -­‐	  59	  believe the focus of a text should be on the reader’s expectations and demands(Hyland, 2005) rather than on the text or writer. With a genre approach some authors
have referred to a model text. This is an unfortunate term, as it seems to suggest areturn to imitation. Authors such as Tribble (2005) favour ‘exemplar texts’, a termthat more adequately describes texts used in genre approaches and the one used in thispaper.

The courses
The courses were designed as distance-learning courses for university
graduates in Japan aiming for postgraduate study in the UK who were unable due totime constraints or location to attend classroom-based lessons. The focus was
specifically on academic IELTS and each course focused on one of the two IELTS
writing tasks: task 1, a description of a diagram; task 2, a formal discursive essay. The
discourse community was therefore the IELTS examiners, and published assessment
criteria indicate the expectations of this community. It therefore followed that agenre-based approach to second language writing (Hyland, 2004) using non-native
exemplars, as advocated by Tribble (2005) would provide appropriate exemplar texts.
Morrison’s (2010) research into the design of this course not only found that the texts
were appropriate for learners from a Japanese context, as the content dealt withfamiliar narrative constructs, but just as importantly, they were achieveable exemplars
as they were at the level of the target score (IELTS 7.0) rather than an expert user’s
IELTS 9.0. Another key element of the course was the submission of multiple drafts
via email and use of the Microsoft Word editing tools for technologically-enhanced
instructor feedback. This allowed a dialogue to develop which in turn encouraged47

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  -­‐	  59	  participants to consider how to come closer to genre expectations of organization andstructure as well as improving the complexity and sophistication of their texts. In
addition, the feedback on multiple drafts provided further self-generated exemplar
texts for subsequent writing while encouraging participants to consider how to comecloser to genre expectations of organization and structure as well as improving thecomplexity and sophistication of their texts.

Feedback
In spite of the continuing debate surrounding the effectiveness of error
corrective feedback since Truscott (1996) first questioned the validity of much of theresearch, Hyland & Hyland (2006, p. 86) cite several studies which show that:
Feedback is not simply disembodied reference to student texts but aninteractive part of the whole context of learning, helping to create a
productive interpersonal relationship between the teacher and the individual
students.
On this course, initial feedback on the first draft used the editing tools in Microsoft
Word to add comment boxes to give specific guidance on what was done well, where
there were errors and how certain areas could be improved even when error free. Thisextends written feedback beyond Ellis’ (2009) typology. Although Ellis
acknowledges that his typology is limited to the correction of linguistic errors, thiserror focus in the research he cites appears to take a rather myopic view of writing, aview which values accuracy over other indicators of good writing such as purposefulcommunication and meeting the needs of the reader. As Bunton (2005) makes clear, a

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  -­‐	  59	  text will not necessarily be accepted or rejected on accuracy of language, but on its
acceptability to the discourse community of genre. Research on the effect of feedback
that is limited to errors might be valid research but should not be confused withresearch into the effect of feedback on writing development. Research in this area
needs to investigate progress beyond the narrow confines of accuracy.
The aspects of IELTS writing valued by the discourse community of examiners
can be understood from the assessment criteria available online (ielts.org). The IELTS
categories grade four specific areas. Accuracy in grammar and vocabulary choice
influences the grade in each of these eponymous categories but not at the expense ofcomplexity and sophistication. Indeed, grammatical complexity containing errors isviewed more favourably than accuracy that relies on simple structures. Likewise, lesscommon lexis is preferable to a restricted range of simple vocabulary, even when theformer is used with less accuracy as long as the meaning is clear. The other two
grading criteria, task achievement and coherence and cohesion, are equally important.
Therefore a candidate aiming for IELTS 7.0 is not expected to write two error-freeessays however they can only achieve their target if they have answered the questions,
supported their answers, structured their writing appropriately and shown a range ofgrammatical structures and incorporated some sophisticated language. These points
should therefore inform the range of feedback that could be given to the learner.
A document analysis of the feedback using Ellis’ (2009) classifications as aframework for categorization showed that in the initial feedback on the first draft
included Ellis’ (2009) type 3 Metalinguistic Corrective Feedback and type 4 The
focus of the feedback both as in-text comments and as part of a summary of the
feedback written in as a letter at the end of the text. However, in addition there were49

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  -­‐	  59	  comments and end-of-text feedback that went beyond corrective feedback to include:•

Commenting on what is good about the essay and its constituent parts e.g.
Your idea is clear and well supported in this paragraph – good work.

•

Encouraging learners to push their abilities e.g. Normally this is fine, but
judging by your work, I’m sure your vocabulary is good enough to substitute a
more sophisticated verb.

•

Giving direction on content e.g. In paragraphs 2 and 3 you identify two
negative aspects to living in a city but you never say why they are negative. If
you can do that and make a few adjustments to phrases, this will be muchbetter.

At the end of the essay a summary in the form of a letter conforming what was goodabout the text and areas to concentrate on for the second draft.
The second draft received a different approach for feedback. With this version,
the in-text feedback was limited to proofreading categorized by Ellis’ as type 1, direct
corrective feedback and type 6, reformulation. In other words, anything that the writer
was guided to but unable to rectify in the first draft feedback was corrected or
reworded. This then provided a further model but one that is borne out ofcollaboration between the learner and the tutor leading to user-generated exemplar
texts. Although the learners were not required to redraft further, a task of taking noteson structure and language that could be reused in subsequent essays was set. Thisrequired the learner to re-read, value and analyse their own work with a view toimproving subsequent writing. Questionnaires given after the course ended showedthat respondents unanimously felt that the feedback made them more competent50Working	
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  -­‐	  59	  writers (Morrison, 2010). When asked about the two different feedback styles, thesewere valued by all. The vast majority specifically commented on how beneficial theyfelt their own rewriting was to their development as writers. They also noted that the
feedback had helped them identify what they were doing well as well as what they
had to improve upon, with a specific comment referring to the development of agreater awareness of the comparative rhetoric of English and Japanese.

In order to investigate how the students’ writing had changed, research was conducted
into the texts they had produced during the course.

2. METHODOLOGY

Permission was granted from the first students who took this course to analyze
their written work. The research had not been planned prior to these students
completing their courses and therefore neither the students nor the teacher were awarethat any research would be conducted. A document analysis of first drafts of the firstand fifth essays was undertaken to consider how these drafts differed in the four
categories valued by IELTS, namely coherence and cohesion, lexis, grammar, andtask achievement. Seven task 2 essay pairs were examined. A combination ofqualitative and quantitative data was collected using the four IELTS marking
categories as a framework for analysis.

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  -­‐	  59	  3. RESULTS

Task Achievement
Of the seven Task 2 essays, the majority of them required more developmentof the ideas proposed and greater perspicacity in the conclusion. However, in the later
submissions ideas were supported more adequately and the conclusions were clearer.

Table 1.
Task Achievement
Task

Essay 1 Common Problems

Essay 5 Improvements

2

Insufficient development

More support for ideas

Vague / unsupported conclusions

Logical conclusions

Overgeneralisation

Greater use of tentative language

Cohesion and Coherence
In order to analyse this area, the essays were examined in two main ways,
namely organization and language. The first, organization, looked at whether
paragraphing was used appropriately i.e. unity, logical progression, and the existenceof introductory and summarizing or concluding paragraphs. The second, language,
investigated the existence and appropriate use of cohesive devices such as signaling
devices, substitution and referencing, in other words, linguistic mechanisms whichindicate the relationships of concepts within and between sentences and paragraphs.

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  -­‐	  59	  Table 2.
Coherence and Cohesion
Task

Essay 1 Common Difficulties

Essay 5 Improvements

2Over extending ideas leading to unity

No unity problems

problems
No paragraphing

Improved paragraphing

General conclusions

Clearer, more precise conclusions

Cohesive devices underused typically

All integrate a greater range oflimited to coordinating conjunctions andacademic cohesive devices more

personal pronouns

appropriately

In this task there was development in cohesion and coherence. Of the seven essays
considered, only three submissions had noticeable paragraphing issues. Two of theseappeared to be through an over-extension of ideas, while the third was written as one
continuous paragraph. By the fifth essay, these issues had been resolved.
With regards to the actual paragraphs and the functions they fulfilled, theintroductory paragraphs and main paragraphs had come closer to genre expectations
by the fifth essay in all cases. All writers included concluding paragraphs from the
beginning, and of the two submissions that had used rather general conclusions, by
the fifth essay the conclusions had become clearer and more precise.
Regarding the language of coherence and cohesion, as with unity,
development was evident regardless of the writers’ relative ability from the initial

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  -­‐	  59	  draft. In six of the seven first Task 2 essays, cohesive devices were underused andtypically limited to coordinating conjunctions and personal pronouns. In spite of this,by the fifth essay all of these writers were using a greater range of academic cohesive
devices more appropriately and to good effect, with the most successful of these
seeming to have utilized extended formulaic sequences to show clear paragraphtransitions. There was still room for further application of signaling devices in aroundhalf of the essays, nevertheless this should not detract from the progress made.

Vocabulary
A vocabulary analysis was carried out to examine what was used and whether
there was any increase in sophistication. A calculation was done by attributing
vocabulary to one of two groups: general or sophisticated. The general group included
the first 2000 words on the Compleat Lexical Tutor while the sophisticated group
received words from Coxhead’s (2000) academic word list. The remaining words
were designated to either group on a word-by-word basis e.g. television was general,
vital was sophisticated. One further stage involved moving words from thesophisticated to the general group if they appeared in the essay question or as part ofthe diagram. There are limitations to this analysis in that it ignores accuracy of lexical
use and sophisticated compounds such as human rights are allocated individually to
the general word group. Nevertheless, a general overview of what is being used could
be a starting point for further research.

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  -­‐	  59	  Proportion of SophisticatedVocabulary

Task 2
20.0%
18.0%
16.0%
14.0%
12.0%
10.0%
8.0%
6.0%
4.0%
2.0%
0.0%

Essay 1
Essay 5

TS

KH

NB

NA

AKK

AKM

TK

Students

Figure 2. Task 2 vocabulary analysis

As can be seen, there is an almost unanimous increase in the proportions ofsophisticated vocabulary. The proportions in Fig. 2 clearly show a general increase in
representation of sophisticated vocabulary. Five of the learners have managed to
double the ratio and six of these first draft, final submissions in the 10% range orhigher. This translates into an average of one sophisticated word per line of the essay.
This number may be even higher due to the calculation issues regarding sophisticatedcompounds mentioned previously. One student’s proportion drops slightly and it isdifficult to attribute this to any particular factor.

GrammarAn analysis of the proportion of complex sentences, i.e. sentences containing
subordinate clauses, was done by counting the total number of sentences andidentifying the number of those that were complex. For Task 2, all seven learners

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  -­‐	  59	  increased the proportion of complexity.
Table 3.
Task 2 Proportion of Sentences Containing Complexity
Sts

Essay 1

Essay 5

TS

5/22

23%

8/16

50%

NB

4/19

21%

10/17

59%

NA

11/20

55%

11/15

73%

KH

5/15

33%

8/13

62%

AKK

11/21

52%

12/18

66%

AKM

8/19

42%

11/17

65%

TK

11/18

61%

9/14

64%

A closer look at how the complexity appeared to have been achieved showed that one
strategy had been to integrate formulaic sequences into common genre-specificfunctions such as thesis statements and paragraph transitions. Another approach was
to use if- or when-clauses to support ideas. It is difficult to attribute this specificallyto the exemplar texts, the instructional material built around the exemplars, or the
feedback.

4. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Although there were variations in the relative improvements in each of theseareas, overall every later essay was in some way better than the corresponding firstessay. Some showed a considerable improvement in a relatively short time frame. It is

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  -­‐	  59	  likely that the students who made the most progress did so through a deeper
understanding of the genre expectations, including the inclusion of formulaic
sequences and text organization rather than necessarily developing a deeper
understanding of grammar. It therefore follows that feedback must go beyond a focus
on form to consider how to bring writing closer to the expectations of the discourse
community.

5. LIMITATIONS

Many of the limitations of this study have already been mentioned such as alack of investigation into the accuracy of the greater range of vocabulary anddifficulty attributing causes to some of the results that show deterioration. In a similarway, it is difficult to attribute improvements to any particular aspect of the course. In
addition, the small sample size currently prevents the results from being generalized
to the wider student community. Nevertheless, the majority of results seem to support
the course’s effectiveness.
In terms of the limitation of the course, given the nature of IELTS exams, someform of timed practice with a pencil and paper would have added value to this course.
This is a limitation with this distance learning course where there is an real need toincorporate an element of exam conditions into writing practice, even if thehandwritten essays are not evaluated by the teacher.

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  -­‐	  59	  6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
RILS&LE funding was used to present the findings of this research in May 2012 at
the Third Tamkang International Conference on Second Language Writing in Tamsui,
Taiwan.

7. REFERENCES

Bunton, D. (2005). Examiners’ comments on the grammar and structure of PhD
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Coudery, T. (1997). Process writing. In F. Glenn (Ed). Writing in the English
language classroom. Hertfordshire, UK: Prentice Hall.
Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213 – 238.
Deci, E.L. (1996). Why we do what we do. London, UK: Penguin.
Ellis, R. (2009). A typology of written corrective feedback types. English Language
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Ferris, D. R. (1999). The case for grammar correction in L2 writing classes. A
response to Truscott (1996). Journal of Second Language Writing, 8, 1–10.
Flowerdew, J. (1993). An educational, or process, approach to the teaching ofprofessional genres. ELT Journal, 47(4), 305 – 315.
Holzman, S. (2005). Psychology and writing: Behaviourist approaches, cognitive
approaches and Vygotsky. Paper presented at the 39th International Annual
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Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
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Truscott, J. (1996). The case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes.
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White, R., & Arndt, V. (1991). Process Writing. London, UK: Longman.
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