ERIC Number: EJ1187578
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-2079-8245
EISSN: N/A
Attitudes of Second Language Students towards Self-Editing Their Own Written Texts
Kasule, Daniel; Lunga, Violet B.
Reading & Writing: Journal of the Reading Association of South Africa, v1 n1 p61-72 2010
Recognizing students' deliberate efforts to minimize errors in their written texts is valuable in seeing them as responsible active agents in text creation. This paper reports on a brief survey of the attitudes towards self-editing of seventy university students using a questionnaire and class discussion. The context of the study is characterized by its emphasis on evaluating the finished written product. Findings show that students appreciate the role of self-editing in minimizing errors in their texts and that it helps in eventually producing well-written texts. Conceptualizing writing as discourse and therefore as social practice leads to an understanding of writers as socially-situated actors; repositions the student writer as an active agent in text creation; and is central to student-centred pedagogy. We recommend the recognition of self-editing as a vital element in the writing process and that additional error detection mechanisms namely peers, the lecturer, and the computer, increase student autonomy.
Descriptors: College Students, Student Attitudes, Writing Attitudes, Second Language Learning, Revision (Written Composition), Editing, Error Correction, Writing Improvement, English (Second Language), Peer Evaluation, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Botswana
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A