Get your essay score here An argument essay has 5 paragraphs: an introduction, two supporting arguments, a counterargument, and a conclusion, plus a works cited section. An opinion essay has 3 or more paragraphs: an introduction, one or more paragraphs with supporting arguments, and a conclusion, but no works cited section IELTS essays involve letter
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How do students react to automated film-analysis essay evaluation?
Recently, I reported on the perils and promise of a project I have been working on with Dr. Frank Bonkowski. We created an automated film-analysis essay evaluation system to provide the correction and formative scoring of essays to his advanced English Second Language learners at CEGEP de St-Laurent, in Montreal, Canada. The idea was to
Read on »How can I evaluate an argument essay in 2 seconds?
Many college teachers assign either opinion essays or argument essays to their English Second Language students. These highly structured writing assignments give students practice organizing their ideas and defending a point of view. The goal is to prepare students to go on and write research reports or graduate theses at university. However, when it comes
Read on »Can I evaluate a film-analysis essay automatically?
This article discusses automatically scoring film analysis essays. Here are links to other automated evaluations on the Virtual Writing Tutor. Pen pal exchange project IELTS practice tests Argument essay evaluation system Lately, I have been developing automatic essay evaluations for IELTS and now for college-level academic writing. I sent an email to colleagues in my
Read on »Do online grammar checkers affect writing apprehension and language learning anxiety?
There does not appear to be any research that answers the question about grammar checkers and writing apprehension reduction directly. To begin to answer the question, a review of the literature on writing apprehension, anxiety, willingness to communicate, and web-based activities would help. If you are looking for articles on the development of the Virtual Writing Tutor
Read on »Need a research question in English Pedagogy or Applied Linguistics?
The Virtual Writing Tutor is a free English Second Language grammar checker. Research into the pedagogy of online grammar checkers is still new. Not a lot is known about how they are used by teachers, by learners, what their effect is on writing apprehension and accuracy. If you need a topic for your master’s thesis and
Read on »10 Mind-blowing Research Findings to Supercharge Your ESL Lessons
I presented the following 10 research findings at the Rascals Conference in St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, on June 4th, 2018. The handout is here. Get the error correction card game that I described. The PowerPoint and references are below. I have created a web version of the talk that I gave and uploaded it to YouTube so
Read on »Reviews, Interviews, and Grammar Checker Articles
Here is a list of articles that were published recently about the Virtual Writing Tutor grammar checker: The Impact of Virtual Writing Tutor on Writing Skills and Attitudes of Omani College Students by Amal Aamir Al Badi, Mohamed El Tahir Osman, & Abdo, M. Al-Mekhlafi EFL Magazine interview with Nicholas Walker by Sharyn Collins 10 Reasons to
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