Attitudes of second language students towards self-editing their own written texts

Abstract

Recognizing students’ deliberate e!orts 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.