Development of a Questionnaire for the Assessment of Writing Problems

Abstract

Due to the importance of publishing and its advantages for professors at the present time, this article intends to develop a questionnaire based on Bachman’s model (1990) to seek Iranian professors' attitude toward major problematic areas of writing Iranian scholars encounter trying to create a scientific paper so as to diminish rejection upon submission. The findings of the questionnaire demonstrated that regarding organizational competence, rhetorical organization, vocabulary, morphology and syntax were taken much more essential in this regard. On the subject of pragmatic competence, ideational functions and sensitivity to naturalness received greater importance. Concerning lower level skills of writing, professors declared the importance of spelling and punctuation in writing. General publishing problems asked from the professors exhibited the importance of all the items, but with greater emphasis on quality in writing. As a final point, professors' comments were described.