The Impact of Essay Genre on Emirati University Students’ Writing Errors

Authors

  • Andrew M.J. Milewski Fatima College of Health Sciences
  • Shehdeh Fareh University of Sharjah
  • Saher A. Alsabbah

Keywords:

EMP, medical discourse, medical humanities, empathy, intercultural understanding

Abstract

There is a lack of studies investigating the relationship between essay genre and writing errors. To fill this gap, our study examines whether genre modulates the frequency of error types and their distribution across error categories. This requires analysis of the most common errors in both genres so remediation strategies can be recommended. Ninety argumentative essays (AE) and ninety rhetorical analyses (RA) were analyzed using methods that were modified from the literature. Essays were composed by adult female Emiratis (n = 90), enrolled in academic writing courses at Fatima College of Health Sciences in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Results showed that rhetorical analyses contained twice as many errors as argumentative essays. Rankings of error categories (e.g. grammar errors) in both genres revealed some partial differences. Rankings of error types (e.g. syntax: run-on sentence) showed further differences. Lexical errors were highly prevalent in both essay genres, in terms of both error category and error type. Essay genre may be partially responsible for error count differences. Other factors, primarily composition method and submission conditions, may also have impacted error counts. Three factors account for the majority of errors: intralingual & interlingual processes, overgeneralization errors and violation of subcategorization and semantic selectional rules. More research is needed to understand further the relationship between essay genre and writing errors.

Author Biographies

Andrew M.J. Milewski, Fatima College of Health Sciences

Andrew M.J. Milewski works as an English language lecturer at Fatima College of Health Sciences in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He has taught English language courses at universities and colleges in Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. His research interests include psycholinguistics, applied linguistics, and second language acquisition.

Shehdeh Fareh, University of Sharjah

Shehdeh Fareh is a Prof. of linguistics at the University of Sharjah. He taught at the BA, MA, and Ph.D. levels. He is currently the Director of the Language Institute. His research interests include Contrastive Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Translation, and TEFL. He published many articles in international journals and translated more than 20 books from English into Arabic.

Saher A. Alsabbah

Saher A. Alsabbah is an Assoc. Prof. of Psychology at Fatima College of Health Sciences (FCHS). He has extensive research experience in various fields of psychology, education, and health sciences. He holds a Ph.D. from USM, a Master's in measurement and evaluation from Al Yarmouk University in Jordan, and a diploma in CBT from the U.K. He has published numerous articles in international journals, presented at international conferences, and authored books, book chapters, and monographs. He is a reviewer for multiple journals and his research interests include educational psychology, positive psychology, health psychology, and organizational psychology. He is currently the lead of research at FCHS.

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Published

2022-12-30

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Vol. 4 No. 1 (2022)

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Articles

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