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Aided by big-data technology and artificial intelligence, automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems aim to help students engage in self-regulated learning and improve their academic writing in the digital era. While much research on student engagement with AWE systems has been conducted in mainstream classrooms, little attention has been paid to ethnic minority students who have different educational experiences and sociocultural backgrounds. This study investigates how a group of ethnic minority students from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region engaged with an AWE system in academic writing during an 18-week semester at a comprehensive Chinese university. Data were collected from multiple sources including student multiple-draft assignments, AWE feedback, and retrospective interviews with the students. The participants were found to engage with the AWE system behaviourally, cognitively, and affectively in their writing and revision, but the extent to which they engaged in the process is influenced by their multilingual proficiency, familiarity with digital technologies, learning beliefs and sociocultural identities. Those who were more actively engaged and obtained more learning gains tended to capitalise on their linguistic and cultural capital in their engagement with AWE feedback in their writing. The article concludes with educational implications for ethnic minority students in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of international doctoral students choose to study in China, a non-traditional learning destination. However, relatively few studies have investigated these students' academic writing practices while undertaking their studies in China. This study draws upon Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus, and capital, and the notion of global-national-local imbrications, to explore 20 international doctoral students' language-engagement experiences in a Chinese university. Our analysis found that English and Chinese co-exist to varying and sometimes shifting degrees in doctoral students' academic writing practices. As a result, some students potentially developed a hybrid, 'in-between', cosmopolitan habitus. Notably, however, other students felt disempowered in the Chinese HE 'sub-field', with its unique logics of practice. Students' experiences indicate that multifarious language practices potentially create a heavily hybridised 'sub-field' characterised by a multitude of imbricating global, national, and local influences, and highlight the need to ensure that the language of instruction is indeed oriented to student learning – a language for learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Academic paper writing holds significant importance in the education of medical students, and poses a clear challenge for those whose first language is not English. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of employing large language models, particularly ChatGPT, in improving the English academic writing skills of these students. Methods: A cohort of 25 third-year medical students from China was recruited. The study consisted of two stages. Firstly, the students were asked to write a mini paper. Secondly, the students were asked to revise the mini paper using ChatGPT within two weeks. The evaluation of the mini papers focused on three key dimensions, including structure, logic, and language. The evaluation method incorporated both manual scoring and AI scoring utilizing the ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4 models. Additionally, we employed a questionnaire to gather feedback on students' experience in using ChatGPT. Results: After implementing ChatGPT for writing assistance, there was a notable increase in manual scoring by 4.23 points. Similarly, AI scoring based on the ChatGPT-3.5 model showed an increase of 4.82 points, while the ChatGPT-4 model showed an increase of 3.84 points. These results highlight the potential of large language models in supporting academic writing. Statistical analysis revealed no significant difference between manual scoring and ChatGPT-4 scoring, indicating the potential of ChatGPT-4 to assist teachers in the grading process. Feedback from the questionnaire indicated a generally positive response from students, with 92% acknowledging an improvement in the quality of their writing, 84% noting advancements in their language skills, and 76% recognizing the contribution of ChatGPT in supporting academic research. Conclusion: The study highlighted the efficacy of large language models like ChatGPT in augmenting the English academic writing proficiency of non-native speakers in medical education. Furthermore, it illustrated the potential of these models to make a contribution to the educational evaluation process, particularly in environments where English is not the primary language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report on how authors of academic writing in Chinese (AWC) refer to themselves as single authors in the area of language studies. We find that AWC writers rely on the 1st-person plural 我们 women "we," 3rd-person NPs such as 作者/笔者 zuozhe/bizhe "this author," and inanimate NPs such as 本文 benwen "this article/paper" for self-reference. Based on these findings and subsequent surveys of journal style guides and interviews of authors, we propose that (1) these self-referring expressions are a set of conventions; (2) the motivation for these conventions is modesty, a deep-routed value of Chinese society; and (3) these expressions serve as indexicals to the writers' identity of a modest scholar in the particular discursive context: the genre of academic writing. By so doing, our work links language use to social values, to identity studies, as well as to genre analysis, thus contributing to the literature in all these fields of investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Studies have documented that utilizing peer feedback can enhance students' English academic writing skills. Little is known, however, about the effects of incorporating peer feedback to enhance English as a second language (L2) medical students' academic writing performance. Methods: This longitudinal interventional study examines Chinese medical students' English academic writing skills development via peer feedback in four parallel classes over an 18-week semester between the experimental and control groups (n = 124). Results: Significant increases in the experimental group's performance in the post-test were found after 18-week instructions (pre- vs. post-test: overall score, p <.001; task response, p <.001; coherence and cohesion, p <.001; lexical resource, p <.001; grammatical range and accuracy, p <.001), and the effects were retained in the delayed post-test 6 weeks later (post- vs. delayed post-test: overall score, p =.561; task response, p =.585; coherence and cohesion, p =.533; lexical resource, p =.796; grammatical range and accuracy, p =.670). Little improvement was found in the control group in the post-test (pre- vs. post-test: overall score, p =.213; task response, p =.275; coherence and cohesion, p =.383; lexical resource, p =.367; grammatical range and accuracy, p =.180) or the delayed post-test (post- vs. delayed post-test: overall score, p =.835; task response, p =.742; coherence and cohesion, p =.901; lexical resource, p =.897; grammatical range and accuracy, p =.695). Between-group comparisons indicate that the experimental group outperformed the control group in the post- and the delayed post-tests, as shown in their overall score and scores on the four components. Conclusions: Incorporating peer feedback into process-oriented medical English writing classroom teaching can effectively enhance Chinese medical students' English academic writing skills over time, while the traditional product-oriented writing instructions had little help in improving Chinese medical students' academic writing skills. This longitudinal intervention study develops our understanding of the effectiveness of peer feedback in L2 academic writing pedagogy. It offers instructional implications for L2 writing teachers to teach English academic writing among medical students in China and beyond. Limitations and suggestions for future studies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a gradual increase in the use of e-feedback in higher education, but issues regarding learners' anxiety remain unresolved. In light of the learners' anxiety, e-feedback would essentially become a formality if they are not proactive in providing constructive feedback. This action research examines three cycles of e-feedback activities performed by 12 doctoral students in an academic writing course in a public university in Macau, China. Specifically, the e-feedback activity involved a comprehensive use of various new educational technology tools, namely Moodle, WeChat and Rain Classroom. This study reveals that the causes of students' anxiety when using e-feedback are multi-layered, mainly from the use of smartphones as a communication medium for conducting formal learning activities and the lack of interpersonal and English skills for conveying their thoughts when providing e-feedback. The traditional Chinese culture about the importance of "face" and interpersonal harmony also has impacts on learners' e-feedback delivery. These findings shed new lights on pedagogical practice in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing book reviews provides novice scholars with the valuable experience of critical engagement with their field and the development of academic writing skills, but it also confronts them with rhetorical and publishing challenges. Given the enduring value of the genre and its potential importance in English for Research and Publication Purposes courses, we investigate how academics view their experience of publishing this genre. Based on in-depth interviews with fifteen Chinese scholars of varied professional status, we find that authors participate in writing book reviews early in their careers and appreciate the opportunities it offers to develop their academic writing, gain an appreciation of reader needs, become familiar with publication practices, and advance their careers. Concerns were raised, however, about the extent to which institutions value book reviews for advancement. Despite varying opinions, the respondents saw book reviews as affording them tangible gains, especially early in their careers, in writing for publication and learning disciplinary norms of communication. Thus the genre merits respect from institutions and a more central place in ERPP training programmes and postgraduate writing courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a sociocultural perspective, this vignette-based study explored Chinese master's students' emotions and emotion-regulation strategies in supervisor writing feedback situations. An instrument contained 17 vignettes was developed, validated and administered among 189 participants. Individual interviews with five participants were also conducted, and written materials were collected. The findings revealed that across the 17 hypothetical scenarios, positive emotion was the most reported emotional status, and Chinese master's students would be more likely to feel grateful, hopeful and excited, while contemptuous, bored and angry were the least reported. This study also identified a set of emotion-regulation strategies (i.e. task-related regulation, response regulation, cognitive regulation, attention deployment, co-regulation, and general response) used by students in handling their emotions in supervisory feedback situations. This study provides insights into the emotional dimension of supervisory feedback practices and concludes with pedagogical implications to enhance the wellbeing of postgraduate students in learning academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the peer feedback literature the topic of students' enjoyment is largely unexplored, and attention to the emotional differences between feedback givers and receivers is unbalanced. To address this gap, the present study examined the enjoyment differences of Chinese graduate students (N = 32), performing consecutively the role of feedback givers and of receivers, over eight weeks in their English academic writing class. It found that the students generally preferred the giver role, reporting significantly higher scores in private and peer enjoyment with that role. The thematic analysis of their personal letters accompanying peer feedback revealed that they had heightened their sense of fulfillment and enthusiasm when giving comments. Pedagogical suggestions are given to innovate and improve peer feedback activities in academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical study serves two purposes. The first purpose is to validate a newly developed instrument, the Metacognitive Academic Writing Strategies Questionnaire (MAWSQ), which represents the multifaceted structure of metacognition in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) academic writing setting. The second purpose is to delineate the predictive effects of different metacognitive strategies on EFL academic writing performance. Data were collected from 664 students at a university in mainland China. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) provided evidence for the fit for two hypothesized models, i.e., an eight-factor correlated model and a one-factor second-order model. Model comparisons documented that the one-factor second-order model was a better model, through which metacognition functions as a higher order construct that can account for the correlations of the eight metacognitive strategies, pertaining to declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, conditional knowledge, planning, monitoring, evaluating, information management, and debugging strategies. Results also provided evidence for the significant predicting effects of the eight strategies on EFL academic writing performance. The empirical evidence supports the transfer of metacognition theory from educational psychology to interpreting EFL academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the process and its effect for a doctoral student's advanced academic literacy (AAL) development in the context of student-supervisor relationship (SSR). The data sources comprise an authentic three-year tutorial record and 68 reflective learning journals written by a successful Chinese doctoral student of linguistics. The case shows that the participant developed a cognitive, cooperative, dialogic and instructive student-supervisor relationship and her learning activities in doctoral education are rich and constructive. The participant built her expertise mainly through knowledge acquisition and by a significant amount of academic writing practice for publication. Aided by her supervisor, the participant successfully joined as a research member the given sociocultural community. This socialisation promotes her professional identity transformation. The findings also reveal some weaknesses in the participant's AAL development, such as a lack of solid theoretical knowledge base, meaningful peer interaction, and in-depth integration into the international academic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic writing is a social practice in which the writer interacts with both texts and people and uses the interaction as a learning resource. While academic interaction in the classroom setting has been extensively investigated, student interaction that takes place without teacher supervision remains largely unexplored. Since autonomy is a key component of academic interaction, autonomous peer feedback practices among postgraduate students may be of some interest. This paper reports on an exploratory case study of peer feedback among a small group of postgraduate students in a master's programme in translation studies in a prestigious Chinese University. The findings offer insights into the role of peer feedback in advancing academic literacy and forming scholarly communities in an emerging discipline. The case study provides an opening into the research area of autonomous peer feedback and suggests avenues for further, more substantial research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study focused on the assessment of how task complexity and learner variables (English proficiency level, self-regulated writing strategies, and writing self-efficacy belief) influence English academic writing for students in a foreign language context. The participants were 270 students from a medium-sized university in China. All participants completed measures on self-regulated writing strategies, self-efficacy, and an academic writing test. Guided research questions aimed to explore the extent to which task complexity and English proficiency level influenced writing performance along with how learners' self-efficacy and self-regulated writing strategies mediated the role of task complexity in academic writing performance. Structural equation modelling results showed that task complexity and English proficiency level influenced learners' writing performance. Self-efficacy beliefs and the use of self-regulated writing strategies mediated the role of task complexity on academic writing performance. Implications related to the assessment of task complexity, self-regulated writing strategies, self-efficacy, and academic writing were discussed. • Task complexity influences learners' academic writing performance. • English proficiency level impacts learners' academic writing performance writing. • Self-regulation and self-efficacy mediate the role of task complexity in academic writing performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This corpus-based study compares L1-English and L1-Chinese undergraduate students' use of lexical bundles in English argumentative essays, and identifies the most common bundle misuses in L2 student writing. Data consist of two corpora of student-produced argumentative essays: 101 high-rated essays written by L1-English students and 105 high-rated essays written by L1-Chinese students. Using Biber's (Biber et al., 1999; Biber et al., 2004) structural and functional taxonomy, we compared the forms and functions of four-word bundles used by L1-English and L1-Chinese university students. Findings indicate that L2 students not only use substantially more bundle types and tokens than L1 writers, but the structural and functional patterns of bundles also differ. While L1 writers' bundles consist of mostly noun and preposition phrases, L2 students use significantly more verb phrase (clausal) bundles. Results also show that L2 student writers use significantly more stance bundles than L1 writers. In addition, most of the misused bundles in the L2 writers' essays pertain to grammatical mistakes, particularly with articles and prepositions. We conclude with some pedagogical implications for ESL composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the longitudinal development of L2 academic ‘stance’ features resulting from instruction in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at a university in Hong Kong. We analysed the frequency and wordings of hedges, boosters, attitude markers and self-mention within a 205,682 word longitudinal corpus of essays and reports collected over a semester's instruction via pre-, mid- and post-instruction submissions, alongside data on submission grade. Data was analysed for frequency and wording differences alongside mixed-effect models to confirm the impact of instruction on the data. Results show significant longitudinal variation in the frequency of hedging, boosting, marking attitude and self-mention devices as the result of instruction, with a rise in the use of hedging and an overall reduction in the use of boosting and self-mention, serving to leave students with a more careful, narrower, less polarising and less personal range of expressions with which to convey their stance over time. We also present longitudinal genre-specific effects on stance features between essays and reports, and show how a longitudinal increase in hedges and boosters results in texts that receive a higher grade from teacher-raters. Our findings recommend explicit instruction of stance features as crucial in raising students' awareness of how to achieve persuasive academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on findings from a study of the impact of language-environments on the second-year Chinese graduate students' English writing perceptions and performance. Ninety-four students were divided into three groups in order to see the effects of language environments on their English writing. One group, a study-abroad group (i.e., ESL learners), consisted of 31 non-English majors, who moved to the U.S. to pursue graduate education. The other two groups were studying for graduate degrees in universities in China. To find out the effects of language environments on their English writing perceptions and performance, we used a self-designed 80-item questionnaire and two writing tests (a letter-writing task and an argumentative essay writing task). Results suggest that in comparison with the at-home group, the ESL language environment had a statistically significant effect on the study-abroad group's English writing perceptions and performance. The study-abroad group was significantly more competent in English letter writing than the two at-home groups ( p ≤ 001). The performance of the study-abroad students was also statistically better than the at-home non-English major group in argumentative essay writing, although they did not outperform the at-home English-major group. Implications of the study are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a key aspect of Chinese scholars writing for publication in English: the role played by local English teachers as literacy brokers or “text mediators”. Increasingly, academics in China are required to publish their research in prestigious international journals to progress their careers, and are turning to local English teaching colleagues for assistance. The expense, uncertain competence and sometimes dubious ethical practices of professional editing services, combined with the co-present contact and personal relationships formed with local colleagues, mean that Chinese English teachers are rapidly becoming a valuable resource for turning the massive number of Chinese submissions into publishable papers. This relationship, however, is complicated by the lack of institutional funding for language mediation of this kind and by the uncertainties of appropriate reward for this work. This paper examines the kinds of cooperation and difficulties experienced between local English teachers and scientists in some Chinese universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores interactional metadiscourse in successful and less-successful (i.e., A- vs. B-graded) argumentative essays written by Chinese ESL university students, and how these ESL writers compare with high-rated L1 students. The analysis is based on three corpora of student writing: 25 successful ESL essays, 25 less-successful ESL essays, and 25 successful L1 English papers. Using Hyland’s (2005a) model of interactional metadiscourse, these papers were compared to examine the extent to which successful and less-successful student-produced argumentative essays differ in their employment of stance and engagement resources. Findings of the analysis suggest that successful essays, both L1 and L2, contain significantly greater instances of particularly hedging devices than less-successful essays. For some interpersonal resources, such as boosters and attitude markers, no significant differences were found. The analysis also reveals that, unlike their L1 peers, ESL students were overwhelmingly reluctant to establish an authorial identity in their writing. The paper concludes with a few implications for L2 writing pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Chinese university students' perceptions of plagiarism have been extensively investigated, those of their teachers have been surprisingly under-researched. This study sought to address this gap by investigating 112 Chinese university English teachers' knowledge of and attitudes towards plagiarism. While 57 participating teachers had overseas academic experience, the remaining ones received all their education in mainland China. They completed a perceptions of plagiarism survey that elicited their knowledge of several common forms of plagiarism in Anglo-American academia, perceptions of various possible causes of plagiarism, and attitudes towards plagiarism induced by different causes and plagiarism in general. The study found that the teachers reported varying knowledge of different types of transgressive textual practices, variegated perceptions of the different causes of plagiarism, but clearly punitive attitudes towards plagiarism. It also revealed significant differences between teachers with and without overseas academic experience in knowledge of and stances on plagiarism. These findings highlight the complexity of plagiarism as an intertextual phenomenon and point to the important role of cultural practices and academic socialisation in shaping perceptions of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse competence is a critical component of academic writing, as it influences the coherence, cohesion, and overall structure of a text. This article reports on the development of a set of fine-grained diagnostic rubrics to assess the construct of discourse competence, which is operationalized as consisting of 10 features under five components, namely, topic building, global coherence, local coherence, logical connectives, and reader–writer interactions. The rubrics were applied to a sample of 108 essays written by EFL undergraduates majoring in business studies in a Sino-Australia joint degree programme in China. The study found that the rubrics could be used to generate detailed profiles of undergraduates' relative strengths and weaknesses regarding the features of their discourse competence. The participants were stronger in using logical connectives but much weaker in topic building , global coherence, and reader–writer interactions. This study represents perhaps one of the first attempts to systematically specify the construct of discourse competence and to assess the construct at an appropriate grain size. As such, its findings can enrich our understanding of discourse competence. The study also contributes a useful and innovative instrument to the research into L2 writing assessment. • Systematically conceptualised the construct of discourse competence (DC). • Operationalized DC into five components and ten features for diagnostic assessment. • Applied the fine-grained rubrics to assess a sizable sample of academic essays. • Generated diagnostic profiles for undergraduates majoring in business studies. • Compared the profiles of essays at three levels of performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the extent to which Chinese students are prepared for academic writing in higher education in the UK, by seeking evidence from a group of 40 Chinese students at a UK university. A mixed-methods approach combining both questionnaires and interviews was adopted to generate data. The main conclusion was that the training that Chinese students received in China may not have prepared them well for academic writing at an advanced level in the UK. This is based on the findings that there were significant differences between writing in the UK and writing in China, that writing was more emphasised in the UK than in China, that the students did not receive appropriate feedback on their work in China, and that they still had language barriers when they were writing in English in the UK. However, the results also showed that there were individual differences among the Chinese students, implying that they should not be treated as a homogenous group. This paper calls for further research on current popular teaching and learning practices at the undergraduate level in China and for information on the views of Chinese teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the emergence of the plural forms of English widely acknowledges the sociolinguistic realities in many countries and regions, it might also have an equally profound impact on English teaching and learning in those areas. The trend is for pedagogical models no longer to privilege so-called Standard English based on native varieties but to be built on the localised model. This article argues, however, that for English to continue to function as a ‘lingua franca’, certain standards should be imposed on language use by Chinese students in their academic writing, so that the variant forms will not digress too much from the standard forms and so not result in unintelligibility or misunderstanding. Focusing on selected written data produced by advanced Chinese students, a distinction can be made between interlanguage and variant forms that mark the Chineseness in China English where both features can be situated on a continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a mixed-methods study of Chinese university students' knowledge of and attitudes toward plagiarism in English academic writing. A sample of 270 undergraduates from two Chinese universities rated three short English passages under different conditions, provided open-ended responses to justify their ratings, and completed a written questionnaire. The rating tasks were designed to determine their ability to recognize two forms of intertextuality (i.e., unacknowledged copying and paraphrasing) generally regarded as plagiarism in Anglo-American academia. The questionnaire was administered to collect self-appraisals of competence in source use and to assess declarative knowledge of intertextual practices that match typical Anglo-American definitions of blatant and subtle plagiarism. Qualitative and quantitative analyses revealed that a minority of the students recognized the two forms of plagiarism and generally took a punitive attitude toward the detected cases of plagiarism. Further quantitative analyses found that discipline, self-reported competence in referencing, and knowledge of subtle plagiarism were consistently significant predictors of successful plagiarism detection. These findings raise questions about some culturally based interpretations of plagiarism and point to the need to take a nuanced approach to plagiarism in L2 writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite extensive discussion on critical thinking (CT) by Chinese students, there are still debates over the question of why Chinese higher education students, when studying abroad, lack (or rather do not demonstrate) CT skills. The main objective of this paper is to explore how far it can be established from the published research literature whether the key factor affecting Chinese university students' CT with respect to academic study in English is cultural background or previous training. The conclusion is that culture cannot be the sole explanation for Chinese students' CT performance at universities abroad. The evidence strongly suggests that, while CT elements can indeed be found in ancient Chinese culture, many other factors, especially students' previous learning experiences, are of more immediate relevance and likely to affect performance. As a result, a holistic approach is suggested. The review also suggests that there is at times a lack of clear definitions and/or explanations of the scope of the key concept - culture - in the current literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a study into the use of amplifiers and amplifier collocations in the doctoral dissertations of Chinese EFL learners. A sample corpus of doctoral dissertations by Chinese doctoral students and a control corpus of doctoral dissertations by native speaker doctoral students were compiled and used for the analyses. Results showed that the overall number of amplifiers used by the Chinese students and the native speaker students were comparable. However, the Chinese learners overused totally, very and really and underused entirely and highly in their writing. Moreover, the Chinese learners tended to use more amplifier collocations than their native speaker counterparts. In particular, they tended to use clearly much more frequently to intensify the reporting verbs and to use the amplifiers to intensify the meaning of general adjectives in their writing. It was also found that many amplifier collocations used by the Chinese learners were congruent collocations. The findings may indicate a non-native style within Chinese learners' writing. We argue that Chinese learners overuse amplifiers and amplifier collocations in order to focus the reader's attention as well as to enhance the meaning of general adjectives. Meanwhile, the Chinese learners' mother tongue exerts a clear influence on their use of amplifiers and amplifier collocations. Pedagogical implications are also discussed within the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we shall explore academic writing in the framework of academic literacy development among Hong Kong university ESL learners of language and education programs. We shall also discuss discipline-specific academic writing in terms of the continuum comprising academic writing in science, social science and humanities and the implications for developing academic writing skills of Hong Kong ESL learners. In particular, we shall discuss in detail a number of issues regarding academic writing in the disciplines of language and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to limited extant scholarship in the second language writing (L2) and testing literature, the current study explores the production of recurring formulaic sequences in the writing of L2 English learners in a testing context. In particular, the authors investigate the lexical bundles produced in the academic writing of L2 English learners at a Chinese university using a corpus of 120 argumentative essays as writers prepared to take China's College English Test. Along with exploring characteristics of the bundles produced by the writers, we examine the relationship between learners' bundle use and holistic writing quality. The results suggest that quantitatively, there were differences between the number of 3-word bundles produced by learners who received high- and low-scores. Likewise, there were clear qualitative differences in specific features of the bundles learners used, which potentially contributed to differences in scores. Beyond highlighting such features, the authors discuss the pedagogical implications for the L2 writing classroom along with the need for future researchers to investigate the formulaic language produced by L2 learners and how it may impact scoring. • We investigated 3-, 4-, and 5-word lexical bundles in short argumentative essays. • 3-word bundles were most diverse, prompt-dependent 5-word bundles were most frequent. • We found a significant difference in the use of 3-word bundles by writing quality. • High-scoring group utilized bundles directly relevant to the prompts. • Use of prompt-dependent and stance bundles may be characteristic of texts for writing tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]