Revising strategies in ESL academic writing: a case study of Japanese postgraduate student writers

This article presents a case study that analyzes the revising processes of three Japanese ESL students in academic writing contexts. Much previous research into the revision strategies used by L1 and L2 writers has been conducted in experimental-like settings rather than naturally occurring situations. In contrast, the present study seeks to show what writers are doing during revision in their L2 academic essay writing in naturally occurring situations. The results indicate that the three students had very different revising strategies and very different perceptions of the role that revision played in the entire composing process. The results further demonstrate how ESL students struggle with their academic writing tasks in a new academic discourse community. Implications for ESL writing instructions are discussed from the viewpoint of literacy skills, second language proficiency, and students’ past learning, writing and professional experiences.