The Writing Process: Common Fallacies in Writing, por Claudia Cañedo

Claudia Cañedo:
Profesora en Lengua y literatura Inglesa Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Licenciada en Filología Inglesa. Universidad Central de Barcelona. Postgraduate courses:
Didáctica de la Lengua. Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
Lectocomprensión en Lengua Extranjera. Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires
Master in TEFL (Teaching of English as a Foreign Language). Universidad de Granada
She has delivered several workshops and lectures on English Language Teaching.

This presentation gives an insight into the complexity of writing and analyzes the main drawbacks that the writing skill encompasses. On the one hand, the learner has to overcome many difficulties along the several stages he has to undergo. For reasons of time, the student does most of his writing in isolation with little help from peers and/or the teacher. This makes the task for both teacher and learner even harder. The teacher also carries out the marking of the end-product in isolation without having actually taken part in the writing process.
For marking students’ papers teachers may choose different approaches. Some texts demand a former concentration on form even when the teacher is more likely to use a content- based approached. Although the focus on content has been carefully applied, the teacher might still feel that there is some awkwardness pervading the text which has not been straightened up after the marking.
A closer scrutiny might bring to light that some texts seem to exhibit weaknesses which lie at the thought level. In other words, the use of wrong assumptions or fallacies in writing shadows the quality and credibility of written texts.
The presentation shows the most current fallacies used in written texts. Instances have been drawn from EFL students’ pieces of writing with view to increase recognition of fallacies and reduce their use. It is expected that learners gain knowledge on how to improve their texts and strengthen the value of their arguments. Teachers might also benefit from understanding that content and form are supported by a structure of thoughts which needs to be unambiguously built- up.