Another reply to Truscott on error correction: Improved situated designs over statistics

Apart from the focus on error correction for language accuracy in L2 writing being very narrow, I argue that research design questions are much more important than statistical analyses, very often used to hide defects in the research. Furthermore, since error correction in L2 writing has a fundamental pedagogical purpose, it is necessary to situate research into L2 error correction in writing not only contextually, but also within a decision-making framework, which was the point in my earlier article (Bruton, 2009a). In addition to questioning many of Truscott’s arguments, including psycholinguistic, psychological, social and pedagogical issues, I believe there are two fundamentally different research questions: Is teacher response to errors alone in L2 writing necessarily the best feedback or the worst feedback for improvement in the accuracy of future L2 writing?