We examine the relationships between (a) the grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic choices of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners and (b) the holistic scores assigned to their EFL essays. Previous research on the assessment of second-language (L2) writing performance has focused on holistic essay scores or the grammatical and discourse features of L2 learners' texts. Very few studies have looked at the sociolinguistic and strategic choices of L2 learners and how these choices relate to essay scores. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the effects of essay characteristics on the holistic evaluation of L2 writing performance.

Each of 27 EFL students at two levels of EFL proficiency wrote two essays on two tasks. The essays were then rated by six of the students' EFL writing teachers. Using Connor and Mbaye's (2002) Writing Competence Model (which is based on the Canale-Swain Communicative Competence Model), we developed a framework for analyzing the essays in terms of four competencies : grammatical (fluency, accuracy, and lexis), discourse (coherence and organization), sociolinguistic (register), and strategic (persuasive appeal and metadiscourse).

We compare the writers' grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic choices across writing tasks and EFL proficiency levels and explore the correlations between these choices and the scores the six raters assigned. Furthermore, we closely examine the characteristics of (a) high- and low-proficiency essays, (b) essays that generated high and low inter-rater agreement, and (c) essays that resulted in biased interactions with the raters as indicated in a Multi-faceted Rasch analysis of essay scores. We conclude by presenting implications for the teaching and assessment of EFL writing and suggestions for further research.

Connor, U., & Mbaye, A. (2002). Discourse approaches to writing assessment. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 22, 263-278.