Exploring ERPP writing challenges: An investigation into the perceived and analysed difficulties of Spanish EFL university researchers

Abstract

Research writing competence in English is essential for EFL communities, who experience increasing pressure to publish their research studies in peer-reviewed international journals. As already stated in the literature (Cargill & Burgess, 2008; Villagrán & Harris, 2009; Lillis & Curry, 2010; Cargill & O’Connor, 2013; Cotos, 2016; Burgess et al., 2019), the purpose of the scientific community is to disseminate their results among practitioners in their field.

This paper explores the main challenges that ERPP poses for a group of EFL university researchers as well as train them in the use of some corpus-management tools, which may enhance their written production in English. The aim of this study is twofold: a) identify what areas of research writing seem to be most problematic for participants in the study, and b) train participants in the use of corpus-based resources and tools to help EFL writers produce a phraseologically competent academic research article. Results show that participants perceive word combinations and grammatical issues as the most challenging aspects in their writing process, followed by misuse of similar pairs of words and, to a much lesser extent, issues regarding punctuation, linking words, and paragraph distribution.