ELT J 2010 Nurmukhamedov 272 82

‘Would you perhaps consider . . .’:hedged comments in ESL writing

Ulugbek Nurmukhamedov and Soo Hyon Kim

Both research and practice have shown that while some comments on L2 writinglead to substantive revision, others go unattended, failing to achieve theiranticipated instructional effect. It is therefore crucial to determine how learnersperceive different commentary types, so that teachers can enhance the efficacy oftheir feedback. The present study shares practical suggestions on making writtencomments more effective, based on the results of an examination of the effects offour different commentary types on ESL students’ essays: statements (statingstudents’ problems), imperatives (directly asking students to change, delete, andadd), questions (showing elements of doubt and uncertainty), and hedging(avoiding directness by implying or suggesting). While hedging comments wereassociated with substantive and effective revisions, stimulated recall interviewsrevealed that challenges may exist for ESL writers in interpreting hedgingcomments appropriately because of the difficulty in understanding theirpragmatic function.

Introduction Written feedback enables teachers to complement and individualizeclassroom instruction and helps students make effective revisions toimprove their final written products (Zamel 1985; Leki 1990; Ferris 2003).Writing teachersuse different commentary types tomake this processmoreeffective by using various written comments that range from statements,imperatives, and questions to praise, criticism, or personal attributionexpressed with hedging devices (Hyland and Hyland 2001: 185). Thepresent study examines which comment type (statement, imperative,question, and hedging) encourages ESL writing students to makesubstantive as well as effective changes. In addition, it investigates ESLwriting students’ perceptions of each comment type.

Responding tostudents’ writing

In order for teachers’ written comments to make the greatest impact onstudent revisions, teachers shouldnot only carefully selectwhat to commenton but should also consider which commentary type would be the mosteffective way to convey this comment.

Teacher comments at times fail to help students make effective revisionsbecause they aredifficult for students to interpret. This couldbeattributed tothe sometimes vague and contradictory nature of teachers’ comments oncontent (Zamel 1985) but could also be because the type of commentsteachers use to address certain errors may not be the most effective ones.

272 ELT Journal Volume 64/3 July 2010; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp063ªª The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication August 28, 2009

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For example, as stated in Ferris (1997), whereas many teachers providewritten commentary in the form of questions to stimulate students’thinking processes and to avoid appropriating students’ texts, ESL studentsfrequently find these questions intangible and confusing.

Among previous research conducted on teacher-written commentary inboth EFL and ESL settings, two studies by Ferris (1997) and Sugita (2006)are closely related to the present study in their interest in the characteristicsof different types of teacher comments and their efficacy in promotingeffective revision.

Ferris (1997) looked atmarginal and summary comments in ESL students’papers in order to identify the features of teacher commentary that lead tosubstantive and effective changes in students’ papers. Results showed thatquestion comments lead to mixed effects, while imperative comments,though fewer, resulted in positive changes in students’ drafts. It was alsofound that the use of hedging in the written comments had little effect onthe degree of changes students made in their subsequent drafts.

A similar studywas conducted in an EFL setting by Sugita (2006), with pre-intermediate and intermediate native Japanese speakers at a four-yearprivate university in Japan. Sugita examined the influence of teachercomments on students’ revisions according to their different types:statements, imperatives, and questions. The impact of these differentcomment types was to be determined from three groups of students underthree different experimental conditions: a group of first-year studentsreceived imperative comments while two groups of second-year studentseach received question and statement comments. An analysis of theteacher’swrittencomments and students’ revisions revealed that imperativecomments encouraged the students tomakemore substantial changes, i.e.‘total, or changed in original thought or meaning’ (p. 37), than did questionor statement comments. Based on this observation, Sugita claimed thatteachers should use imperative comments to promote more positive,substantive revision.While the results of Sugita’s study certainly shedmorelight on the potentially different effects of various types of comments, weshould be cautious about generalizing the findings across different types oferrors and distinct learning contexts.

The present study Extending the line of previous research, this exploratory study examines theimpact of different types of written comments on subsequent studentrevisions. In addition to the comment types previously examined by Sugita(2006), i.e. statements, imperatives, and questions, the effect of anadditional comment type, hedging, is also investigated. Whereas the use ofhedging in English discourse and academic writing is prevalent, thepragmatic function of hedging is often culturally bound and, thus,frequently invisible to L2 readers (Hyland 1998). This could make theappropriate interpretation of hedging comments a challenging task formany English learners in both EFL and ESL learning contexts. Thus, thepresent study not only examines the applicability of previous researchfindings on written comment types to an ESL learning context but alsoenables better insight into the influence of an additional written commenttype that is commonly used yet little known about. The following section

Hedged comments in ESL writing 273

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provides a brief introduction on the social and rhetorical functions ofhedging in English and its linguistic forms.

Hedging comments Hedged utterances in English can be found in spoken, written, andacademic discourse. In spoken English, as described by Carter andMcCarthy (2007: 16):

Hedging is a general termused to describe the strategywhen a speaker orwriter wishes to avoid coming straight to the point or to avoid speakingdirectly (e.g. Hewas kind of begging us to write but I probablywon’t do it.)

In writing, Hyland (1998: 1) believes that hedging can be used to

indicate either (a) a lack of complete commitment to the truth value of anaccompanying proposition or (b) a desire not to express that commitmentcategorically.

Taking precautions against making categorical statements enables writersto refute possible counter-arguments and, thus, strengthen theirarguments. This use of hedging has become a distinct ‘convention ofacademic style’ (Hyland 1998).While also addressing the various rhetoricaland social purposes of hedging, Hinkel (2004) further explains that ‘. . .[Hedging] can take many linguistic forms, including adverbs, adjectives,modal and mental/emotive verbs, and conjunctions’. She points out that,‘various definitions and classifications of hedging devices have beenconstructed to account for their complex and frequently culturally boundcontextual uses’ (p. 313). In the present study, hedging is operationalized asa device used to show hesitation or uncertainty, display politeness andindirectness, and defer to the reader’s point of view (Hinkel 2004). Weidentified comments (whether statements, questions, or imperatives) usingthe following epistemic devices as ‘hedging comments’.

1 Modals of ability and possibility—can, may, might, could, be able to.2 Expressions of possibility—it would be a good idea, it would be better, it

would be nice; it is better (semantic).3 Expressions of possibility—perhaps, maybe (lexical categories).4 Personal attribution—I think, I believe, in my opinion

(Hyland and Hyland 2001).

Research questions Thus, with hedging comments as an additional comment type, this studyinvestigated the effects of four types of teacher commentary on ESLwritingstudents’ revisions. The study addressed the following research questions:

1 Do teacher comments (statement, imperative, question, hedging)influence ESL students’ revisions?

2 Which comment types encourage ESL students to make effectivechanges in content and form?

3 Which comment types encourage ESL students to make substantivechanges in content?

Participants The study took place at an Intensive English Program in a Midwesternuniversity in the United States. The participants were ten upperintermediate students, native speakers of Arabic, Korean, Thai, andSpanish. These students were enrolled in an Academic Reading and

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Writing class at the institution. As one of the class requirements, thestudents were asked to write a compare and contrast essay in which theywould compare home schooling with traditional schooling. The studentswere required to write two drafts. After the students submitted their firstdraft, they were given electronic comments, illustrated in the followingsection. The students were then asked to work on issues identified inteachers’ comments and submit a second draft. After students submittedtheir revised second draft, the teacher held stimulated recall sessions to‘collect learners’ introspections about the learning process’ (Mackey 2006:416) and identify the students’ perceptions of different comment types.

Analysis Atotal of 184 comments from 20 drafts (ten pairs of first and second drafts)were analysed and frequencies of comment and revision types werecalculated.

Teacher comments First, the researchers categorized the teacher’s comments into four types:

1 Statement (see Figure 1)—stating the students’ problem (for example‘These parts of the sentence are repetitive.’/‘Having only this point inyour concluding sentence gives the impression that you did not discussstudents’ acquisition of social skills.’).

2 Question (see Figure 2)—expressing elements of doubt or uncertaintytowards students’ paper (for example ‘What are some reasons for this?’/‘Why do you think traditional schooling is more beneficial for childrenespecially ‘‘in the present’’?’).

3 Imperative (see Figure 3)—strongly encouraging a student to makenecessary changes by requesting a student to fix his/her problem (forexample ‘Summarize your points given above and end with a generalcomment.’/‘Integrate these two paragraphs under a unified idea.’).

figure 1

Teacher’s statementcomment on Hae-Jin’ssentence (all studentnames are pseudonyms)

figure 2

Teacher’s questioncomment on Warattaya’ssentence

figure 3

Teacher’s imperativecomment on Jae-Seong’ssentence


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4 Hedging (asdefinedbyHinkel 2004; seeFigure4)—showinghesitationor uncertainty, displaying politeness and indirectness, and deferring tothe reader’s point of view (for example ‘It would be better to signal thesequencing of these events. Words such as ‘‘later’’ or ‘‘afterwards’’ mayhelp.’/‘You might want to add a transitional phrase at the beginning ofthis paragraph.’).

Long comments given on one point but including a set of several commenttypes were categorized according to the comment type ‘carrying . . . [the]single pragmatic force’ of the entire set of comments (Hyland and Hyland2001: 190).

Revisions to content The two researchers also analysed students’ revisions to content asminimalor substantive, according to a coding scheme adapted from Faigley andWitte (1981). Minimal (meaning-preserving) changes were changes inwhich there was a partial change in the text that maintained the originalmeaning or thought, while substantive (micro-, macrostructure) changeswere thosewhich resulted ina total change inoriginal thought andmeaningeither at the local or global level.

Next, the study also examinedwhether the comments on content resulted ineffective, ineffective, or mixed changes in the students’ second drafts.Definitions of the revision types are listed below:

1 Effective—revisions that conform to the teacher’s suggestion orsuccessfully address the problem identified in the comment, resultingin a positive impact on the essay.

2 Ineffective—revisions that donot conform to the teacher’s suggestion orfail to successfully address the problem identified in the comment,resulting in a negative impact on the essay.

3 Mixed—revisions that attempt to follow the teacher’s suggestion oraddress the problem identified in the comment, partially havinga positive effect on the essay.

A binary categorization was used for student revisions to form because itwas difficult to generate a gradation of appropriateness regarding issues inform (for example grammar, spelling, or punctuation). Thus, theserevisions on formwere categorized as changesmade in either amore or lesstarget-like manner.

The two researchers independently coded the essays for teacher writtencomment type and student revision type. Interrater reliability was 0.84 forcomment type and 0.75 and 0.95 for substantiveness and effectiveness of

figure 4

Teacher’s hedgingcomment on Ji-Young’ssentence


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revisions, respectively. Any discrepancies encountered were resolvedthrough discussion.

Stimulated recallinterviews

One day after the researchers collected and analysed the students’ revisions,one of the researchers conducted stimulated recall sessions in English withthe students. He aimed to minimize bias in student responses to hisquestions by adhering to stimulated recall guidelinesdevelopedbyGass andMackey (2000). This introspective data allowed the researchers betterinsight into students’ perceptions of the teacher’s comments and enabledclarification of ambiguous cases of revision or deletion. The stimulatedrecall interview responses enabled triangulation of the collected data andhelped the researchers create a clearer and more complete picture of theissue at hand.

Results This section summarizes the major findings of the study according to eachresearch question. Each research question is stated followed by analysis ofdata from students’ revisions.

1 Do teacher comments (statement, imperative, question, hedging) havean apparent influence on ESL students’ revisions?

A comparison of the percentages of overall changes in content and form instudents’ drafts suggested that teacher comments had an influence onstudents’ revisions. Of the 184 comments made, 165 led to changes insubsequent drafts. Only in 19 cases did the teacher’s comments result in norevisions. As can be seen in Table 1, the vast majority of errors that werecommented on in students’ original drafts were changed in both content(91.1 per cent) and form (86.7 per -cent).

Comment types (revision types) Content, N (%) Form, N (%)

Change 113 (91.1) 52 (86.7)No change 11 (8.9) 8 (13.3)Total 124 60

table 1Revision to content andform

N (%)¼Number of changes/no changesmade (percentage of changes/no changes inrelation to total number of errors that were commented on)

2 Which comment types encourage ESL students to make effectivechanges in content and form?

While the majority of teacher comments on content, regardless of type,seemed to have encouraged revisions in students’ subsequent drafts,a comparison of the effectiveness of these changes suggested that therewas a difference among the efficacy of each comment type. Among thecomments given on the content of students’ essays, imperative (88.9 percent) comments were associated with the most effective changes, closelyfollowed by hedging (87.5 per cent) comments. In comparison,comments given in question (75 per cent) or statement (66.7 per cent)form were not associated with as many effective revisions (see Table 2below).


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Comment types(revision types)

StatementsN (%)

ImperativesN (%)

QuestionsN (%)

HedgingsN (%)

Ineffective 1 (5.6) 0 (0) 3 (15) 1 (2.5)Mixed 1 (5.6) 2 (5.6) 1 (5) 3 (7.5)Effective 12 (66.7) 32 (88.9) 15 (75) 35 (87.5)Deletions 4 (22.2) 2 (5.6) 1 (5) 1 (2.5)Total 18 36 20 40

table 2Effectiveness of contentrevision according tocomment type

Resultswere similar for the relative effectiveness of comment types givenonform (see Table 3). Imperative (60 per cent) and hedging (62.5 per cent)comments were linked to more target-like revisions compared tostatement (22.2 per cent) comments. While 100 per cent of questioncomments led to an effective change, it should be noted that this may havebeen because only one question comment was given for feedback on formandwas revised in a target-likemanner. The scarcity of question commentson form is reasonable, when taking into account that teachers usually usequestions to stimulate students’ thinking on content rather than tocomment on form.


StatementsN (%)

ImperativesN (%)

QuestionsN (%)

HedgingsN (%)

Less target-like 10 (55.6) 5 (20.0) 0 (0) 3 (37.5)More target-like 4 (22.2) 15 (60.0) 1 (100) 5 (62.5)Deletion 4 (22.2) 5 (20.0) 0 (0) 0 (0)Total 18 25 1 8

table 3Effectiveness of formrevision according tocomment type

3 Which comment types encourage ESL students to make substantivechanges in content?

Table 4 shows students’ revisions categorized as either minimal orsubstantive.Here, question comments appear tobemost effective at leadingto substantive revisions (40 per cent).


StatementsN (%)

ImperativesN (%)

QuestionsN (%)

HedgingsN (%)

Minimal 10 (55.6) 24 (66.7) 11 (55) 30 (75)Substantive 4 (22.2) 10 (27.8) 8 (40) 9 (22.5)

table 4Minimal and substantiverevisions according tocomment type

However, a closer look at substantive revisions in Table 5 shows thatimperative (11.1 per cent) and hedging (5 per cent) comments arelinked to the most substantive, macrostructure changes while bothquestion and statement comments are not associated with anymacro-changes at all.


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StatementsN (%)

ImperativesN (%)

QuestionsN (%)

HedgingsN (%)

Meaning–preserving 10 (55.6) 24 (66.7) 11 (55) 30 (75)Microstructure 4 (22.2) 6 (16.7) 8 (40) 7 (17.5)Macrostructure 0 (0) 4 (11.1) 0 (0) 2 (5)Deletions 4 (22.2) 2 (5.6) 1 (5) 1 (2.5)Total 18 36 20 40

table 5Substantiveness ofrevisions according tocomment type

Discussion In contrast to our hypothesis that students may have difficulty in correctlyinterpreting hedging comments and, thus, incorporating them into theirsubsequent revisions, the results show that hedging comments wereassociated with more substantive and effective revisions, at least in thisstudy. One explanation for this could be that hedging comments usuallyinclude or preface a concrete suggestion for revision that students can actupon. For example, in the following teacher comment, while the firstcomment diagnoses the issue in the essay with a statement, the secondcomment builds upon this statement, and gives an actual way to resolve theissue, using hedging.

There is an abrupt transition between this sentence and your previousparagraph. Youmight want to add a transitional phrase at the beginningof this phrase.

It was observed in our data set that in this and many other cases, teachersoften objectively stated the issue at hand and then softened the illocutionaryforce of their following suggestions by using hedging. Therefore, it may bethat substantive and effective revision is not actually brought about bya certain characteristic inherent in hedging comments but rather by thespecificity of the comments that accompany hedging.

While analysis of our data suggested the efficacy of hedging comments,introspective data collected through stimulated recall interviews revealedthat hedging comments can nevertheless cause confusion for somestudents who lack awareness that there are discrepancies between the formand function of hedging comments.

Student Yeah I think it’s youmeanuhhexactly notwrong but youmeanit’s better, right? Or Imy sentence iswrong. I don’t understandthis.

Teacher (bursts into laughter) Okay . . .Student Uhhh because you put you can.Teacher Okay.

In the excerpt above, it is clear from the student’s comment that she did notinterpret the teacher’s feedback as a strong suggestion because the teacherused the word ‘can’ which is often used to hedge comments. It is very likelythat such students who interpret the teacher’s comment merely asa suggestion rather than a directive would reject it rather than incorporate itinto their subsequent revisions.

Introspective data allowed us better insight into other factors that mayinfluence the way that students comprehend the teacher’s comments as


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well. One factor is their perceptions of the teacher’s role within the learningcontext. The stimulated recall interviews revealed that while some studentsviewed the teacher as an authority figure whose comments they needed tocomply to, others saw the teacher as ageneral reader towhomtheyneeded tocommunicate their ideas. For example, when one student was asked to givea reason for the change shemade in response to the teacher’s comment, sheanswered that she ‘didn’t think about’ the teacher’s comment but ‘justfollowed it’. Thus, the context in which the teacher is giving comments toa student in an instructional setting gives the student plenty of reasons tounderstand that the teacher’s comment is not merely a casual suggestionbut rather a part of instruction. In contrast, another student’smotivation forrevising her draft came from her desire to get her ideas across to the reader,i.e. the teacher, more clearly. The student said that by reading the teacher’scomment, it became evident for her that she needed to elaborate on thepoint that shemade in her essay because for a general reader, her pointmaynot be as clear as it is to herself. She explained, ‘From your comment, mythoughts [about the explanations in my essay] have changed, because [itmademe realize] that this ismywriting, so I can understand [what I wrote],but maybe, the reader cannot’.

Also, as Ferris (1997) explained in her study, students’ previous exposure tothe forms and pragmatic functions of different comment types might havehad an influence on the outcome of the study. Unlike in an EFL setting, thestudy was carried out in an ESL setting where students have a plethora ofexposures to the different pragmatic functions that certain linguistic formshave. It is possible that the students in this study had been previouslysensitized to the function that hedging comments have because they hadbeen studying in an ESL context. In this case, they may have had a higherlevel of awareness that hedging comments are frequently used to mitigatesuggestions for reasons such as politeness and could have had a strongertendency to conform to these comments.

Conclusion Our findings were similar to those of Sugita (2006) that certaincomment types may be more effective for some errors than others. Forexample, in this study, imperative comments were more effective fortreating errors in form than in content. Also, in this study, it was foundthat imperative and hedging comments producedmore substantive and/oreffective revisions compared to question or statement comments,possibly because they were used for giving concrete suggestions thatstudents could immediately apply to their writing. It may be thatstatement and question comments are informative and stimulating but notalways effective in bringing about successful revision. Despite theeffectiveness of hedging comments that was shown in this study, it isimportant thatwriting teachersare awareof the challenges thatmayexist forESL writers in interpreting hedging comments appropriately. Studentsmay experience difficulty interpreting these comments appropriatelybecause of the difficulty in establishing a connection between the commenttype’s form and its pragmatic function. In addition to these main findings,we found that it is also possible that other contextual factors have to dowithstudents’ perceptions of the teacher’s comment, such as students’


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motivation to learn, and their perception of the teacher’s role in the learningcontext.

Pedagogicalimplications

While Sugita (2006) strongly suggested that teachers should use moreimperative comments compared to other types of comments, this studycertainly does not imply that one comment type is always themost effectivefor all types of errors in writing. Rather, what it suggests is that it isimportant to identify appropriate comment types for different kinds oferrors and to be able to put them to use effectively according to each context.Also, it is important for teachers to be aware of potential student problemswith accurate interpretation of different types of comments, and inresponse, to train them to notice the pragmatic functions of each. One wayof making effective use of different types of comments would be to usea combinationof comment types that support and reinforce eachother. Thismay provide more guidelines and support for students in their effort tounderstand and effectively incorporate the teacher’s advice into theirrevisions. By being more cognisant of the different options available in thetypes and effects of comments they give, teachers can utilize each type ofcomment more effectively according to the particular context to betterachieve their intended purpose.

Final revised version received April 2009

ReferencesCarter, R. andM. McCarthy. 2007. Exploring SpokenEnglish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Faigley, L. and S. Witte. 1981. ‘Analyzing revision’.College Composition and Communication 32/4:400–14.Ferris, D. 1997. ‘The influence of teachercommentary on student revision’. TESOL Quarterly31/2: 315–39.Ferris, D. 2003. Response to Student Writing:Implications for Second Language Students. Mahwah,NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Gass, S. and A. Mackey. 2000. Stimulated RecallMethodology in Second Language Research. Mahwah,NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Hinkel, E. 2004. Teaching Academic ESLWriting:Practical Techniques in Vocabulary and Grammar.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Hyland, F. and K. Hyland. 2001. ‘Sugaring the pill:praise and criticism in written feedback’. Journal ofSecond Language Writing 10/3: 185–212.Hyland, K. 1998.Hedging in Scientific ResearchArticles. Amsterdam: John Benjamins PublishingCompany.Leki, I. 1990. ‘Coaching from the margins: issues inwritten response’ in B. Kroll (ed.). Second LanguageWriting: Research Insights for the Classroom.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mackey, A. 2006. ‘Feedback, noticing and instructedsecond language learning’. Applied Linguistics 27/3:405–30.Sugita, Y. 2006. ‘The impact of teachers’ commenttypes on students’ revision’. ELT Journal60/1: 34–41.Zamel, V. 1985. ‘Responding to student writing’.TESOL Quarterly 19/1: 79–102.

The authorsUlugbekNurmukhamedov is anESL instructor at theIntensive English Institute at the University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign. His researchinterests include L2 writing, spoken grammar,and vocabulary acquisition. He is also interestedin exploring effective ways to apply technology toimprove writing instruction, especially teacher-written feedback. Ulugbek is passionate aboutusing research from corpus linguistics topromote creativity in language use and to enhancevocabulary and grammar accuracy among L2writers.Email: [email protected]

Soo Hyon Kim is a doctoral student in theSecond Language Studies programme atMichigan State University. She has previouslyworked as an ESL writing instructor and writingcentre consultant at the University of Illinois at


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Urbana-Champaign. Soo is particularlyinterested in sociocognitive approaches towriting, textual features of L2 academic writing,L2 writers’ revision strategies, and L2 writingpedagogy, especially teacher feedback. Other

research interests include L2 lexical processing,attention and awareness in Second LanguageAcquisition, and Computer-Assisted LanguageLearning.Email: [email protected]


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