ABSTRACT
Learning to write for academic purposes entails, among other skills, the development of linguistic accuracy in writing. Responding to written errors is therefore an important job for teachers working with multilingual student writers in English for academic purposes contexts. The focuses on written corrective feedback (WCF) is used to refer to an approach where teachers select specific error types for WCF, whether the errors are pre-selected and/or selected during the feedback process. Comprehensive WCF refers to a conventional practice in writing classrooms in which teachers respond to all errors in student writing. The chapter defines the key terms comprehensive WCF and focused WCF. It reviews relevant literature about these two approaches to WCF, examines their pros and cons and explores their pedagogical implications in second language academic contexts. The error types targeted for focused WCF could be items that are specific to the genres that students are learning to write.
