Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University

Scientific writing plays a main role in academic contexts because scholarly publications contribute to career promotion and reputation. A dissertation or a thesis provides an opportunity for students to identify a topic and obtain deep insights into research work (Swales, 1990). In recent years, there has been a rapid growth of successful manuscripts; however, manuscript publications still remain new and problematic (Day & Gastel, 2012). For example, non-English speaking scientists have problems with the discourse community in writing research articles, they make more errors in their texts (Purves, 1988, as cited in Hyland, 2003); tend to plan less than L1 writers, and have more difficulty in setting goals and generating materials (Flower & Hayes, 1981); L2 writers are also less inhibited by teacher-editing and feedback (Silva, 1993, 1997; Krapels, 1990; Leki, 1992, as cited in Hyland, 2003). Moreover, the low level of learners’ motivation in learning writing was found because EFL teaching has focused on the language form of the target language (e.g., completing English grammar and vocabulary exercises) (Tran, 2007). To find solutions to those matters, approaches of L2 writing teaching and learning have become a great concern since 1980 (Hyland, 2003).  The findings of those studies showed that each writing teaching approach has its own strengths and limitations. For example, positive points of the product approach emphasized the imitation of input, repetition, controlled writing and accuracy, whereas writing skills are ignored in this approach.