This volume provides one of the most comprehensive analyses of academic writing in a second language (L2). Hinkel documents extensive research in the linguistic and rhetorical features found in L2 writing, weaving into her discussion a review of the research in first language (L1) writing. But this is not a book about contrastive rhetoric. Hinkel's purpose is to map out the particular features that constitute L2 academic writing through a review of the literature and her own empirical study, which dominates this book.

The book is divided into four parts: background, linguistic and rhetorical features, prompt effect on English as a second language (ESL) text, and the conclusion. Part 1 explores the research tools used in the analysis of academic and written discourse, specifically targeting ESL writers. She provides a brief but helpful discussion of contrastive rhetoric, text linguistics, and corpus analyses. She follows this introduction with a survey of the literature in L1 and L2 academic writing, focusing on common linguistic and rhetorical features found in these texts. She closes this section with a reflective piece on the goals and politics of teaching ESL writing, taking aim at the process-centered approach that dominates the teaching of L2 writing at the expense of direct instruction in vocabulary and grammar. She argues in her findings in a later section that L2 academic writers lack the lexical and syntactic variety necessary for effective academic writing.

Part 2 focuses on Hinkel's empirical study of L2 writing. She analyzed 1,457 native speaker (NS) and nonnative speaker (NNS) essays (242 written by NSs and 1,215 written by NNSs representing six L1s) written in response to six prompts, which were administered as part of the placement and diagnostic testing in several universities. All of the students were enrolled in first-year university composition courses. Her methodology involved comparing frequency counts of the two groups' uses of 68 linguistic and rhetorical features. Because of the problematic nature of identifying errors, correctness of a form was not considered—only frequency. The linguistic features included the use of nouns, pronouns, nominals, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and subordinate clauses; the range of rhetorical features included cohesion, hedges, and fixed strings. The results are too extensive to describe here; however, in general the findings of the study show “that in formal written text highly advanced and trained NNSs employ the vast majority of language features in dramatically different rates than first-year NS students do” (p. 74). Compared to the NS text, NNS writing exhibited limited syntactic complexity and a restricted lexical range. Features with significantly lower median frequency rates in NNS texts included it-clefts, perfect aspect, progressive aspect, predictive modal would, passive voice, participles, reduced adjective and adverb clauses, and fixed strings (including idiomatic phrases and collocations). Part 3, which I found to be a bit tedious, analyzes the effects of the six prompts on the L2 texts.

What do these findings suggest? Wisely, Hinkel does not leave the implications to a few sentences calling for further research. Part 4 targets the priorities that administrators and teachers involved in the curriculum planning for English for Academic Purposes programs must consider. On the basis of the empirical data of her study, the research in contrastive rhetoric, and her own teaching experience, she scaffolds these priorities through a three-tier proposal for the L2 classroom: development of NNSs' vocabulary, collocations, and conventions of academic discourse; expansion of the range of syntactic structures; and utilization of verbal aspects, participles, hedging, and adverb clauses. Her recommendations extend beyond the L2 classroom, calling for reform in teacher education programs.

I found much to admire in this book: Hinkel's comprehensive empirical study, her wide reading of the research in L2 writing (particularly contrastive rhetoric), and her passion for reform in the L2 classroom. The major weakness is the unsubstantiated claims as to why there is such a disparity in the writing of NNSs. Except for her reliance on contrastive rhetoric theory to explain some of the variance, can we really argue that the L2 writing classroom, with its process-centered approach, limits a writer's syntax and lexical range? Despite this weakness, Hinkel's findings deserve the attention of anyone involved in the teaching of L2 writing at the college or university level.