hedging is a multi-purpose rhetorical strategy which is usually used in scientific arguments to secure ratification of claims, reduce the risk of negation, avoid conflict, manage disagreement and leave room for the audience to assess presented information. hedges are frequently used in research articles to mitigate the findings of research endeavors. the present research aims to investigate the...

there are two major theories of measurement in psychometrics: classical test theory (ctt) and item-response theory (irt). despite its widespread and long use, ctt has a number of shortcomings, which make it problematic to be used for practical and theoretical purposes. irt tries to solve these shortcomings, and provide better and more dependable answers. one of the applications of irt is the as...

abstract i the purpose of this study was to launch a thorough investigation concerning the possibility of differing orientations to the writing proficiency construct by native and non-native english speaking teacher raters. it mainly revolved around the international english language testing system (ielts) that is widely administered and employed as a measure of general proficiency in englis...

this study investigated how group formation method, namely student-selected vs. teacher-assigned, influences the results of the community model of teaching creative writing; i.e., group dynamics and group outcome (the quality of performance). the study adopted an experimental comparison group and microgenetic research design to observe the change process over a relatively short period of time. ...

abstract: the present study is an attempt to find out cultural exophoric references in iranian high-school elt textbooks and touch stone series to compare the frequency of occurrence of such references in these books. the purpose is to find out which of the series of the books under investigation impose a greater referential burden on efl learners as far as their reading comprehension of the ...

introduction acetic acid bacteria are large group of obligate aerobic gram negative bacteria with the ability to oxidize ethanol to acetic acid (1). they are widely distributed in natural habitats and classified in family acetobacteraceae. members of this family are useful in industrial production of vinegar(2). acetic acid bacteria (aab) can use substrates as glucose, ethanol, lactate or glyc...

126 abstract: in this research we studied the effects of cyclic hydration and dehydration of cysts of artemia urmiana and artemia parthenogenetica on the hatching percentage, survival and growth. the experiment was carried out in 3 treatments (1-3 hydration/dehydration cycles) with 3 replicates for each treatment. later effects of cold preservation at -20°c during three time periods were ...

abstract this study evaluated and compared medical terminology and english for the students of medicine (ii) as two representatives of the textbooks available on the iranian market for teaching english to the students of medicine. this research was performed on the basis of a teacher’s and a number of students’ attitudes and the students’ needs analysis for two reasons: first, to investigate...

the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of task-based instruction of vocabulary on the receptive and oral productive acquisition of english vocabulary and compare the results with those obtained from the traditional method. the method and procedure applied in this study was as follows: after the implementation of opt, a group of sixty female students were chosen. the stu...

this study investigated the functions, types and frequencies of code switching in the teachers and students discourse in elt classrooms. to this end, the participants of this study including two groups of teachers and students were selected. the first group of participants were two efl teachers teaching general english courses (at two different levels of proficiency) in an institutional program...