This book tackles three choices that face developers of L2 writing assessments: defining L2 writing abilities; collecting evidence of those abilities (usually by getting L2 writers to write something); and judging their performance (usually by assigning a score or grade to it). It takes a historical view of how assessment developers have made those choices, how contemporary practices emerged, and of alternative techniques that have risen and fallen over time.The three sections each tackle one of these choices. The first considers the social functions that define L2 writing and assessment; the...