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Informal fallacies of argumentation as pitfalls of reasoning appear frequently in students' written texts, specially EFL / ESL Learners' argumentative essay writings. The present study examines whether gender could be considered as a determining factor influencing Iranian advanced EFL learners' argumentative writings with regard to informal fallacies of argumentation. The corpus comprised of argumentative essays written by 120 Iranian male and female English language learners. The participants’ age and discipline were also included as independent variables. Nine major categories of informal fallacies were examined in learners’ texts and the observed frequencies were analyzed using MANOVA. The results of the Multivariate Tests for all independent variables and /or their interactions indicated no significant differences for the overall informal fallacies. However, three separate instances of differences were observed. Finally, the findings of the present are discussed in relation to the previous literature and some implications of the study are suggested. 

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The present study reports the processes of development and use of an Analytic Dichotomous Evaluation Checklist (ADEC) which aims at enhancing both inter- and intra-rater reliability of writing evaluation. The ADEC consists of a total of 68 items that comprises five subscales of content, organization, grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics. Eight raters assessed the writing performance of 20 Iranian EFL students using the ADEC. Also, the raters were asked to rate the same sample of essays holistically based on Test of Written English (TWE) scale. To examine the inter-rater and intra-rater reliability of the ADEC, multiple approaches were employed including correlation coefficient, the dichotomous Rasch Model, and many-faceted Rasch measurement (MFRM). The findings of the study confirmed that the ADEC introduces higher reliability into scoring procedure compared with holistic scoring. Future research with greater number of raters and examinees may provide robust evidence to use analytic scale rather than holistic one.   

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The current study explored the status of rating scales among Iranian EFL raters. It appeared that EFL/ESL assessment environments were significantly influenced by the perceived authority of native assessment groups. Consequently, examining the realities of rating practices in EFL/ESL settings could offer a more accurate understanding of how assessment is viewed and implemented. To assess this, the present study conducted a comprehensive survey within the Iranian EFL writing assessment framework. A carefully designed eight-item interview guide was created to investigate various aspects of the rating task, including the rating scale. This guide was administered to ten raters from various universities and institutions in Iran, all of whom possessed either a Master's or Doctorate degree in TEFL. The raters participated in 40 minutes interview sessions, and the audio-recorded interviews were transcribed by the researcher for qualitative analysis. Through a thorough content analysis of the interview data, some general patterns emerged. Results of interviews with Iranian EFL composition raters revealed that rating scale in its common sense did not exist. In fact, raters relied on their own internalized criteria developed through their long years of practice. Therefore, native speaker legitimacy in the design and development of scales for the EFL context was challenged and the local agency in the design and development of rating scale was emphasized.