The 2016 Joan Pavelich CASDW Annual Award for the Best Dissertation in Writing and Discourse Studies was awarded to Joel Heng Hartse, Lecturer, Faculty of Education, SFU. This award is given annually for a dissertation completed in the previous calendar year. Joel won this award for his dissertation, Acceptability and Authority in Chinese and Non-Chinese English Language Teachers’ Judgments of Language Use in English Writing by Chinese University Students (UBC, Language and Literacy Education, 2015). The committee praised Joel’s work for its clarity, thoroughness, and relevance. In particular, they focused on the value of his shift away from error-based assessment and towards the contextual assessment of acceptability in written language.

Congratulations, Joel!