Writing Support in Higher Education : How to Use Native Checkers to Improve the Quality of Research Writing

The purpose of this paper is to address three claims made by the Kabara and Lai (2015) article for this journal regarding the use of “native checkers” in Japan who are hired to improve the quality of research papers. Their position was that universities should seek an alternative to hiring “native checkers” because such people lack the ability to improve an argument, and therefore, cannot improve the quality of research writing. Our paper views this as too drastic a recommendation considering these hasty generalizations. We briefly examine the problems with the Kabara and Lai (2015) proposition and then offer a way in which such checkers can and do contribute to the improvement of the quality of research writing. Because Kabara and Lai (2015) sought “alternative options,” our paper provides an example and descriptive data showing how the Graduate School of Law at Nagoya University has effectively employed such individuals to help improve the quality of theses and dissertation submissions in the department.