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Elena Cotos


     Associate Dean for Professional Development, Graduate College

     Director, Center for Communication Excellence

     Associate Professor, Applied Linguistics Program, English Department

     Human Computer Interaction Graduate Program

     Associate Editor, English for Specific Purposes Journal


     Offices: 1137 Pearson Hall and 317 Ross Hall

     Email: ecotos@iastate.edu | Phone: (515) 294-1958



Education

Ph.D. Applied Linguistics and Technology (Iowa State University)

M.A. Philology (Moldova State University)

B.A. English Language and Literature, Translation and Interpreting (Moldova State University)


Research Areas

Language for specific and academic purposes, corpus-based genre analysis, automated writing evaluation, computer-assisted language learning and assessment.


Publications

*Accessible through ISU Digital Repository and bepress

Kruse, O., Rapp, K., Anson, C. M., Benetos, K., Cotos, E., Devitt, A., & Shibani, A. (Eds.). (2023). Digital writing technologies: Impact on theory, research, and practice in higher education. Springer.

Cotos, E. (2022). Genre-based automated writing evaluation. In H. Mohebbi & C. Coombe (Eds.), Research questions in language education: A reference guide for teachers (pp. 645–650). Springer.

Huffman, S., Cotos, E., & Becker, K. (2021). Preparing to publish. Iowa State University Digital Press. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 International License. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31274/isudp.2023.132 

Cotos, E. (2020). Evidence from authentic ITA discourse and TOEFL IBT Speaking responses in support of ITA assessment. ITAIS Newsletter.

Cotos, E., Huffman, S., & Link, S. (2020). Understanding graduate writers' interaction with and impact of the Research Writing Tutor during revision. Journal of Writing Research, 12(1), 187-232.

Knight, S., Abel, S., Shibani, A., Goh, Y.K., Conijn, R., Gibson, A., Vajjala, S., Cotos, E., Sandor, A., & Buckingham Shum, S. (2020). Are you being rhetorical? An open corpus of machine annotated rhetorical moves. Journal of Learning Analytics, 7(3), 138–154.

Kochem, T., Ghosh, M., Compton, L., & Cotos, E. (2020). Oral communication for non-native speakers of English. Iowa State University Digital Press. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. https://dx.doi.org/10.31274/isudp.2020.29

Gray, B., Cotos, E., & Smith, J. (2020). Combining rhetorical move analysis with multi-dimensional analysis: Research writing across disciplines. In U. Römer, V. Cortes, & E. Friginal (Eds.), Advances in corpus-based research on academic writing: Effects of discipline, register, and writer expertise (pp. 138–168). John Benjamins.

Cotos, E. (2019). Articulating societal benefits in grant proposals: Move analysis of broader impacts. English for Specific Purposes, 54, 15-34.

Cotos, E., & Chung, Y. (2019). Functional language in curriculum genres: Implications for screening international teaching assistants. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 41, 100766. 

Cotos, E. (2019). Move analysis. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.), The concise encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (pp. 757–764). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Fiacco, J., Cotos, E., & Rose, C. (2019). Towards enabling feedback on rhetorical structure with neural sequence models. In Proceedings of Learning Analytics Knowledge Conference, Tempe, Arizona USA.

Cotos, E., & Chung, Y. (2018). Domain description: Validating the interpretation of TOEFL iBT® Speaking scores for international teaching assistant screening and certification purposes (TOEFL Research Report No. RR-85). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. 

Cotos, E. (2018). Move analysis. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Cotos, E. (2018). Automated writing evaluation. In J.I. Liontas (Ed.), The TESOL encyclopedia of English language teaching. Wiley: New Jersey.

Yang, H., & Cotos, E. (2018). Innovative implementation of a web-based rating system for individualizing online English speaking instruction. In S. Link & J. Li (Eds.), Assessment across online language education, CALICO Monograph Series (Vol. 16, pp. 167–183). CALICO: San Marcos, TX.

Cotos, E., Link, S., & Huffman, S. (2017). Effects of DDL technology on genre learning. Language Learning & Technology, 21(3), 104-130.

Cotos, E. (2017). Language for specific purposes and corpus-based pedagogy. In C. Chapelle & S. Sauro (Eds.), The handbook of technology in second language teaching (pp. 248-264). Wiley: New Jersey.

Cotos, E., Huffman, S., & Link, S. (2017). A Move/Step model for Methods sections: Demonstrating rigour and credibility. English for Specific Purposes, 46, 90-106.

Cotos, E. (2017). Computer-assisted research writing in the disciplines. In S. A. Crossley & D. S. McNamara  (Eds.), Adaptive educational technologies for literacy instruction (pp. 225-242). NY: Taylor & Francis, Routledge.

Cotos, E., Link, S., & Huffman, S. (2016). Studying disciplinary corpora to teach the craft of Discussion. Writing & Pedagogy, 8(1), 33-64.

Cotos, E., & Pendar, N. (2016). Discourse classification into rhetorical functions for AWE feedback. CALICO, 33(1), 92-116.

Cotos, E. (2015). AWE for writing pedagogy: From healthy tension to tangible prospects. Special issue on Assessment for Writing and Pedagogy. Writing & Pedagogy, 7(2-3), 197-231.

Cotos, E., Huffman, S., & Link, S. (2015). Furthering and applying move/step constructs: Technology-driven marshalling of Swalesian genre theory for EAP pedagogy. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 19, 52-72.

Chapelle, C. A., Cotos, E., Lee, J. (2015). Validity Arguments for Diagnostic Assessment Using Automated Writing Evaluation. Language Testing, 32(3), 385-405.

Cotos, E. (2014). Genre-based automated writing evaluation for L2 research writing: From design to evaluation and enhancement. UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cotos, E. (2014). Enhancing writing pedagogy with learner corpus data. ReCALL, 26(2), 202-224.

Cotos, E. & Huffman, S. (2013). Learner fit in scaling up automated writing evaluation. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 3(3), 77–98.

Cotos, E. (2012). Towards effective integration and positive impact of automated writing evaluation in L2 Writing. In G. Kessler, A. Oskoz & I. Elola (Eds.), Technology across writing contexts and tasks, CALICO Monograph Series (Vol. 10, pp. 81–112). CALICO: San Marcos, TX.

Cotos, E. (2011). Potential of automated writing evaluation feedback. CALICO, 28(2), 420-459.

Cotos, E. (2011). Wimba Voice 6.0 collaboration suite. Language Learning and Technology, 15, 29-35.

Cotos, E. (2009). Designing an intelligent discourse evaluation tool: Theoretical, empirical, and technological considerations. In C. A. Chapelle, H.- S. Jun, & I. Katz (Eds.), Developing and evaluating language learning materials (pp. 103–127). Ames, IA.

Chapelle, C.A, Cotos, E., & Silva, K. (2009). Evaluating the effectiveness of Teacher Development Interactive (TDI). Research report. Pearson Education, New York, NY.

Pendar, N. & Cotos E. (2008). Automatic identification of discourse moves in scientific article introductions. In Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (pp. 62-70). Columbus, Ohio.

Cotos, E. & Pendar, N. (2008). Automated diagnostic writing tests: Why? How? In C. A. Chapelle, Y.-R. Chung, & J. Xu (Eds.), Towards adaptive CALL: Natural language processing for diagnostic language assessment (pp. 65-81). Ames, IA.


Grants

PI. Developing and teaching academic writing courses. Global Online Course. $102,000. Delivery, worldwide. FHI 360 and American English (AE) E-Teacher Program, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (2022)

PI. Developing and teaching academic writing courses. Global Online Course. $50,000. Development and delivery. FHI 360 and American English (AE) E-Teacher Program, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (2021-2022)

PI. Establishing academic writing centers at international higher education institutions. Massive Open Online Course. $12,082. Delivery, worldwide. FHI 360 and American English (AE) E-Teacher Program, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Co-PI J. Cheatle (2021) [course packet]

Co-PI. Establishing academic writing centers at international higher education institutions. Massive Open Online Course. $57,767. Development and delivery, Indonesia. FHI 360 and American English (AE) E-Teacher Program, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. PI J. Cheatle (2020-2021)

Co-PI. Intelligibility-based oral communication: Resources for teaching non-native English speakers. $5,000. Miller Open Education Mini-Grant. PI L. Compton, Co-PI T. Kochem. Senior Vice President and Provost Office.

Co-PI. Online course in advanced speaking for international teaching assistants. $9,000. ELO course development, Engineering-LAS Development Grant. PI L. Compton (2019)

Co-PI. Advanced writing support with new technology. $18,000. Computation Advisory Committee, Senior Vice President and Provost. PI S. Huffman (2017)

Co-PI. An interdisciplinary approach to developing an Automated Functional Language Extraction (AFLEX) system to transform the translation of STEM research to society. $494,969. Presidential Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research in Data Driven Science. PI A. M. O’Connor; Co-PIs C. A. Chapelle, J. Coetzee, K. De Brabanter, S. Gilbert, R. MacDonald (2015-2018)

PI. ISU Information Retrieval Group Validating the interpretation of TOEFL iBT® speaking scores for ITA screening and certification purposes. $125,000. TOEFL® Committee of Examiners 2015 Research Program, Educational Testing Service. Co-PI Y-R. Chung (2015-2018)

PI. Graduate Peer Mentor Program Pilot. $204,428. Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost. (2014-2015)

Language of writing in STEM disciplines. $100,000. Presidential Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research. PI C. A. Chapelle; Co-PIs W. R. Graves, V. Hegelheimer, M. Jeffries-El, L. Potter (2013-2014)

PI. The grant writing challenge: Broader Impacts text analysis. $61,328. Strengthening the Professoriate at ISU, Innovation through Institutional Integration Program, National Science Foundation. PI S. Quisenberry, Co-PIs D. Rover, B. Bowen (2012-2013)

PI. Research Writing Tutor. $628,567. Computation Advisory Committee, Senior Vice President and Provost; Graduate College; College of Engineering; College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Co-PIs S. Gilbert, C. A. Chapelle, W. R. Graves (2010-2013)

PI. Enhancing opportunities for English pronunciation practice and improvement. $43,372. Computation Advisory Committee, Senior Vice President and Provost. (2011)

PI. Helping international students develop effective oral English communication skills. $34,826. Computation Advisory Committee, Senior Vice President and Provost. (2010)

PI. Enhancing academic writing instruction with automated writing evaluation technology. $17,475. Liberal Arts and Sciences Computation Advisory Committee. Co-PI C. A. Chapelle (2009)

PI. Grant for Doctoral Research in L2 Assessment. $2,000. Educational Testing Service. (2009)


Recent Conference Presentations

Cotos, E., & Zhow, Z. (2022). Advancing methods for automated move/step annotation: Predicting rhetorical indicativeness of linguistic features. Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Pittsburgh, PA.

Terrill, K., & Cotos, E. (2022). Towards automating aspects of the research synthesis: Language patterns in descriptions of research design. Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Pittsburgh, PA.

Cotos, E. (2021). Writing an effective university application essay. EducationUSA and OPEN Program Webinar.

Cotos, E. (2021). Automated feedback on writing. Digitalization of Writing Conference. Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Winterthur, Switzerland.

Cotos, E. (2021). Optimizing academic writing teachers’ understanding of automated rhetorical feedback. Paper presented at the Virtual EATAW Conference, Technical University of Ostrava.

Cotos, E. (2021). Advancing writing analytics methodologies: A hybrid approach to analyzing errors in automated rhetorical feedback. Paper presented at the Virtual Symposium, Writing Analytics Conference.

Cotos, E., & Sandor, A. (2021). Examining metadiscourse in research articles through the lens of move analysis and concept matching. Virtual Symposium, World Congress of Applied Linguistics.

Smith, J., Keller, D., Cotos, E., & Gray, B. (2021). Comparing PCA and MCA for multi-dimensional analysis of a move-annotated corpus of disciplinary writing. Virtual Corpus Linguistics Conference.

Compton, L., Cotos, E., Huffman, S., and Terrill, K. (2021). The AcComP Track: Building capacity in writing high quality theses and dissertations. Paper presented at the Virtual Annual United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association.

Terrill, K., Compton, L., Cotos, E., & Huffman, S. (2021). Finishing strong: A multi-prong approach to enhancing the electronic thesis/dissertation process. Paper presented at the Virtual Annual United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association.

Kochem, T., Edalatishams, I., Silva dos Santos, L., Terrill, K., Compton, L., Richards, M., & Cotos, E. (2021). An extra layer of support: Developing an English speaking consultation training program. Paper presented at the World Congress of Applied Linguistics Conference. Groningen, the Netherlands.

Cotos, E. (2020). Setting the stage, developing a trajectory, and expanding career boundaries. 15th Anniversary Virtual Conference for the Doctoral Program in Applied Linguistics & Technology.

Cotos, E. (2020). Supporting ITA practices with evidence from ITA Discourse and TOEFL IBT Speaking responses. Keynote at the ITA Professionals Symposium. UC Davis, CA.

Cotos, E. (2019). Digital writing tools: Teaching and learning needs, theoretical underpinnings, grounded design, linguistic description, and valid evaluation. Keynote at the International Conference on Writing Analytics. Winterthur, Switzerland.

Huffman, S., Todey, E., & Cotos, E. (2019). Coming to Fruition: Pulling the curtain back on the germination of a successful, rapidly growing graduate communication center. Paper presented at the Consortium on Graduate Communication Summer Institute. George Mason University, Arlington, VA.

Edalatishams, I., Compton, L., Cotos, E., Richards, M., Santos, L., Kochem, T., & *Terrill, K. (2019). Supporting graduate communication beyond writing: An English speaking consultant program. Paper presented at the Consortium on Graduate Communication Summer Institute. Arlington, VA.

Cotos, E., Terrill, K.,Bertram, A., Jasper, A., & Lundy-Evans, L-T. (2019). Thesis and dissertation writing needs analysis study. Paper presented at the British Association of Lecturers in English for Academic Purposes. Leeds, UK.

Cotos, E. (2019). Understanding rebuttal data weakening the evaluation inference in the validity argument for genre-based AWE. Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA.

Gray, B., Cotos, E., & Smith, J. (2019). Linguistic characteristics of rhetorical moves in research writing across disciplines: Pairing multi-dimensional analysis with move analysis. Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA.

Fiacco, J., Cotos, E., & Rose, C. (2019). Towards enabling feedback on rhetorical structure with neural sequence models. Paper presented at the International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge, Tempe, AZ.

Compton, L., Cotos, E., & Terrill, K. (2019). Delivering ITA speaking assessment through a web-based rater platform. Paper presented at the International Teaching Assistants Professional Symposium, Pittsburg, PA.

Compton, L., Cotos, E., Richards, M.,Edalatishams, I., & Peterson, S. (2019). Online training of English speaking consultants through Canvas. Technology Showcase, TESOL Convention, Atlanta, GA.

Cotos, E., Gray, B., & Smith, J. (2018). Combining rhetorical move analysis with multi-dimensional analysis: Research writing across disciplines. Paper presented at the American Association for Corpus Linguistics. Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA.

Richards, M., & Cotos, E. (2018). When perception of suprasegmental meaning varies across languages, what is a teacher to do? Poster presented at the Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference. Ames, IA.

Richards, M., & Cotos, E. (2018). Segmental accuracy: A recommended sequence. Teaching Tips presented at the Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference. Ames, IA.

Cotos, E., Link, S., & Huffman, S. (2018). The effects of writer interaction with genre-based AWE on revision processes. Paper presented at the Symposium on Second Language Writing. Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.

Cotos, E., Huffman, S., & Link, S. (2018). Understanding the impact of genre-based AWE affordances through the lens of utilization. Paper presented at the CALICO Conference. University of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL.

Cotos, E. & Sandor, A. (2018). Testing an integrated method for the automated analysis of rhetorical intent in research article introductions. Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference. Chicago, IL.

Cotos, E. & Chung, Y-r. (2018). Validating the interpretation of TOEFL iBT® Speaking scores for ITA screening and certification purposes. Paper presented at the Language Assessment Research Conference, Ames, IA.

Cotos, E., Kruse, O., & Rapp, C. (2018). New tools for writers and new tools for researchers: From tool development to writing analytics and back – Using data to explore pedagogical impacts and create the next generation of writing tools. Paper presented at the Symposium at the 5th International Conference on Writing Analytics, St. Petersburg, FL.

Cotos, E. (2017). Research Writing Tutor. Electronic Writing Support in Secondary and Higher Education. Symposium paper presented at the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing Conference. London, United Kingdom.

Cotos, E. (2017). A technology-enhanced model for institutionalized disciplinary genre writing support in higher education. Paper presented at the Writing Symposium. Giessen, Germany.

Gilbert, S., Kamdar, N., Kalivarapu, V., Amin-Naseri, M., Cotos, E., & O'Connor, A. (2017). Extraction of relevant text from PDF research articles using font analysis. Paper presented at the International Workshop on Mining Scientific Publications. Newark, NJ.

Cotos, E. (2017). A corpus-based platform for data-driven writing. Paper presented at the Writing Analytics Literacy Workshop, International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge. Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Cotos, E., Link, S., & Huffman, S. (2017). Corpora in language learning and teaching. Data-Driven Learning Colloquium. Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference. Portland, OR.

Kaufer, D., Cotos, E., Cai, X., & Ishizaki, S. (2017). Linguistic realizations that prime interactive experiences in scientific writing. Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference. Portland, OR.