Mr. Vu's English Classes (https://www.facebook.

com/vuclass) - Class materials

Anecdotal examples taken from (Hayward, 2004, pp. 7-8)

Many of our international students studying in the United States are Asians who have
been taught in the rhetoric of their cultures. Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, and Thai
students have told me that they approach a topic from a variety of viewpoints in order to
examine it indirectly, a process that indicates, to them, careful thinking. To a U.S.-
trained tutor, this might indicate lack of focus or indecisiveness. However, this circling
around a topic is the polite way to proceed, for Asians see the direct approach as rude or
abrupt.

Kaplan described writers of French and Spanish as having "much greater freedom to
digress or to introduce extraneous material." TO a U.S. tutor, this might look like writing
that goes off the topic. A French-speaking African graduate student once described
himself as having more freedom to invent and include information that may not be
directly related to the thesis. The example he gave is this: If you're telling a story about
going to the post office to mail a package, you might tell all the elements that happen
along the way - the friends and neighbors you stop to talk to, the animals you see
wandering around the streets, the thoughts that you had. You don't just say that you
arrived and mailed the package.

A Spanish speaking Costa Rican woman shared a similar thought when she announced
cheerfully, "I always write run-on sentences!" I was taken aback since the term run-on
sentence strikes fear in American students' hearts. This student, however, had none of the
negative connotations associated with run-on sentences, as she explained that in Spanish
"we tend to over-explain. I can't explain things in ten words; my sentences are like thirty
words long because I have thoughts that are kind related to the topic, and that's OK in
Spanish."

Arabic speakers also report that their writing is less direct than writing in English, and
they have difficulty when trying to write in English. One reason for this is the Arabic
sensitivity to politeness, represented by indirectness. Rather than getting to the point,
native Arabic speakers might open up a topic and talk around the point. Tutors see this as
including information that is not directly connected to the topic. It might also be
represented by writing that makes extended use of coordination (using and, but, or, for,
nor, etc.) within a sentence and across sentence boundaries.

References.
Hayward, N. (2004). Insights into cultural divides. In S. Bruce, & B. Rafoth (eds.), ESL Writers – A Guide
for Writing Center Tutors (pp. 1-15). Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook Publishers.