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<Paper uid="P00-1052">
  <Title>The Role of Centering Theory's Rough-Shift in the Teaching and Evaluation of Writing Skills</Title>
  <Section position="1" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="abstr">
    <SectionTitle>
Abstract
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Existing software systems for automated essay scoring can provide NLP researchers with opportunities to test certain theoretical hypotheses, including some derived from Centering Theory. In this study we employ ETS's e-rater essay scoring system to examine whether local discourse coherence, as de#0Cned bya measure of Rough-Shift transitions, might be a signi#0Ccant contributor to the evaluation of essays. Our positive results indicate that Rough-Shifts do indeed capture a source of incoherence, one that has not been closely examined in the Centering literature. These results not only justify Rough-Shifts as a valid transition type, but they also support the original formulation of Centering as a measure of discourse continuityeven in pronominal-free text.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
class="xml-element"></Paper>