This study investigated whether product-oriented knowledge and composing process skills are both necessary or whether either one of the two is sufficient in order for EFL students to become skilled writers in EFL. Thirty-five Japanese college EFL students participated in the study as subjects. First, they wrote an argumentative essay, and immediately after finishing it, they were given a retrospective questionnaire designed to probe their composing process strategies. They also took a form-based test which assessed their knowledge of English academic texts. The students were classified into two groups, skilled and unskilled, according to the holistic scores given to their essays. The two groups were compared in terms of the behaviors shown in the questionnaire and the scores on the test. The results showed that the skilled writers possessed more developed knowledge of formal aspects of English academic writing as well as more sophisticated composing process strategies. It was also clarified that both the form-oriented knowledge and process-oriented skills are necessary to function as successful EFL writers. The study suggests that L2 writing instruction should maintain a balance between process and product orientations to meet the needs of various L2 writers who come from non-English discourse communities.
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