The purpose of this study was to investigate the teachers ' written feedb ackrnpractice and students' preferences and the reasons behind their practices andrnpreferences.rnSpecifically it was aimed at finding out: (1) What teachers' written feedbackrnpractices are, (2) the reasons bifhind their written feedback practices, (3)rnstudents' preferences for this feedback and reasons for their preferences, (4) therndiscrepancies between teacher written feedback practices and students'rnpreferences (5) the students' feelings about and responses to teachers' writtenrnfeedback.rnIn order to achieve these aims, feedback analysis of 75 marked papers collectedrnfrom 5 instructors of Sophomore English at DBU were compared with: (1)rnteachers' reported practice from a questionnaire survey and a follow up interviewrnwith all of them (2) data found from questionnaire administered to 80 studentsrn(who were randomly selected from 12 section of four departments) which probedrntheir preferences and reasons for their preferences (3) an interview data with 15rnof students , which revealed their feelings about and responses to writtenrnfeedback.rnThe re sults show that there were mismatches not only between what teachersrnreported and what they actually provided but also between teachers ' actualrnfeedback practice and ,students' preferences. Teachers provided feedback afterrnstudents had comp leted their work, ,w,',ile over half (56.25%) students preferredrnto get this feedback in the earlier drafts and after the final ones. Feedbackrnanalysis indicated that teachers focused on form (86.7%) than on organizationrn(3 .07%) and content (3.42%) which met students' preferences. But over 60% thernstudents wanted more feedback on each area . The study also revealed that onrnaverage te ac hers mostly employed direct correction (64.27%) employing therntechniques 'adding ', 'deleting', 's ubstitution ' land indirect correction usingrn'underline '! 'circle' technique (34.42%), which mismatched students' preferencesrnas they preferred direct correction over indirect correction. In spite of instru cto rs'rnerror focused feedback, negative comments and criticism, students seemed to berngenerally positive about teachers ' written feedback. Most teachers rarelyrndiscussed their feedback behavior for the students.rnFinally, based on the findings, discussions and conclusions the researcherrnsuggested the need to : take into account leamers ' preferences in writtenrnfeedback, employ a range of indirect error fe edback strategies, focus on globalrnaspects of students' writing, give p'raise and criticism side by side, encouragernstudents to write multiple drajis, and intervene in the students ' writing process.