This study investigates the effectiveness of using self-formative evaluation to improve academic writing skills. The objective of the study is to monitor the progress of the students and to help the students to identify their strengths and weaknesses in writing. Poor academic writing skills will demotivate the students to write.This study utilised a quantitative analysis involving twenty-five Language Centre students from the English for Academic Writing (LLE 3012) class at the National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM). The teaching and learning process took place till the seventh week and the students were taught all the necessary lessons on academic writing skills.After week seven, the students were given a task to write an academic essay in class.