Academic writing is fraught with challenges for students of non-English speaking background(NESB)is Australia. One of these challenges, sentence grammar, is often where the support systems such as English for Academic Purposes(EAP)fail them. This study examines the problems and looks at innovative ways of addressing them. It begins by describing a research programme that exposes the most common error in NESB students' writing and concludes with the development of an intelligent computer interface designed to provide appropriate assistance. The theoretical concepts employed in this case are those of inter language and error analysis with in a very broad framework of systemic functional linguistics.