Journal of Academic Writing

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September 2025

  1. Booksprints as a Learning Format for Students in Higher Education
    Abstract

    This article introduces booksprints as an innovative teaching and learning format for academic writing for undergraduate students. Booksprints foster writing with alternative concepts of authorship and enable students to collaboratively go through an almost authentic digital writing and publishing process in a minimum of time, and at the same time facilitate various future skills, such as written communication, coping with change, and digital literacy. Still being in a ‘prototype’ phase, booksprints are only just being tested as a potential educational format that is a bridge between subject matter and writing/teaching methodology. This article, therefore, presents the basic design of booksprints as well as some specific features, such as moderation of the process by the facilitator, explicit role assignments, visualized project management and the use of digital platforms, in order to introduce them as a writing-intensive learning setting for higher education.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v15i1.1114
  2. Balancing Preference and Practicality
    Abstract

    How – and why – do students engage with an increasingly diverse range of learning opportunities in the digitised university? This paper investigates students’ motivations for choosing in-person, online or asynchronous study modes and explores the implications for academic writing provision. I reflect on student and teacher experiences on a non-credit, Masters-level academic writing course at a UK university which was delivered through a ‘hybrid-flexible’ approach (Beatty, 2019). Students could opt to learn through synchronous in-person (on-campus) classes, synchronous online classes or asynchronous activities delivered through a virtual learning environment; all study modes supported the same learning outcomes and students could switch between them as they choose. Course evaluations reveal students have different motivations for choosing in-person, online or asynchronous learning, and suggest that learning preference and practical motivations are not always aligned. I reflect on the opportunities and challenges I encountered as a teacher designing and delivering hybrid-flexible academic writing content. I conclude by exploring how tensions between learning preference and practical motivations might be addressed in the design and delivery of in-person, online and asynchronous learning activities.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v15i1.1116

April 2025

  1. Guest Editorial
    Abstract

    The guest editors of this special issue of the Journal of Academic Writing present a selection of papers from the 12th Conference of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing, held at Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur, Switzerland, on 5–‍7 June, 2023.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v15is2.1255
  2. Academic Writing with GenAI
    Abstract

    Academic writing has always posed a challenge to university students, regardless of the language they are writing in (first, second or foreign language) or the amount of digital support they have access to – for example, online dictionaries, thesauruses, or new generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) software such as ChatGPT. With the rise of GenAI as a legitimate digital tool in higher education, it is crucial to identify the professional development needs of teaching faculty in order to ensure quality teaching. Based on factors such as digital literacy, or access to digital tools, these needs might differ in various geographical regions. Within the context of the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu), this paper aims to provide a differentiated, international student perspective on the use of GenAI in the academic writing process, identifying professional development needs for faculty. We developed an online questionnaire that was filled out by 192 university students from 15 different countries. In addition to their academic and linguistic backgrounds, the respondents answered questions about their own experiences and competences with the use of GenAI within academic research. Results highlight clear discrepancies between geographic regions, for example, in their self-ranked digital proficiency or in what GenAI tools they use. This, along with further results from the analysis, provides the basis to identify some professional development needs.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v15is2.1115
  3. A Year of Generative AI
    Abstract

    The article presents results from a survey about the academic writing practices among the students of the University of Tartu (Estonia). We analyse how the use of generative artificial intelligence has changed between spring 2023 and spring 2024. Our data shows that there has been a small increase in the percentage of students who have used the help of AI while writing: in 2023, 43.9% of the students reported using or having used AI, in 2024 it was 51.6%. AI is most popular among the students of Science and Technology and least popular among the students of Humanities. In 2023, using AI was more common among undergraduates than master’s students, but by 2024 this situation had reversed. Among the activities that students use AI for, gathering ideas is most popular in both years. The biggest change between the two years is that the number of students using AI for summaries and overviews has nearly tripled. The paper discusses the possible reasons for these tendencies, as well as some relevant implications for learning and teaching (academic) writing.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v15is2.1118
  4. Reflections on Writing and Generative AI
    Abstract

    This symposium is an extension of a plenary forum on generative AI (hereafter GenAI) held at the EATAW Conference at Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur, Switzerland, in June 2023. Since the conference, AI – particularly the large language models (LLMs) shaping GenAI such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT – continue to develop rapidly with extensive integration and usage across disciplines and career sectors with educational and societal impacts. Given these developments, we recognize the central role that writing instruction has in fostering critical literacies and engaged usage and, at times, non-usage of GenAI. Just as we have adapted our teaching and learning to other technological developments, so too are we now at a time of transition and adaptation. Our initial discussion at EATAW was wide-ranging, intentionally so because (1) there is so much to explore in relation to GenAI, and (2) the EATAW membership is diverse, coming from a range of academic backgrounds. Thus in our original plenary and here in this symposium we have raised issues ranging from specific pedagogical approaches to questions of program and institutional administration, to broader public issues and conversations about the relationship of humans to machines. Here in this written symposium we each raise a different issue related to GenAI and writing with the aim to foster dialogue and discussion about GenAI in writing-related contexts.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v15is2.1121

February 2025

  1. Teaching Academic Writing Skills: A Narrative Literature Review of Unifying Academic Values through Academic Integrity
    Abstract

    Academic integrity continues to concern educators worldwide. Furthermore, general guidelines for ensuring academic integrity do not seem to encompass all the angles that are required to be taken into consideration when exploring the factors that contribute to multicultural students’ decision to adhere to the norms and values of academic integrity.  This literature review focuses on how academic values can be unified through academic integrity, and specifically explores factors and perspectives of utilising academic integrity to unify academic values when teaching academic writing. The dimensions of academic values explored in this paper are: a) beliefs and attitudes of multicultural undergraduate students and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), b) the value of academic performance in academic writing classes, c) exploring the development of multicultural students’ authorial voice while maintaining academic integrity, and d) using technology to encourage academic integrity in academic writing classes. Over 56 identified sources were chosen carefully to ensure unbiased approaches to the issues of academic integrity and development of academic writing skills. The authors explored the issues from a variety of perspectives. The gap noticed in the review of literature is the disconnection between academic values and academic integrity. The authors make recommendations for future research.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v15is1.986
  2. Generative AI for Academic Writing: Case Studies Beyond Simple Chatbot Interactions
    Abstract

    This teaching practice paper shows how students may choose to work with ChatGPT, generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) to produce essays and written assessment solutions in a manner that may be considered as either acceptable or as a breach of academic integrity depending on individual and institutional views. Following a brief introduction to how chatbots work, case study examples show how modified prompts can be used to generate writing in alternative styles, how a writing tutor review can be simulated, and how LLMs can be run locally and without Internet access. The paper is intended to inform academic writing tutors, instructors, and assessors what is possible using generative AI for writing as of January 2024. It is not positioned to make a judgement regarding what is acceptable, but rather to illustrate how technically proficient users can accomplish more than is often indicated by writing beginner level prompts for a chatbot. Such techniques are accessible to many students and the Academic Writing Development community will need to consider its response.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v15is1.1067
  3. On Research Integrity within Science Training
    Abstract

    Here we report a teaching practice exploring integrity issues related to the use of images in scientific and/or academic writing or, more broadly, in communication. The practice is intended to raise students’ awareness of the need of complying with research integrity principles/norms. It is targeted at undergraduate students in the molecular biosciences, more specifically, to students enrolled in a First Degree in Biochemistry course. It has been implemented in the context of a course unit in which the students perform laboratory work – within a small project – usually originating data that is reported as graphs or as pictures in their laboratory reports. These visual representations are also normally used in articles published in scientific peer-reviewed journals. We implemented a group assignment based on the analysis of guidelines of different journals regarding the preparation of figures, including acceptable image processing and manipulation, as well as on the application of these guidelines on both written and oral reports. We could observe that the students performed the proposed activity with commitment and interest in the aspects explored. Moreover, the exercise improved their critical thinking ability as demonstrated through in-class discussions. In the present work, we discuss challenges of including illustrations in scientific texts in view of science teaching.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v15is1.988

December 2024

  1. Teaching Students How to Tame the Warrant with the Toulmin Model in EFL/ESL Settings
    Abstract

    This teaching practice paper deals with some practical ideas of teaching the concept of ‘warrant’ in Toulmin’s mode of argumentation within EFL/ESL settings. While most students are familiar with making claims and providing evidence to support them, they may not understand the role of the warrant in connecting claims and reasons. Therefore, there is a strong need for teaching students how warrant plays a key role in argumentative writing. This teaching practice paper aims at bridging the gulf between some writing theories and useful examples to dissect the complexities of teaching warrant in writing classes.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v14i2.1154

December 2023

  1. Editorial The Challenges of Academic Literacy/ies in Teaching Writing: Adaption, Contexts and Conditions
    Abstract

    Editorial for the issue. Addresses the themes of the articles along the lines of situating and contextualising academic literacies.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v13i2.1063
  2. Engineering a Dialogue with Klara, or Ethical Invention with Generative AI in the Writing Classroom
    Abstract

    In this teaching practice article, we discuss the possibilities of integrating AI into the writing classroom utilizing prompt engineering techniques. We propose a strategy for prompt engineering in which we see AI as an audience and interlocutor during the invention process. We consider using the method in preparation for argument composition and with that we propose an ethical model for teaching writing based on a view of rhetoric as both technê and praxis. To draw attention to the ethical question in relation to human—non-human interactions, we use as metaphor for AI tools the image of Klara, an android who serves as a children’s companion in Ishiguro’s novel Klara and the Sun (2021).

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v13i2.989
  3. Review of Translingual Dispositions: Globalized Approaches to the Teaching of Writing
    Abstract

    In this review of Frost, Kiernan, and Malley's collection Translingual Dispositions: Globalized Approaches to the Teaching of Writing, I propose that the collection fills a necessary gap of augmenting translingualism discourse globally and beyond the classroom. The contributors to Frost, Kiernan, and Malley's collection develop the theory of translingualism as an attitude, lived experience, an advocacy issue, and a classroom practice by showing a myriad of application sites for this concept. In so doing, the collection also demonstrates the messy operationalization and embodiment of translingualism in U.S. academic and non-U.S. academic settings.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v13i2.1056
  4. Nursing Students' Perceptions of Academic Literacy Education - Reflections from the Swedish Red Cross University
    Abstract

    Academic literacies refer to academic writing as social practices. This study describes first-term nursing students’ perceptions of the academic literacy education provided and its significance for their forthcoming training and clinical practice. Nine student nurses at the Swedish Red Cross University participated in semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using latent content analysis. Two categories were identified: A challenging but rewarding step focused on the students’ struggles to become academically literate. A professional outlook targeted the students’ perceptions of the requirement to acquire academic literacies for their training and future clinical practice. The results provide insights of dichotomous perspectives among nursing students regarding their need to acquire academic literacies. Some of the students convey a resistant and sceptical view of adding academic education to nursing training. Others acknowledge the requirement of being academically literate, a competence sometimes hard-won. However, in their struggles, teacher guidance was requested; an appeal that needs to be met with creative solutions. Repetitive approaches by teachers combined with the use of student initiatives are proposed to enable improved academic literacy levels among the students.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v13i2.891
  5. Flickers of Hidden Meaning – Braiding Essays as Creative Experience for Academic Writers
    Abstract

    In creative nonfiction, the genre of the braided essay is common. This creative art of braiding different strands and outside voices might also be liberating for academic writers as an expansion of academic writing that allows hidden meaning to shine through. This teaching practice paper shares how this genre was used for writing about teaching practice at EATAW 2021. It introduces the genre of the braided essay and uses the steps of the EATAW workshop as an example of how to teach it.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v13i2.802

December 2022

  1. Amazement and Trepidation: Implications of AI-Based Natural Language Production for the Teaching of Writing
    Abstract

    AI-based natural language production systems are currently able to produce unique text with minimal human intervention. Because such systems are improving at a very fast pace, teachers who expect students to produce their own writing—engaging in the complex processes of generating and organizing ideas, researching topics, drafting coherent prose, and using feedback to make principled revisions that both improve the quality of the text and help them to develop as writers—will confront the prospect that students can use the systems to produce human-looking text without engaging in these processes. In this article, we first describe the nature and capabilities of AI-based natural language production systems such as GPT-3, then offer some suggestions for how instructors might meet the challenges of the increasing improvement of the systems and their availability to students.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v12i1.820
  2. EATAW2021: Selected papers from the 11th Conference of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava (online), Czech Republic, July, 2021
    doi:10.18552/joaw.v12i1.920
  3. Using a Literacy Tutor's Reflexive Journaling for Addressing L1 Literacy Gaps in a Central Asian EMI University
    Abstract

    Literacy support in an EMI university in Central Asia (CA) helps students with the challenging linguistic demands of tertiary study in a second (foreign) language (L2). As Kazakhstan's post-Soviet education system (Yassukova, 2020) lacks significant first-language (L1) reading-to-write education (Keck, 2014; Friedman, 2019), English L2-literacy development has become even more difficult when compared to other regions of the world. Students’ literacy capabilities need to be investigated by L2-literacy tutors in order to scaffold learning better. Questions emerge as to whether it would help that the tutor had developed her L1 literacy through the same (but chronologically-earlier) system. To unpack this question, research can draw on perspectives in language socialisation (LS) (Duff, 2012), which sees learning environments as dynamic socially/culturally situated processes. To this end, this study looks at one L2-English literacy tutor's (author 2) experiences in a tertiary Foundation writing course. The goal was to see how the tutor’s interpretations of classroom literacy problems could inform the teaching of low L1-literacy students’ writing and metalanguage. For this purpose, we studied the reflective journaling (Burton, 2005) of the tutor who wrote reflective journals during a semester-long course in early 2020. The findings indicate that reflexivity can help a tutor find solutions, and that a similarity of background seems to help a local literacy tutor understand, and respond to, many of their students’ needs.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v12i1.814
  4. Writing for Architecture and Civil Engineering: Comparing Czech and Italian Students’ Needs in ESP
    Abstract

    This study is an investigation into the perceived ESP writing needs of students of architecture and civil engineering in two European Universities where English has become the language to promote internationalization, namely, the University of Pavia and Brno University of Technology. The research presented is done in the framework of an EU-funded project – Becoming A Digital Global Engineer, BADGE, aimed at improving the quality of language and communication skills of engineering students in Europe. It is also done with reference to the Global Engineers Language Skills Framework, GELS, an adapted version of CEFR language proficiency levels for engineers. Results contributed information about written genres and the digital technology used by students for writing, pointing to preferred genres in the engineering/architecture fields and the impact of digital tools on students’ writing habits. The results are discussed as an opportunity to reflect on the students’ needs, both specific to the individual teaching contexts and across them, and make suggestions for ESP writing pedagogy.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v12i1.815
  5. Providing online social support to student writers: Virtual teaching strategies for positive engagement
    Abstract

    One of the challenges for writing tutors during the pandemic has been trying to find ways to replicate on-campus contact and support for students. In response, this teaching practice-focused paper looks at ways to provide social support to students online with the aim of increasing engagement and enjoyment in the writing process. The paper is based on a workshop session given at the EATAW Conference, in which eight different strategies for engaging remote student writers were presented, discussed, and evaluated. These strategies are: establishing networks of peer support, providing a weekly social meeting, organising writing events, encouraging blog writing, helping students with planning and providing check-in points, helping with time management, sharing recommendations for other kinds of writing, and sharing recommendations for ways to enjoy writing. All of these strategies were developed by the author at a post-1992 teaching-focused university in the south of England during the pandemic. The paper examines the needs for these strategies and how academic writing tutors may use them in practice to engage remote writers, drawing on the conference workshop discussion. The paper concludes with some recommendations for EATAW to further support writing in remote contexts.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v12i1.796
  6. Writing Fellows as Support for Digital Introductory Lectures: Advantages and Challenges
    Abstract

    This teaching practice paper discusses the implementation of writing support into subject courses at an early stage of university students’ studies, with a particular focus on the courses’ digital transformation during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper presents a pilot project in which the original concept of the German writing fellow-program was adapted to a digital introductory lecture series in winter term 2020/21. 12 subject teachers received support for developing writing tasks for the lecture session they taught asynchronously. Six peer tutors were trained to support the 60 freshmen through text feedback and video consultations. The learning platform Moodle was used to provide all project participants with materials and information. The project results show a reduction of anonymity in this large online course, leading to less loneliness felt among first-year students. Additionally, the lecturers’ workload was reduced, the freshmen felt more secure in mastering their first writing task that took place off-campus and the writing fellows gained expertise for online consultations including respective tools and procedures. Consequently, this paper argues that it is worth implementing writing fellow support not only in smaller groups of advanced learners but also in introductory subject courses.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v12i1.821

July 2021

  1. Using author-devised cover letters instead of instructor-devised rubrics to generate useful written peer feedback comments
    Abstract

    This study uses both qualitative and quantitative research methods in a mixed-methods approach to investigate whether the principled use of author-devised cover letters (CLs) within doctorate writing groups can result in more useful reviewer feedback comments than would be attained through the use of instructor-devised writing assessment rubrics. In this context, CLs are self-devised written documents that help the reviewers give the author useful and critical written feedback comments. Twenty participants in different discipline-specific writing groups were given explicit instruction about the importance and content of CLs during the peer feedback process. Their perceptions of a useful CL were obtained from post-course questionnaires and analysed qualitatively. In addition, their CLs at various stages of the feedback process were analysed quantitatively for genre, social presence, and evidence of teaching instruction, and compared to the CLs produced by 20 PhD students in similar writing groups who received minimal CL instruction. The study found that author-devised CLs, as opposed to instructor-devised rubrics, can allow the authors the flexibility of providing text-specific background details, requesting reviewer help on specific textual aspects, using social presence to develop a sense of writing community, and provide reflection upon their own writing.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v11i1.632
  2. Integrating Formative Assessment with Foreign Language (English) Process Writing Instruction: Lessons from Two College Writing and Reading Classes in Germany
    Abstract

    Timed single-draft essays as summative assessment tasks have been argued to be inadequate for both teaching and assessing writing in the context of process writing. This is because single draft essays assess product rather than process. To address this concern, the authors developed, implemented, and evaluated two FL (foreign language) English writing courses that integrate various formative assessment activities for teaching writing. The course-embedded evaluation methodology included three techniques: pre-testing, collecting teacher-student conference reports, and administering a student opinion survey at the end of the semester. Pre-testing and collecting conference reports were both used as techniques for simultaneous teaching and inquiry into this teaching. The student opinion survey evaluated the course design grounded in the new teaching methodology. The findings of the study indicate that consistent use of formative assessment in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing class increases student confidence and motivation to develop their writing skills. Results demonstrate that academic (C1 level) and college (B2 level) writing courses that integrate formative assessment into teaching process writing can be a valuable addition to an array of FL (English) language courses offered by the departments of foreign languages at European universities.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v11i1.499

December 2020

  1. Evaluating Academic Literacies Course Types
    Abstract

    Evaluating Academic Literacies Course Types
 This poster represents a mixed methods study conducted at the University of the West Indies (UWI), which seeks to determine the merits of two types of Academic Literacies (AL) courses in promoting successful academic outcomes. Its focus is the first quantitative research phase in which the grade point averages after the first year of study of Social Sciences students successful either in the general purposes Foun1019 ‘Critical Reading and Writing in the Disciplines’ course or in the faculty-specific purposes Foun1013 ‘Critical Reading and Writing in the Social Sciences’ course are compared. The second, qualitative phase will be presented in future publications. This study is a response to an unimplemented recommendation of an external 2018 Quality Assurance Review (QAR) of the UWI, Mona campus, English Language Section, that students successful in the first semester of Foun1019 switch in the second semester to their faculty-specific AL courses. The QAR rationale for the recommended course switch is that the non-faculty-specific nature of the second semester of Foun1019 is academically disadvantageous to students who have shown promise in its first semester. This study is relevant to the debate over the use of general versus disciplinary AL approaches, one publicized by Jordan (1997) and revived by de Chazal (2012) who makes a pedagogical and practical case favouring a general purposes approach. Underlying the study is the premise at the heart of AL courses: that by preparing incoming students, supposed novice writers and readers at the tertiary level of study, these courses serve to maximise their academic performance. Indeed, this is the premise upon which the required pursuit by university students of AL courses is based.
 This Foun1019 general purposes course, introduced for students from all faculties who fail an English language proficiency entrance test (ELPT), places emphasis in the first semester on developmental reading and writing in English as well as on overcoming writer apprehension. Furthermore, a dual language identity – Standard Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole – is conferred on students. This is because whereas English is Jamaica’s sole official language, Jamaican Creole – which has an English lexicon but distinctly un-English grammar, syntax and phonology – is the first language of most of the students. The work undertaken in the first  semester functions as a bridge for students, building their linguistic self-esteem and improving their English language proficiency in order to ease them into what is considered the bona fide AL focus of the second semester: ‘Writing from Sources’. This latter focus is shared with one-semester, faculty-specific purposes AL courses, populated by students who pass or are exempt from the ELPT. These courses seek to respond to the AL development needs of individual faculties’ constituent departments. To do this, they employ as much of a specific purposes AL approach as is possible given the wide range of parent disciplines involved. The Foun1013 course featured in this study, which is pursued by Faculty of Social Sciences students exclusively, falls into this faculty-specific category of UWI AL courses.
 The Foun1019 and Foun1013 Year 1 student groups being compared have both been certified at the end of their first year of study to possess a satisfactory level of English language proficiency on the basis of attaining passing grades at the end of Semester two in their final and major AL assignment: a 1200-word documented expository essay scored via a common holistic rubric. To ensure further comparability of the two groups, control of the potentially influential independent variables of Socioeconomic Status (SES), Gender, Intellectual Aptitude (as estimated via matriculation qualifications) and other selected variables is accounted for by the multiple regression analysis component of the overall study design. To address the unevenness of the size of the two study populations, that is, the relatively small number (51) of Year 1 Foun1019 Social Sciences students versus the high number (630) of their Foun1013 counterparts, the Tukey test of statistical significance for unequal group sizes will be applied.
 To assess the groups’ relative academic performance, the official UWI measurement standard, Grade Point Average (GPA), is used. This measurement shows the typical course result of a student for a semester or year, and ultimately determines the quality of degree awarded (for example, First Class Honours, Lower Second Class Honours, Pass). This measurement encompasses nine bands ranging from 0.00-1.29 to 4.00-4.30 points. The points in question represent the numerical value given to letter grades, e.g. C+ (55-59%) = 2.30 points, F2 (40-44%) = 1.30 points. Grade points are determined by multiplying the points earned by the credit weighting of the course, which is based on the duration of the course (whether one or two semesters). Students earn three credits for one-semester courses, and six credits for two-semester ones. 2.00 is the minimum grade point deemed acceptable (University of the West Indies, 2014). 
 The investigation reveals that the overall Year 1 student pass rates for Foun1013 and Foun1019 at the end of the second semester of the 2017/18 academic year were 60.2% (630/1047) and 62.2% (51/82) respectively. Preliminary findings on the GPAs of the passing groups are as follows: 1) Foun1013 students’ GPAs are more widely spread across the band ranges than those of Foun1019 students; 2) The modal band range of the two groups is 2.30-2.99: 42.6% (269/630) of Foun1013 students versus 54.9% (28/51) of Foun1019 students; 3) The GPAs of 41.9% (264/630) of Foun1013 students fall into the four highest band ranges (3.00-4.29) versus 25.5% (13/51) for Foun1019 students; 4) The GPAs of 10.6% (66/630) of the Foun1013 students fall into the 2:00-2:29 (just acceptable) band range versus 15.7% (8/51) for 1019 students; 5) The GPAs of 4.9% (31/630) of Foun1013 students fall into the three lowest band ranges (0.00 -1.99) versus 3.9% (2/51) for Foun1019 students. Thus, overall, the Year 1 Foun1013 specific purposes students outperformed their Foun1019 general counterparts with respect to their higher band ranges, but the modal range of scores for both groups (a low but acceptable one) was the same; in addition, the Foun1019 group had slightly better outcomes in terms of its lower proportion of students with poor GPAs (under 2.0). Therefore, this cross-tabulation of the two groups’ GPAs reveals that student success in the general purposes course is not more highly correlated with Year 1 academic failure than student success in the faculty-specific purposes course, but it may hold implications for the passing grades received. Corresponding results for Year 2, 3 and 4 students, along with these Year 1 results, will be subjected to the finer-grained statistical analysis needed to reach definitive conclusions, while the qualitative phase of the study will use course content analysis and questionnaire and interview data from students and academic staff to seek explanations for the conclusions drawn.
 References 
 de Chazal, E. (2012). The general-specific debate in EAP: Which case is the most convincing for most contexts? Journal of Second Language Teaching and Research, 2(1), 135–148. http://pops.uclan.ac.uk/index.php/jsltr/article/view/90/37
 Jordan, R. R. (1997). English for academic purposes: A guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge University Press.
 University of the West Indies. (2014). Grade point average regulations (Internal document). UWI. https://www.uwi.edu/gradingpolicy/docs/regulations.pdf

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.624
  2. Collaborating between Writing and STEM: Teaching Disciplinary Genres, Researching Disciplinary Interventions, and Engaging Science Audiences
    Abstract

    Collaborating between Writing and STEM: Teaching Disciplinary Genres, Researching Disciplinary Interventions, and Engaging Science Audiences
 This poster describes a multi-pronged effort to build a writing curriculum in Physics and other STEM fields at the George Washington University, USA. These efforts include curricular collaboration, a research study conducted by the Physicists and Writing Scholars, and external funding initiatives.
 This project first began as a curricular collaboration through our Writing in the Disciplines (WID) curriculum, initiated by observations among Physics faculty that undergraduate students lack Physics specific writing skills. Writing faculty responded to this observation by introducing Physics faculty to the idea that writing can and must be taught, that the genres of Physics can be taught by Physics faculty, and that a focus on the writing process can improve student writing. Our curricular goal was to demonstrate to faculty who are unfamiliar with writing studies that writing is a means to learn in Physics (Anderson et al., 2017).
 The first phase of our effort was to persuade Physics faculty that writing contributes to learning in Physics; we describe a collaboration between Physics and Writing faculty that developed assignments and made curricular interventions. This collaboration built upon scholarship in writing studies that argues genre instruction develops capacities and skills for student writing (Swales, 1990; Winsor, 1996). While genre is not a new concept in Writing Studies, for many Physics faculty the idea that they can teach – and have students learn – how to write in disciplinary genres is novel. Collaboration around curricular revisions enabled Writing and Physics faculty to teach students that learning how to write in a new genre is a skill that can be practiced (Ericsson, 2006; Kellogg & Whiteford, 2009). We developed a process for students to follow when faced with types of writing common to Physics, but potentially new to them, such as the abstract (written), lab research notebook (written), article summary (oral), letter to colleague (written), cover letter and resumé (written), elevator pitch (oral), proposal (written and oral), presentation on issues of ethics and equity in STEM (oral), research presentation (oral), poster (written), poster presentation (oral), final research report (written), and Symposium presentation (oral). The collaboration thus created pedagogical exchange between faculty as well as scholarly synergy between the disciplines of Physics and Writing Studies.
 Physics faculty have observed that the curricular collaboration has had measurable results for students. Physics student participation in the campus research day has increased dramatically. We attribute this rise partly to the increased, explicit attention in classroom settings to how to engage with Physics genres of writing, especially abstracts and research posters.
 While the collaboration successfully brought together a small but solid group of Writing and Physics faculty, it also raised questions about how to persuade a broader range of Physics faculty, and other science faculty, that teaching disciplinary genres can improve student writing, and that writing is a means of learning. Given that faculty in STEM disciplines find empirical research persuasive, our next step was to undertake a collaborative research project to measure the impact of the teaching of writing in Physics. The new curricular focus on genre asked students to conceptualize themselves as scientific writers in relation to specific Physics or STEM audiences. The collaborative research therefore investigates if teaching Physics genres improves writing and enables students to conceptualize themselves as emerging scientists engaged in professional communication (Poe et al., 2010; Winsor, 1996). Our longitudinal analysis of student writing in Physics evaluates writing from three sequenced courses, the first before faculty-developed genre assignments, and then after genre assignments. We developed a rubric that evaluates general outcomes – audience, genre, structure, style – and a rubric that evaluates specialized learning outcomes – acknowledgement of past scholarship, working with models, incorporating scholarship, articulation of research questions, working with graphs, and articulation of methods. Preliminary research analysis shows that explicitly teaching Physics genres increases student’s abilities to write successfully in Physics, enabling students to understand how knowledge is communicated persuasively to audiences. Our goal with this research is to show STEM faculty through research by Physicists and Writing Studies scholars that teaching writing socializes students into the discipline of Physics, leading them to identify as professional scientists (Allie et al, 2010; Gere et al., 2019). This increase is exemplified by the large number of students volunteering to present a poster during the University wide research day, giving them experience presenting to an educated audience outside of Physics.
 Thus, a combination of strategies – curricular collaboration and intervention, collaborative research from within the discipline of Physics, and successful external funding – are what demonstrate to scientists that teaching genre and teaching writing are central to science education. Based on this experience, our contribution is that shared pedagogical and research collaborations, and funding, are what make the knowledge of Writing Studies persuasive to scientists.
 We have seen success with these efforts. At George Washington, other STEM faculty have observed successes in the Physics curriculum, and have joined efforts to bring writing more explicitly into their curriculum. This year, we began a Writing in STEM symposium that has grown to include faculty in Chemistry, Systems Engineering, Mathematics, Geography, Mechanical Engineering, and other fields. We have also seen an uptick in STEM courses in the WID curriculum. The Physics and Writing research collaboration has led to a National Science Foundation (NSF) submission on genre, and an NSF award for a study of writing and engineering judgement, being conducted by Writing faculty and Systems Engineering faculty.
 References
 Allie, S., Armien, M.N., Burgoyne, N, Case, J.M., Collier-Reed, B.I, Craig, T.S., Deacon, A, Fraser, D.M.,Geyer, Z, Jacobs, C., Jawitz, J., Kloot, B., Kotta, L., Langdon, G., le Roux, K., Marshall, D, Mogashana,D., Shaw,C., Sheridan, G., & Wolmarans, N. (2009). Learning as acquiring a discursive identity through participation in a community: improving student learning in engineering education. European Journal of Engineering Education, 34(4), 359-367. https://doi.org/10.1080/03043790902989457
 Anderson, P., Anson, C. M., Fish, T., Gonyea, R. M., Marshall, M., Menefee-Libey, W Charles Paine, C., Palucki Blake, L. & Weaver, S. (2017). How writing contributes to learning: new findings from a national study and their local application. Peer Review, 19(1), 4.
 Ericsson, K. A. (2009). The Influence of experience and deliberate practice on the development of superior expert performance. In K. A. Ericsson, R. R. Hoffman, A. Kozbelt & A. M Williams (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp 685–705). Cambridge University Press.
 Gere, A. R., Limlamai, N., Wilson, E., Saylor, K., & Pugh, R. (2019). Writing and conceptual learning in science: an analysis of assignments. Written communication, 36(1), 99–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088318804820
 Kellogg, R., & Whiteford, A. (2009). Training advanced writing skills: the case for deliberate practice. Educational psychologist, 44(4), 250–266. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520903213600
 Poe, M., Lerner, N., & Craig, J. (2010). Learning to communicate in science and engineering: Case studies from MIT. MIT Press.
 Swales, J. (1990). Discourse analysis in professional contexts. Annual review of applied linguistics, 11, 103–114.
 Winsor, D. A.(1996) Writing like an engineer: A rhetorical education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.581
  3. Centralised Supports for Writing in Higher Education and Their Applicability to Research, Teaching and Learning Contexts
    Abstract

    In 2018, as part of an EU COST Action (COST Action 15221 – www.werelate.eu), 43 academics, based at various higher education institutions in Europe, were asked about existing and desirable centralised support for writing, research, teaching and learning. This article draws on the academics’ responses. It uses that data to demonstrate the ways in which the learner-centred approach, typically adopted by writing centres, might function as a blueprint for a blended centralised support model for these four strands of higher education. In order to explore this idea, the article examines the reported support for research, as the data suggest that the majority of the centralised supports that currently exist at these institutions are designed primarily to support research. The study unpicks the mechanisms and approaches that are designed to ensure that research can be supported; it identifies what is effective in terms of supporting staff as researchers. From there, turning to the existing and desirable supports for writing, teaching and learning, I argue that, using a learner-centred writing centre model as inspiration, the structures which are currently in place to effectively support research can be modified and repurposed to more effectively support writing, teaching, and learning in higher education.      

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.583
  4. Preparing Postgraduates for the Profession: Toward Translingual Pedagogical Practices in Advanced Graduate Student Writing Instruction in Germany
    Abstract

    Contributing to the literature on translingual pedagogies outside the US or Canada, this article discusses the design of a hybrid instructional format for advanced multilingual doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers offered by a bilingual writing center at a mid-sized university in Germany. Meant to prepare for future careers in academia and professional demands in different national, cultural, and linguistic environments, this format gives participants the opportunity to explore academic genres that tend to receive less attention in graduate education than journal articles, book chapters, or others needed to complete degree requirements. By the end of the course, participants will have a submission-ready portfolio including an academic CV, a job letter, a (sample) letter of recommendation, and teaching and diversity statements. To achieve these specific outcomes and to develop the advanced professional academic writing competencies needed in multicultural and multilingual contexts, participants will have to draw on their diverse linguistic backgrounds and prior experiences in these kinds of settings. Informed also by other recent theoretical and empirical work on translingualism and translingual pedagogies in global contexts, this format adopts the use of translation proposed by Horner (2017) to move beyond the monolingual and, to a lesser extent, the multilingual paradigms. While it has yet to be tested empirically, the design represents an alternative to more traditional (and usually monolingual) modes of instruction. This article concludes by discussing limitations and implications of the approach to translingual pedagogies taken here.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.630
  5. Building Bridges: The Effective Learning Adviser as Trans-cultural and Cross-Disciplinary Communicator
    Abstract

    Out of 31,060 students currently enrolled at the University of Glasgow, about 25% are classed as international, reflecting a nationwide trend. In response to this situation, researchers and practitioners have stressed the need to improve the way universities accommodate multicultural student bodies. At the University of Glasgow, such efforts manifest in an expansion and diversification of the department facilitating student learning development: The Learning Enhancement and Academic Development Service (LEADS). LEADS is home to two Effective Learning Advisers (ELAs) who work with international students from all subject disciplines. Their work entails the creation and delivery of academic writing classes, the development of electronic resources and one-to-one tutorials. Due to the diversity of the international student cohort in terms of educational, cultural and subject backgrounds, a significant proportion of the international ELAs’ day-to-day job is to explain generic academic writing conventions pertinent to the UK Higher Education context to those coming from other educational cultures. Their role then is that of multicultural and cross-disciplinary communicators. This article outlines and reflects on the professional practice of the international ELAs and seeks to stimulate discussion around appropriate and effective practices of teaching academic writing to students from a multiplicity of backgrounds and disciplines.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.618
  6. Analyzing Writing Style and Adapting to a New Writing Culture: A Teaching Practice
    Abstract

    This teaching practice presents a classroom exercise completed in a first-year composition class at an English-medium private university in Lithuania. The course typically takes place in the second semester of the year and is required for all first-year students, who are multilingual but completing their university degree in English. The instructor, a US speaker of English who has a background in US composition studies, leads the exercise that consists of a writing style analysis that examines sentence length, word variety, and sentence emphasis, concluding with a discussion of how students can adapt their writing style to meet the needs of a new audience. The exercise aims to help students understand their writing style and what they need to know to adapt their style to fit the academic writing context in the university.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.582
  7. “I pictured my little sister when writing” – Teacher and Student Experiences with Training Audience Awareness in a Television Studies Seminar
    Abstract

    Training audience awareness is a significant but challenging task for teaching academic writing. To integrate the teaching of television studies with writing skills, I designed a BA seminar when working as a lecturer in the English department of a German university in 2015. I present my experience with and my students’ evaluation of training audience awareness as part of this seminar. The evaluations confirmed students’ increased awareness of the importance of incorporating audience-directed elements in writing, but indicated that the task had created obstacles, for example, regarding students’ reading comprehension. I retrospectively analyze my teaching approach and discuss possible reasons for my students’ success and difficulties with the writing assignment, and make suggestions for changes that may have better supported their learning process. I, therewith, aim to foster the integration of teaching writing within, across, and beyond disciplinary audiences in discipline-specific courses.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.611
  8. Supporting Academic Writing and Publication Practice: PhD Students in Engineering and their Supervisors
    Abstract

    Supporting Academic Writing and Publication Practice: PhD Students in Engineering and their Supervisors
 This poster documents the bottom-up efforts leading to the establishment of an academic writing support program for doctoral students at an engineering university in the Czech Republic (CR).
 To defend their dissertation, by law Czech doctoral students have to have published their research. Moreover, many faculties require their doctoral students to publish in prestigious English-medium journals, which is a challenge even for the students’ supervisors. Although publication requirements prior to dissertation defence are becoming common in many countries (Kamler and Thompson, 2014; Kelly, 2017), Czech students often face a challenge of writing in the absence of any prior writing support, where insufficient knowledge of English only adds an extra hurdle to the already difficult task of argumentation absent in Czech schooling. CR has a comparatively high number of doctoral students, but also alarmingly high drop-out rates with more than 50% students not finishing their studies (Beneš et al., 2017). In part, this is due to the students’ difficulties to publish (National Training Fund, 2019). This challenge could be addressed with systematic writing development, but Czech educators and dissertation supervisors are not commonly aware of composition being teachable as we learned from our preliminary study on writing support in doctoral programs in several Czech universities (Rosolová & Kasparkova, in press). While supervisors and university leaders tended to see writing development as a responsibility of the students, the doctoral students were calling for systematic support. 
 We strive to bring attention to the complexity of writing development and introduce a discourse on academic writing that conceives of academic writing as a bundle of analytical and critical thinking skills coupled with knowledge of rhetorical structures and different academic genres. We show how these skills can be taught through a course drawing on the results from a needs analysis survey among engineering doctoral students, the target population for this course (for more information on the survey, see Kasparkova & Rosolová, 2020). In the survey, students expressed a strong interest in a blended-learning format of the course, which we base on a model of a unique academic writing course developed for researchers at the Czech Academy of Sciences, but not common in Czech universities. Our course is work in progress and combines writing development with library modules that frame the whole writing process as a publication journey ranging from library searches, to a selection of a target journal and communication with reviewers. Because we are well aware that a course alone will not trigger a discourse on writing development in Czech higher education, we also plan on involving a broader academic community through workshops for supervisors and a handbook on teaching academic writing and publishing skills for future course instructors.
 Colleagues at EATAW 2019 conference commented on the poster sharing their difficulties from the engineering context and for instance suggested a computer game to engage engineers. This resonated with our plan to invite our engineers into the course through a geo-caching game – for more, see Kasparkova & Rosolová (2020).
 References 
 Beneš, J., Kohoutek, J., & Šmídová, M. (2017). Doktorské studium v ČR [Doctoral studies in the CR].  Centre for Higher Education Studies. https://www.csvs.cz/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Doktorandi_final_2018.pdf
 Rosolová, K. E., & Kasparkova, A. (in press). How do I cook an Impact Factor article if you do not show me what the ingredients are? Educare. https://ojs.mau.se/index.php/educare
 Kamler, B., & Thomson, P. (2014). Helping Doctoral Students Write (2nd edition). Routledge.
 Kasparkova, A., & Rosolová, K. (2020). A geo-caching game ‘Meet your Editor’ as a teaser for writing courses. 2020 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (ProComm), Kennesaw, GA, USA, 2020, pp. 87-91. https://doi.org/10.1109/ProComm48883.2020.00019
 Kelly, F. J. (2017). The idea of the PhD: The doctorate in the twenty-first-century imagination. Routledge.
 National Training Fund. (2019). Complex study of doctoral studies at Charles University and recommendations to improve the conditions and results. Report for the Charles University Management. Prague.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.614
  9. Talking about writing – designing and establishing writing feedback and tutorials to promote student engagement and learning
    Abstract

    This article describes different feedback designs that have been developed at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. These feedback activities are part of courses and programmes that faculty at the Department of Communication and Learning in Science, Division for Language and Communication, are involved in. The feedback setup has evolved from many years of designing and delivering writing instruction within STEM education, grounded in the challenge to make feedback a meaningful learning experience for all students and improve students’ understanding of disciplinary academic writing. The feedback designs described are based on dialogue to provide feedback and as a means for students to verbalize their own understanding of text, textual features and how discipline specific content is communicated. Examples of setups are large class active feedback lectures, scaffolded peer response sessions, and guided feedback workshops. These feedback activities are explored, and we argue for how they, potentially, result in more (useful) feedback and feedforward compared to traditional written teacher-student feedback.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.604
  10. “The Course Was Not Only for the Semester but Also for Life”: Scaffolding Summary Writing for EFL Students Across Academic Disciplines
    Abstract

    It can be a challenge for a university teacher to arrange the teaching of written tasks so that weak foreign language students with differing disciplinary backgrounds can develop their written communication skills. The difficulty is to avoid the focus from becoming just language proficiency. In one course at a technical university in Sweden, three written summaries are scaffolded to address such a challenge. The purpose of this teaching practice paper is to show how employing a specific strategy of repetition facilitates the writing skill development in low-level English language multidisciplinary students. The repeated features are the genre of the task, the writing process used and the occurrences of teacher response. They are organised along a specific learning path so as to encourage the students to build on the knowledge gained in each iteration, between tasks and potentially beyond the course. The paper describes the journey the students take writing the three summaries, working on fulfilling criteria concerned with aspects such as content organisation, coherence and cohesion, and limited grammar errors. A brief analysis of excerpts from one case student’s first and third summaries is included. It is suggested that while the scaffolding can remain the same, the material could be replaced to suit other skills and language level needs.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.612
  11. Inclusive Pedagogy in the Academic Writing Classroom: Cultivating Communities of Belonging
    Abstract

    This practice-oriented article considers two questions: What does higher education research tell us about student conceptions and experiences with inclusivity? What are the implications of this research for academic writing classrooms and curricula? I first review key themes and findings from research on the nature of social inclusion in higher education, including interviews conducted with undergraduates at my institution. I then consider how academic writing scholars have (and have not) taken up the concept of inclusivity within our policies, curricula, and instruction. Finally, I identify four areas we can focus on as a way to deepen our commitment to inclusive pedagogy: building community, inviting lived experience, preparing students for discomfort, and talking openly about equity. I conclude with examples of how I am working toward those goals in my own teaching practice.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.607
  12. Adapting to a Disciplinary Discourse: A Redesigned Course for MA History Students
    Abstract

    For most MA programs, it is common to enroll students with different BA degrees. The MA students who have changed their discipline are required to adopt a new disciplinary discourse and learn to write academic texts in line with appropriate genres and conventions. This study exemplifies an attempt to redesign the academic writing course for MA History programs at the Ural Federal University in order to ease the difficulties faced by students with non-history backgrounds. The essence of the redesign was to enhance the traditional teaching by demonstrating fundamental dissimilarities between history and other disciplines in terms of writing conventions. Teaching academic writing in that manner was supposed to facilitate students with both a history and non-history backgrounds to master the effective conventional writing of history texts. The efficiency of the redesigned course was estimated on the basis of students’ performance and feedback. This teaching practice can be of use for academic writing instructors who seek to help students from different backgrounds develop skills and competences that are necessary for a specific professional community.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v10i1.609

November 2018

  1. Editorial: Selected Papers from the 9th Conference of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, June 2017
    Abstract

    The 9th conference of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW) was held in subtropical conditions from 19th -21st June 2017 in Egham, UK.More than 400 participants from over 40 countries gathered at Royal Holloway, University of London to deliberate 'what teachers of academic writing can offer the global academy in terms of imaginative, creative and principled responses to the increasingly international, diverse and marketised reality of higher education' (EATAW 2017).As two of the co-organisers of the conference, and guest editors of this special issue, we want to thank our colleagues in the Centre for the Development of Academic Skills and other supporting departments at Royal Holloway for the assistance and hard work that a conference of this scale required.We are also grateful for the guidance of the EATAW board and the planning committee of the 2015 conference.Lisa Ganobscik-Williams and George Ttoouli are due our deep gratitude for their expert guidance, patient understanding and timely responses, despite the competing pressures and multiple responsibilities that both they and we have experienced.Many thanks go to all those who acted as reviewers, and of course to the contributors, who offered so many compelling and thought-provoking contributions and were responsive and timely throughout the review, revision and proofreading process.The conference theme, 'Academic Writing Now: Pedagogy, Policy and Practice', was intended to generate contributions articulating a response to the shifting realities of Higher Education at the levels of policy, pedagogy and practice.The call for proposals was enthusiastically received, and the conference included 168 contributions in the form of 116 paper presentations, 8 symposia, 15 workshops, 20 poster presentations and 9 Lightning Talks.Perhaps not unsurprisingly, the themes most represented were pedagogy and practice, with some very insightful contributions on policy.Our three keynote speakers offered challenging perspectives on each of these three themes; their talks will be available on the EATAW 2017 website until autumn 2019, for those who wish to revisit them. 1 EATAW 2017 Keynote SpeechesProf. Rowena Murray launched the conference with the recognition of the expertise that our profession offers to the academy, and acknowledged the difficulties inherent in having a voice in policy.She posited the 'retreat' model that she and others have developed for academic writing as a possible means of disengaging from everyday activities to create space for policywriting.However, her problematisation of the various modes of disengagement that writers seek in order to prioritise writing not only articulated the scope of the challenge, but also identified a 1 The keynote speaker videos are among 53 videos of sessions from EATAW 2017, hosted privately on YouTube so that they will be available in perpetuity.The entire playlist can be accessed here.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v8i2.547
  2. 'Aargh! This Essay Makes Me Want to Poke Sticks in My Eyes!' Developing a Reader Engagement Framework to Help Emerging Writers Understand Why Readers Might (Not) Want to Read Texts
    Abstract

    This paper outlines the development of the “Reader Engagement framework”, a tool for helping emerging writers understand what might keep readers reading – or stop readers from reading – a text. The Reader Engagement framework has been under development for the past five years, primarily in the context of undergraduate English proficiency classes at a large university in Flanders. Using the principles of constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz 2014), a preliminary framework was sketched using as data the margin comments of one reader who noted points of engagement or disengagement while reading student texts. Additional rounds of data collection included the engagement perceptions of student-readers, as well as those of teacher-readers from various disciplines. Thus far 1087 readers have been consulted, and the categories in the framework seem to be largely saturated. Though further refinement is necessary, the framework has been found successful as a teaching tool, and as an assessment and feedback tool. It also seems to have potential for offering writers a new way of conceptualising writing.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v8i2.473
  3. ‘If you don’t write yourself, on what grounds can you offer advice about writing to others?’ Perspectives on the importance of publishing by teachers of academic writing.
    Abstract

    This paper highlights a rather overlooked area of academic writing: that of publication by teachers of academic writing. The research focuses on exploring UK teachers’ views of the importance of publishing in terms of its impact on their practice, profession, and institution. Interviews were carried out with nine teachers of academic writing who worked within English for Academic Purposes at UK universities and were actively publishing. Data was collected in the form of their views and accounts of experiences of publishing, and the obstacles they had encountered. The study concludes that publishing by teachers of academic writing is considered a valuable parallel activity to their teaching, understanding and support of students with writing. It also seems that publishing could improve both the teachers’ individual reputation in their institutions and the status of their profession. However, it was also noticeable that many barriers to publishing exist, including lack of time, support and mentoring, as well as a more serious problem of hostility from line managers. Networks, collaborative initiatives and more informal writing opportunities may encourage teachers of academic writing to publish more themselves.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v8i2.459
  4. Embracing Diversity for Attainment: An Inclusive Approach to the Teaching of Academic Literacy
    Abstract

    This research aims to evaluate the impact of an inclusive writing approach, which strives to embed academic literacy into subject curriculum, an initiative that ran across schools at a UK-based post-1992 university in 2015-16. As an exploratory investigation, this research drew on a redesigned social science transitional module, where academic writing provision is closely in line with the subject content and assessments. This project explores student perceptions and experiences of the embedded writing provision and the extent to which the intervention contributed to student attainment. Data were drawn from focus group discussions, where 41 students participated, and from student grades for the comparison of attainment rates across 2014-15 and 2015-16. The focus groups were analysed using NVivo 11 to identify key themes in relation to student views of the embedded academic literacy provision. Student grades were explored using MS Excel for the relative progress across academic years. The findings reveal the positive impact of the provision on students’ attainment and confidence as learners and writers in higher education. This paper concludes with pedagogical implications and a discussion of potential areas for further research to investigate the diversification of support modes as to accommodate different learning styles of students.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v8i2.486
  5. Using Peer Review with Greek EFL College Students
    Abstract

    Peer review fosters student critical thinking and self-evaluation (Wood and Kurzel 2008). Numerous studies show that peer review is effective in improving student writing (Althauser and Darnall 2001, Bean 2011), and that it benefits the students receiving as well as those giving the feedback (van den Berg, Admiraal and Pilot 2006). However, these issues have not been greatly researched in Greece. Greek culture bestows great authority to the teacher and students are not accustomed to peer feedback.I have embarked on a small-scale, exploratory, classroom-based study conducted at Deree - The American College of Greece where English is the medium of instruction. Data include first and revised drafts of three academic writing assignments, written peer comments, and learner reflections on the peer reviewing experience. To further explore student attitudes toward peer review, I also administered an online questionnaire. Initial quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal (a) in general student reviewers and reviewees alike accept peer review as an appropriate pedagogical activity; (b) students revise their writing taking into account peer feedback and (c) as reviewers, students were not more critical in giving feedback when doing peer review anonymously. Preliminary results are interpreted with an understanding of the limitations of the ongoing study.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v8i2.447
  6. What Can Screen Capture Reveal About Students’ Use of Software Tools When Undertaking a Paraphrasing Task?
    Abstract

    Previous classroom observations, and examination of students’ written drafts, had suggested that when summarising or paraphrasing source texts, some of our students were using software tools (for example the copy-paste function and synonym lookup) in possibly unhelpful ways. To test these impressions we used screen capture software to record 20 university students paraphrasing a short text using the word-processing package on a networked PC, and analysed how they utilised software to fulfil the task. Participants displayed variable proficiency in using word-processing tools, and very few accessed external sites. The most frequently enlisted tool was the synonym finder. Some of the better writers (assessed in terms of their paraphrase quality) availed themselves little of software aids. We discuss how teachers of academic writing could help students make more efficient and judicious use of commonly available tools, and suggest further uses of screen capture in teaching and researching academic writing.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v8i2.456
  7. On the Privatisation of Academic Writing Development: A Post-EATAW 2017 Provocation
    Abstract

    All across continental Europe and the United Kingdom, academic writing teaching or development is slowly becoming part and parcel of existing institutional frameworks intended to enhance student writing and professional research communication. While more and more universities are investing in such infrastructures of support internally, a relatively new phenomenon is also consolidating: the steady rise of privatised, for-profit writing development businesses that draw their client base from academic institutions. Prompted by EATAW 2017, the conference organised at Royal Holloway, University of London, this think piece raises some fundamental questions regarding the privatisation of academic writing development and invites colleagues to consider its assumptions, emergence and implications in their local, higher education contexts.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v8i2.531
  8. Embedding writing support within a Psychology academic skills module: a case study
    Abstract

    A Psychology academic skills module and challenges in its delivery are outlined. Adaptations described include embedding specialist support for the teaching of academic writing and linking content to assessments and careers. Increased student satisfaction and qualitative feedback indicated that changes were beneficial. The need for further evaluation is discussed.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v8i2.439
  9. Coming around: Tutors, orientation, and prolepsis
    Abstract

    Novice tutors often conceptualize learning how to tutor as a kind of metaphorical journey, one with a compelling, but not fully recognized, destination. Cognitively speaking, they are learning how to tutor while at the same time learning what the activity of tutoring means. This paper seeks to position tutor education within the conceptually rich field of teacher education, especially as it is informed by insights from sociocultural theory (SCT). Using tutors’ reflective narratives, the author illuminates how orientation to task, a fundamental concept in SCT, changes over time through frequent and intensive reflective writing, when carried out in combination with practical tutoring activities. Specifically, the data suggests that proleptic engagement (identifying elements of the future expert self in ongoing novice activity) and affective engagement are important signals of development. The journey is particularly challenging because – to interrogate the metaphor – the novice is trying to build the track while riding the train to the terminus.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v8i2.466

September 2018

  1. ‘It’s Hard to Define Good Writing, but I Recognise it when I See it’: Can Consensus-Based Assessment Evaluate the Teaching of Writing?
    Abstract

    In a Higher Education environment where evidence-based practice and accountability are highly valued, most writing practitioners will be familiar with direct requests or less tangible pressures to demonstrate that their teaching has a positive impact on students’ writing skills. Although such evaluations are not devoid of risk and the need for them is contested, it can be argued that it is better to engage with them, as this can avoid the danger of overly simplistic forms of measurements being imposed. The current paper engages with this question by proposing the conceptual basis for a new measurement tool. Based on Amabile’s Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT), developed to assess creativity, the tool develops the idea of consensual assessment of writing as a methodology that can provide robust data through systematic measurement. At the same time, I argue consensual assessment reflects the evaluation of writing in real life situations more closely than many of the methodologies for writing assessment used in other contexts, primarily large scale tests. As such, it would allow writing practitioners to go beyond ethnographic methods, or self- reporting, in order to obtain greater insight into the ways in which their teaching helps change students’ actual writing, without sacrificing the complexity of writing as social interaction, which is fundamental to an academic literacies approach.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v8i1.450
  2. Editorial: Methodologies, Methods and Processes for Teaching and Assessing Academic Writing
    Abstract

    Andrews) is our new Book Reviews Editor, and has launched into the role enthusiastically.We have two book reviews this issue and look forward to expanding JoAW's survey of current Academic Writing literature in future general issues.Mark also brings a new set of connections to the journal, and we hope to increase the breadth of JoAW's engagement with, and coverage of, the field's leading edge.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v8i1.530

January 2017

  1. Revision Processes in First Language and Foreign Language Writing: Differences and Similarities in the Success of Revision Processes
    Abstract

    Writing academic texts in one’s native language (L1) and – even more – in a foreign language (FL) places high cognitive demands on students. In order to cope with these demands, writers should learn to adapt their writing methods flexibly to their tasks, depending on the language and the genre they are writing in. Crucial aspects here are the methods of revising because the need for linguistic revision will be higher in the FL text than in the L1 text; at the same time, it should not be the main or only focus of the revision process. In order to analyse the differences in L1 and FL revision, a study was set up in which ten L1 German students wrote academic essays in German and in English. The production process was protocolled with the help of keylogging, so that the revising processes could be analysed. The results show that the participants revised similarly in both the L1 and the FL. They focussed on the same aspects (content, typing mistakes, and language errors that were not L1 related). At the same time, there are differences in finer grades. These differences in revision do not seem to be a conscious decision, however, but are rather the result of the higher cognitive demands in FL academic writing and the lower degree of language knowledge. Additionally, the analysis of the final FL texts showed that most of the errors that were not corrected were L1 induced. When one looks at the revisions, however, one sees that hardly any revisions were made in these aspects: the L1 influence went more or less unnoticed. For writing pedagogy, this means that one has to put a higher focus on revision strategies during teaching, in order to give students the tools to write successfully in L1 and in FL, and to motivate them in enhancing their papers.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v7i1.214

November 2016

  1. Teaching Disciplinary Writing as Social Practice: Moving Beyond ‘text-in-context’ Designs in UK Higher Education
    Abstract

    This paper concerns the teaching of disciplinary academic writing in Higher Education in the UK and is motivated by the need to identify an EAP instructional design that will facilitate student writers’ engagement with disciplinary writing as a situated social practice. In the paper I describe and critique what I characterise as a ‘text-in-context’ genre-based pedagogy influential in EAP provision in the UK, and then sketch out the broad parameters of a ‘social practice’ instructional design, enactable within the context of UK Higher Education.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v6i1.286
  2. The Challenge and Opportunity for MOOCs for Teaching Writing
    Abstract

    Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been touted as alternative approaches to face-to-face teaching and the design of learning spaces. MOOCs allow teachers to rearrange traditional classroom activities and use technologies sometimes in new and different ways to provide new ways of teaching. Recently, they have been implemented for the teaching of writing to provide greater access to these courses. I examine the possibilities and challenges of using these technologically-enhanced spaces for teaching composition. I first discuss the differences in the designs of MOOCs and how these approaches were applied to teaching writing. Based on my own participation in composition MOOCs as well as a variety of other MOOCs since 2008, I introduce three composition MOOCs, which although designed as L1 courses, involved thousands of participants with varying backgrounds from all over the world. I discuss how these MOOCs responded to challenges and how the participants could negotiate their own learning, such as by choosing which assignments they wanted to complete or determining how much peer review they wanted. I conclude that these courses demonstrate how MOOCs have created new learning spaces that can influence face-to-face approaches to teaching writing.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v6i1.301
  3. Locating L2 English Writing Centers in German Universities
    Abstract

    As L2 English writing support services, including writing centers, expand into different linguistic and national contexts, it becomes imperative for literacy brokers (Lillis and Curry 2006) and literacy managers (Bräuer 2012) to reflect on the uses and limitations of existing writing support models and teaching approaches. This paper presents the findings from a project that tracked the growth of L2 English writing centers in German universities from 2013-2015, locating their emergence within changes in the German academic landscape. Using data taken from questionnaires and interviews, this paper locates and explores ten L2 English writing centers in Germany, focusing on their aims; organizational models and teaching approaches; staffing and funding; key university partnerships; offers; and reflections on the future. It is hoped that these collated experiences could be of interest to other L2 English centers developing in different countries and language contexts.

    doi:10.18552/joaw.v6i1.283