Journal of Academic Writing
13 articlesSeptember 2025
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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.
April 2025
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Abstract
This study evaluates the effectiveness of corpus-based interventions for enhancing writing skills in English L2 and French L2 among Romanian-speaking students. Following established intervention models, the study involved five stages: initial essay writing, corpus tool training, introduction to target language corpora, essay revision using corpora, and a satisfaction survey. Analysis of linguistic data (e.g., frequency lists, n-grams, and error correction rates) and survey responses from 40 participants reveals improvements in writing accuracy and diversity. Specifically, English L2 students demonstrated enhanced lexical accuracy and varied phraseology, while French L2 students improved syntactic precision and contextual use of academic terms. Both groups showed increased grammatical accuracy, especially in prepositions and articles, through corpus consultation. The findings underscore the pedagogical potential of corpora in writing instruction and the necessity of expanding corpus resources for under-resourced languages like French.
December 2024
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Abstract
Authorial voice plays a key role in helping writers establish themselves as experts in their field as well as demonstrate their individual style (e.g., Tardy, 2012). Citation usage has an important impact on authorial voice in academic writing and can be implemented in various ways; namely, through citation types (e.g., integral, non-integral) and citation presentation (e.g., direct quotes, summaries, generalizations). While many researchers have examined citation type among novice and experienced writers, researchers have largely overlooked citation presentation across disciplines – that is, how experienced authors balance the use of quotations, summaries, and generalization to index authorial voice. Beginning academic writers may be encouraged to use quotations to prevent plagiarism, but it is unclear if this advice reflects patterns in published writing across disciplines. In this study, we examine the background sections (i.e., introductions and/or literature reviews) of 270 academic research papers to evaluate the extent to which various citation types and presentations are used in background sections across six disciplines. Findings which can inform disciplinary writing guides and educational materials indicate disciplinary variation in citation type, with applied linguistics using the most citations overall and physics and biology using the fewest integral citations. Disciplines also differed in their citation presentation, with some favoring summaries and others favoring generalizations while quotation was rare overall. These results have important implications for teachers and material developers who can use these patterns of source usage to compare and contrast disciplinary norms and provide direct instruction on features of academic voice. Cross-disciplinary awareness of voice features can also highlight disciplinary patterns for students, allowing them to write more like experts in their fields.
July 2021
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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.
December 2020
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Abstract
This essay offers and develops some useful parameters toward the ongoing conversations on multilingual and multi-dialectic writing students in Europe and the United States, two settings with oft-competing views of writers’ varied language backgrounds. I present a synchronic snapshot of writing pedagogy as it relates to translingualism at this temporal moment. Specifically, I seek to link three different university roles—classroom teachers, writing center directors, and WAC directors—to certain translingual postures and their consequential applications. By introducing and elaborating upon the labels “Traditionalist,” “Allied Enthusiast,” and “Active Advocate” as they attend each role, I wish to offer helpful ways to understand the consequences of embracing these postures. This charting of stakeholders and their characteristics can more readily facilitate concrete scholarly discussion concerning translingual writing instruction as it moves forward. I conclude with recommendations and cautions, bringing into question some of the settled assumptions remaining in our field.
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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
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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.
November 2018
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Redesigning a discipline-specific writing assignment to improve writing on an EMI programme of engineering ↗
Abstract
English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education presents challenges at many different levels for educators and students. One of the challenges is disciplinary writing, as students typically study disciplinary content through, and also write in, English as a second or a foreign language. The present, exploratory intervention study uses the redesign of a writing assignment in a Master’s level engineering course at a Swedish university to investigate challenges of disciplinary writing in an EMI context. The study describes how collaboration between content and communication staff helped unpack some of the challenges that students faced. The results show that the students’ texts improved and that the redesign helped them to better adjust to a genre partially new to them. The study also underscores the value for programmes to have a clear plan for writing. The planning is likely to benefit from collaboration between disciplinary and communication faculty, as these participants bring different knowledge to the process.
September 2011
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Survival or Natural Death? Issues Related to the Sustainability of Writing across the Curriculum Programmes ↗
Abstract
This paper examines the issue of sustainability in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programmes, focusing on the role of ‘bottom up’ initiatives in their development and spread. It argues that, although this element is essential for the start up of WAC initiatives, sustainability can only be achieved through institutionalization, a process requiring ‘top down’ measures. Since both bottom up and top down approaches are essential to successful implementation, it is critical to find the right balance between both approaches. The experience of WAC implementation at the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies, Jamaica is used as a context within which to examine these issues. This example demonstrates a mix of bottom up and top down implementation approaches, but with insufficient top down commitment to guarantee sustainability. It concludes by looking at lessons learned and areas of continued activism which have borne some fruit. It is suggested that the issue of sustainability in the case of grassroots advocates is perhaps better conceptualized as sustained efforts to establish programmes, rather than programme sustainability per se.
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Abstract
The following set of three papers, ‘University Literacies: French Students at a Disciplinary “Threshold”?’ by Isabelle Delcambre and Christiane Donahue, ‘Modeling Multivocality in a U.S.-Mexican Collaboration in Writing across the Curriculum’, by Mya Poe and Jennifer Craig, and ‘Perceptions and Anticipation of Academic Literacy: “Finding Your Own Voice”’, by Claire Woods and Paul Skrebels, represents some of the ongoing practice-oriented research of the ‘Antwerp Group’, so called because the members came together as teacher-researchers with shared interests in student writing in Antwerp in 2006.
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Abstract
Reviewing keynotes and papers presented at the 2005, 2007 and 2009 EATAW conferences, and subsequent academic and digital literacies research, this paper considers the current agenda for academic writing teachers. It discusses pedagogic issues arising, for instance, from research on genre, multimodality, online communities, and the challenges and resources for the generation of students problematically called the ‘net generation’. Looking at two wings of academic writing research, those focusing on the ‘textual’ and those on processes and contexts, it raises the question of a common agenda for disciplinary writing studies, one exploring the transformatory processes and effects of disciplinary meaning making in ‘the digital university’.
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Abstract
For over fifty years, US writing centers have been helping students, with writing centers found in approximately 90% of American universities and colleges (Eodice 2009). Because those who direct and tutor see student writers struggling with every kind of assignment, writing centers are important resources for anyone teaching writing or writing-intensive courses.Ironically, though, writing centers are an overlooked resource on literacy. As Eric Hobson and Muriel Harris argue, writing centers should share with those who teach writing to larger groups what writing center professionals have learned about the writing process. Based on four years of systematic research interviewing experienced writing center tutors, this article presents teachers of academic writing with valuable insights into how students misunderstand the writing process and how teachers of academic writing can improve their teaching of writing.
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Abstract
Since 2006 the ‘Antwerp Group’ group has explored student writing from various country perspectives to understand what practices and pedagogies are country specific and what issues cut across national borders. The insights of the Antwerp Group helped inform a 2009–2010 collaboration between The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in which we combined Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and English as Foreign Language (EFL) instruction. This paper describes how a theoretical model used by the Antwerp Group helped us identify the multivocality that each collaborating group brought to this new partnership. In the end, theorizing multivocality helped us recognize our diverse perspectives as a resource even as we sought to find a collaborative voice in setting project goals, defining a student survey, and implementing a curricular design for a WAC-EFL writing course.