Shaping of a writing researcher’s identity

Abstract

The article highlights the problem of writing for publication research purposes and its impact on a beginning scientist’s identity. The author points out two aspects of research writing and publication in international indexed journals. The first aspect is the developed skills of academic writing in English. The second aspect is the knowledge of research methodology and scientific publication design. The paper views the use of the two mentioned skillsets through the lens of English for Scientific Research module. During the module, the doctorate students of Northern (Arctic) Federal University were offered a survey consisting of three blocks of questions. The students’ answers were further developed through Socratic questioning technique in order to investigate the students’ identity formation. The findings reveal a severe lack of confidence among beginning scientists in relation to the research publication process, particularly to the methodology of research. The author concludes that the challenges of the research publication process impact the identity of a junior scientist in a negative key. The study demonstrates that beginning writing scientists need a thought-through professional assistance in the area of publication research, especially research methodology so that they could build a strong identity, necessary for their development in the international scientific community.