Abstract
A number of studies have highlighted the importance of teaching students to self-edit their work. Self-editing within higher education has been demonstrated to support students' academic writing skills. It also capitalises on lecturers' written corrective feedback on students' essay-based assignments making it more effective and meaningful. Utilising a collaborative approach between the Study Support and the School of Health Sciences at a UK-based university, this research evaluated the usefulness of a self-editing worksheet based on the perspectives of students, writing tutors, and the subject lecturer (staff) feedback. Students' perspectives were investigated by content analysing their responses provided in the reflection section of the self-editing worksheet. Qualitative analysis of staff feedback on pre- and post-edit writing was also evaluated. The results show that 65% of students found the worksheet useful and the worksheet helped them make some positive changes to their essays. Evidence would suggest that this pedagogical model is effective in improving levels of academic writing. Implications and suggestions for effective teaching practice and future research are provided in this paper.
Highlights
Academic writing is one of the cornerstones of university study as it is a crucial means of assessment with students being expected to write analytically and critically across all Holbrook and ParkStudent perceptions of the effectiveness of self-editing on their writing disciplines (QAA, 2016)
The self-editing worksheet required students to reflect on areas they needed to develop after using the prompts included in the worksheet (Appendix 2)
Data provided information about the student’s perspectives of the usefulness of the selfediting worksheet, in addition to their perceived areas of improvement based on the weaknesses identified, improvements made, and strengths; this was triangulated with the staff feedback (Figure 2)
Summary
Academic writing is one of the cornerstones of university study as it is a crucial means of assessment with students being expected to write analytically and critically across all Holbrook and ParkStudent perceptions of the effectiveness of self-editing on their writing disciplines (QAA, 2016). A number of students, from undergraduate to postgraduate level, are reported to find conventions of academic writing challenging to understand or implement (Gopee and Deane, 2013; Rickard et al, 2009; Jackson, 2009; Borg and Deane, 2011). Several authors report the quality of students’ writing in higher education is one of academics’ major concerns (Borg and Dean, 2009; Dann, 2009; Lamb, 2009). This could be due to a number of reasons, namely, students’ limited academic background; cultural differences (for non-native speakers, ); and generally limited writing experience
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