Abstract
English is now widely established as the world language for information exchange, communication, and conducting research (Cenoz & Jessner, 2000; Wood, 2001); and developing satisfactory writing strategies is crucial. Writing is a challenging skill, the complexity of which is mainly felt at University Level. This paper investigated writing strategies among 147 Tunisian university students, majoring in Hard Science and Soft Science courses (English, French, Medicine and Engineering). Its objective was to verify to what extent factors such as academic field, gender, and proficiency interact with each other and with writing strategies. A Survey of Writing strategies was adopted as the main investigating instrument. Findings reveal that Language majors are higher users of strategies than other majors, yet this does not seem to impact their proficiency level. The results suggest raising students’ awareness of Writing strategies by teaching them explicitly and drawing their attention to them.
 
 
Highlights
Writing skill is not less challenging than Reading
147 students majoring in four disciplines were investigated in Writing to determine if there is a relationship between the independent variables SPECIALTY, PROFICIENCY, and GENDER and the dependent variables WRITING STRATEGIES
The study had the primary purpose of exploring whether the independent variables, SPECIALTY, PROFICIENCY, and GENDER, impacted the frequency and the use of the dependent variables WRITING STRATEGIES in a Tunisian Tertiary level context
Summary
Writing skill is not less challenging than Reading. University students display much reluctance in completing a writing task (Turner, 2015). Much research confirmed that students‟ discourse comprehension and production levels are below expected standards of text (Parodi, 2007). This paper seeks to confirm or refute the following hypotheses that there is no difference between university majors in their use of Writing strategies and that Hard science is not more proficient than Soft Science students in producing an argumentative paper. It attempted to observe if there is a gender difference in the use of Writing strategies
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