English Academic Writing Research Articles

Academic Writing in English in the Structure of Higher Education in Russia

Intensification of research work at engineering universities of Russian Federation leads to the increase of publication activity of graduate and PhD students in high-impact English language journals. However, the level of academic writing skills still remains rather low. On one hand, it results from the fact that the majority of applicants to engineering institutions have only basic knowledge of a foreign language. On the other hand, the curriculums of most Russian universities do not include developing academic writing skills as a stand-alone discipline or a part of the “Foreign Language” discipline. This paper aims at considering the main constituents of academic writing in a foreign language, such as the current state policy in higher education, the content of academic writing for engineering specialties, the publication process participants, the available resources for developing and improving the required skills in the realities of university language education; as well as identifying the external factors which create favorable conditions for developing academic writing skills of engineering students.

Single author self-reference: Identity construction and pragmatic competence

Chen and Yang (forthcoming) find that, in published work, authors of academic writing in English (AWE) in the area of language studies predominantly use the 1st-person singular, I, to refer to themselves as single authors in their publications. Authors of academic writing in Chinese (AWC), however, largely avoid the 1st-person singular pronoun for single author self-reference. Based on interview data and available literature, we propose that the avoidance of the 1st-person singular by AWC writers for single author self-reference is motivated by modesty, a notion that has been shown to be a key value of Chinese culture.How do Chinese writers of AWE self-refer? The present paper reports on a series of survey studies aimed at answering this question. It is found that Chinese writers of AWE are like neither AWE writers nor AWC writers: they use both I and other NPs that are not I. In addition, they differ in the degree to which they chose such in-between linguistic behaviors depending on where they are in their academic career (e.g., as bachelor’s thesis writers, as master’s thesis writers, as doctoral dissertation writers, or as conference abstract writers). It is argued that they do so because they are caught between the conventions of the two languages. In such a bind, they strive to find the best way to “construct a credible representation of themselves and their work …. ” (Hyland, 2002: 1091) but, in absence of formal instruction, the best way they end up finding largely do not conform to the conventions of AWE. These findings reveal much about how cultural values influence the development of pragmatic competence in academic writing and have important pedagogical implications.

Chinese EAP teachers’ graduate-level English academic

In China, it has been widely recognized that graduate students urgently need to develop capabilities in engaging in academic communication at the international level, above all through writing and publishing their research in English. This educational need has stimulated the growth of EAP and the teaching of English academic writing (EAW) to graduate students across disciplines at Chinese universities. In this paper we report an interview-based study which focused on understanding Chinese emerging EAP teachers’ graduate-level EAW instruction and their endeavors of professional development (PD). Our study adds to the limited existing literature on EAP practitioners’ contextualized teaching practices and their professional development, and generates insights that can be drawn upon by EAP professionals in other contexts

Students’ Perspectives on Academic Writing in European Higher Education (Based on 2019 Erasmus Teaching Experience in Slovak and Hungarian University)

Although studies on the approaches and methods of teaching Academic Writing in university classroom are extensive, comparative studies on students’ evaluation of the classroom strategies and techniques applied are still scant. Therefore, this research implies a quantitative study based on comparative analysis of Slovak and Hungarian EFL learners’ responses on a special questionnaire in English Academic Writing. The objective of the study was to explore senior university students’ attitude to the academic writing tasks, specificity of a writing program at the university, its advantages and disadvantages; to evaluate their own writing abilities and provide recommendations concerning feedback and writing instructions in class along with the ways of their improvement. It accords to the area of study on effective writing assignments, techniques and methods involved in everyday practice in Central European universities, which can make academic writing both a productive and joyful tool in English language acquisition process.

Diagnosing Linguistic Problems in English Academic Writing of University Students: An Item Bank Approach

ABSTRACTThis article describes the steps we went through in designing and validating an item bank to diagnose linguistic problems in the English academic writing of university students in Hong Kong. Test items adopt traditional item formats (e.g., MCQ, grammatical judgment tasks, and error correction) but are based on authentic language materials extracted from a manually error-tagged corpus of target students’ essays. A total of 257 items were developed to assess 25 high-frequency and grave linguistic errors. To validate test items and calibrate their psychometric qualities, four parallel tests were assembled and given to 338 students. Rasch modeling was conducted to examine item dimensionality, DIF sizes, fit indices, reliability, and difficulty. The results supported the validity and reliability of the remaining 219 items in the bank. Moreover, we investigated the effects of item formats and target errors on item difficulty and item-measure correlations and the relations amongst error difficulty error frequency and prevalence. The item bank approach to developing diagnostic tests was found useful insofar as it provided more precise information about knowledge gaps than the corpus-based textual analysis and had the potential to pinpoint high priority areas for remedial instruction.

Investigation into and Analysis of the Current Situation of Academic English Writing of HLP Postgraduates: A Case Study from a Chinese University

As many scholars have realized the significance and urgency of academic English writing research in English-as-foreign-language countries, numerous studies have been conducted on the topic. However, little has focused exclusively on multidisciplinary empirical research on High-level Project (HLP) postgraduates’ academic English writing in China. The present study intends to explore the general tendency of HLP students’ academic English writing. It first investigates the difficulties and writing habits of fifty-one HLP postgraduates in the English training center of a “Project-985” university in China through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, and then discusses some problems of the present academic English writing classroom and academic English writing skills that need to be improved promptly.

A Comparative Study on Teacher Talk of Australian and Chinese English Teachers in an Academic English Writing Course in Chinese EFL Classrooms

Research on teacher talk has shown that many different teaching behaviors between native English speaking teachers and non-native English speaking teachers may result form their different English proficiency. This paper aims to examine the differences between Australian English teachers (AETs) and Chinese English teachers (CETs) in an Academic English Writing course in ELF classrooms in China in terms of language use, linguistic complexity, and linguistic variety. Two university teachers (one AET and one CET) were recorded and observed for two weeks in October of 2017 in SHU-UTS Business School of Shanghai University. Data were collected via classroom observation and analyzed by a qualitative research method. The findings revealed although there are some differences in language use, linguistic complexity and linguistic variety, both teachers are highly aware of the marking criteria for the writing task of the academic English writing course and emphasize their teacher talk quality input for their students. The results, therefore, can help teachers from Australian and Chinese cultures to continuously work on high quality teacher talk and facilitate the development of a specific language skill-academic English writing for English learners in EFL Chinese classrooms.

An Online Training Program Based on International Electronic Medical Journals Criteria to Develop Egyptian Physicians' Academic English Writing Skills

Abstract: T his study explores the learning experiences of 30 non-native English-speaking physicians who participated in an online training program for academic writing and publication skills which consisted of 2 monthly with 2 hours per sessions. Participants identified barriers to writing, had time to write, and completed at least one research article. Participants provided written responses to questionnaire questions about their learning experience, and at the end of the program, participants identified manuscripts submitted for publication, and completed an evaluation rubric. The result shows that this academic writing program facilitated the knowledge, and support needed skills to foster writing productivity. All participants completed at least one research article by the end of the program and 67% were able to publish their research articles in high-impact journals. It is suggested the physicians' academic writing and publication's productivity requires continued follow-up.

Investigating English Academic Writing Problems Encountered by Arab International University Students

This study is in the area of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). It aimed to investigate the academic writing problems encountered by students at Arab International University (AIU) who are taking the Academic Writing module (AWR). The purpose of the study is to investigate this problem from the perspective of students in order to suggest possible treatments to deal with it. The data was collected through distributing a questionnaire to 50 students from different majors at AIU. Upon analyzing and discussing the obtained data, results suggest that students tend to perceive all aspects of academic writing to be difficult. One reason is that they poorly recognize the difference between academic and general English writing due to the lack of background knowledge about writing academically. Another prime reason is attributed to having problems in different linguistic elements even at this supposedly high proficiency level. The study concludes with suggesting a number of ways to address this issue.

The Probe into the Problems and Solutions in Academic English Writing Class from the Traditional Teaching Perspective

Writing is one of the most important contents in English teaching. Therefore, the paper aims to discuss how to help students manage to achieve two goals in writing: for the sake of grasping language to learn writing and for the sake of writing itself to learn writing in English Academic Writing class compared to in traditional English Writing class from the perspectives of English writing requirements, common problems and teaching design.

中国内地传统高校本科毕业生和中国内地中外合作办学(EMI)高校本科毕业生的学术英语写作能力的对比研究

中国内地传统高校本科毕业生和中国内地中外合作办学(EMI)高校本科毕业生的学术英语写作能力的对比研究

非英语专业研究生学术英语写作课程的微学习资源组织模式研究

非英语专业研究生学术英语写作课程的微学习资源组织模式研究

Sustainability in English Academic Writing: The Binary Dilemma on Pronoun Utilization

Abstract Discussion on sexism regarding language focuses on how women are discriminated against in our daily language and in academic writing. Although we are against any kind of discrimination, when it comes to dealing with this phenomenon in language and language use, we should be more careful. Language is not only a symbolic means whereby humans interact, it is also a product of human intellectual activity imbued with various experiences of our past and recent ancestors. Thus, it is also a reflection of our society’s conceptual system through which we interpret physical and mental phenomena. In this paper, we have analyzed views regarding sexism and language; tried to display how improving the so-called injustices in language would result in some dire situations which may have never been foreseen. We finally put forth our own solutions to overcome the problems of sexism in academic writing.

“HARTA” de noveles: un corpus de español académico

The aim of this review is to account for the process of compilation and codification of the corpus HARTA-Noveles. This corpus was created as part of the research project titled “Corpus-based study of lexical combinations of academic Spanish for the development of a computational tool for academic writing assistance” (HARTA) [1] , under the direction of Margarita Alonso Ramos (University of La Coruna). The corpus consists of representative samples of essays produced by Spanish university students and gathered with the purpose of studying academic lexical combinations (CLA) [2] , i.e., recurrent segments specific to the academic domain, along with collocations, discourse markers and other multiword expressions. Inspired by the BAWE corpus (British Academic Written English), HARTA-No-veles is formed exclusively by final project texts (for the degrees) and dissertations (for the masters) selected from different public repositories of Spanish universities and from various scientific domains. These texts have been annotated with an specific system adapted from that followed by the Royal Academy in CORPES [3] . [1] Acronimo del nombre en espanol del proyecto: “Estudio de las combinaciones lexicas del espanol academico basado en corpus para una Herramienta de Ayuda a la Redaccion de Textos Academicos” (HARTA). [2] En espanol, combinaciones lexicas academicas (CLA). [3] Corpus del Espanol del Siglo XXI (CORPES).

Hong Kong Learner Corpus of Legal Academic Writing in English: A Study of Boosters as a Marked Language Form in an English‐Medium Instruction Context

Hong Kong Learner Corpus of Legal Academic Writing in English: A Study of Boosters as a Marked Language Form in an English‐Medium Instruction Context

Student Perceptions of Assessment-for-Learning Practices in an English Academic Writing Course

This paper investigates a group of college students’ perceived experience of Assessment-for-Learning (AfL) practices in their academic English writing classrooms in a Confucian Heritage Culture setting (i.e., Hong Kong), and their perceptions of these practices, especially in relation to learner self-regulation. A questionnaire was used to obtain a general picture while student focus group interviews, classroom observation, teacher interviews, and teacher feedback were utilized to gain in-depth information about student views. It was found that the students tended to have a more favorable view of teacher-led AfL practices, no matter whether such practices belonged to conventional practices focusing mainly on providing information to students (e.g., teacher clarification of goals and features of quality work) or fell into the category of more dialogic practices (e.g., teacher provision of quality feedback and active student engagement with it). The students seemed to be less receptive to student-led AfL practices that required them to play a more active and confident role in monitoring and evaluating their own learning (i.e., peer and self-feedback), although they also acknowledged the benefits. In a Confucian Heritage Culture context where teachers are usually regarded as authoritative figures who impart knowledge to students, it is important for teachers to reflect on teacher and student roles involved in the implementation of AfL, and enhance both their own and their students’ assessment literacy to implement AfL to reflect its true “spirit.” Research suggestions are also provided.

Review article: A systematic literature review of research trends and authorships on natural hazards, disasters, risk reduction and climate change in Indonesia

Abstract. Indonesia is one of the most vulnerable countries to disasters and climate change. While there has been a proliferation of academic publications on natural hazards, risks and disasters on Indonesia, there has not yet been a systematic literature review (SLR) to determine the progress, key topics and authorships. SLR is important so researchers can build upon existing works, avoid bias, determine major research topics and the need for further research, and strengthen research capacity in the future. The author conducts a SLR of publications indexed within the Scopus database from 1900 to 2016 on topics related to disasters and climate change in Indonesia. Two major findings are outlined. The first is related to major research topics: (1) natural hazard, risk and disaster assessments (HRD); (2) disaster risk reduction (DRR); and (3) climate change risks, vulnerability, impacts and adaptation (CC). More than half are related to HRD and focus on volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes. Publications on DRR are related to governance, early-warning systems, and recovery and reconstruction. Those on CC discuss carbon emission, forestry, governance and sectoral impacts. The author calls for future research on different hazards, different locations, and impacts of disasters and climate change. Risks and vulnerability assessments from hydro-meteorological and geophysical hazards are needed. Other locations beyond Sumatra and Java islands are to be examined. Urban risk assessments and the economic and social impacts of disasters and climate change on vulnerable places and communities are equally important. Risk governance at the national, local and community level is to be strengthened to increase resilience. The second finding examines the roles of Indonesian researchers and organizations. Findings show limited progress in research, publication and collaboration. International/non-Indonesian authors dominate the literature, and only half of the publications are co-authored by Indonesians. International collaborations have been conducted by very few Indonesian organizations. This could be due to limited experience in academic collaboration, power play amongst researchers, lack of research capacity, weak English academic writings skills and limited provisions within higher-education systems. The author recommends more funding and incentives for collaborations; training on English academic writing and journal article publications; capacity building especially for early careers, female and social science researchers; encouragement of multi-disciplinary collaborations; and strengthening of science communication in social media and science-policy advocacy.

Gender Statistical Analysis Applied for Identifying Style Patterns in English Academic Writing

The present paper addresses the problem of writing style patterns in the context of English Academic Writing. Stylometric analysis is used in order to extract the main characteristics obtained from the evaluation of articles written in well-known scientific journals such as Elsevier and Springer. The objective of the paper is to establish a pattern description of articles written in the same domain depending on the gender of the authors. Relevant prior written work upon the current subject reveal different characteristics of writing style of authors from different cultural orientation and gender. The paper describes the main characteristics taken into account for the clustering model when it comes to title, abstract and chapters’ construction within the analyzed articles. A short description of the algorithms and tools for clustering and space reduction is presented for further selecting the best combination for the proposed model. An additional statistical layer is added to the current clustering algorithms and space reduction for obtaining statistical proven results of usage. An aggregated structure model is conducted as a result of characteristics selection and processing for future work usage in gender analysis of scientific articles writing. Conclusions and withdrawn along with the future directions extracted from the current work. A database structure is proposed formed out of statistical calculated percentage of papers depending on the author gender. The relevance of the work can be well used as a guide line in writing scientific articles as the main musts in scientific writing are presented.

A Cross-disciplinary Investigation of Textual Metadiscourse Markers in Academic Writing

This paper is a cross-disciplinary investigation of textual metadiscourse markers (TMDMs) in the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus. To this end, corpus analysis tools are utilized to investigate the density of each category of TMDMs and the distribution of these categories across BAWE academic divisions. The premise under the investigation in this study is that metadiscourse is a social interaction that facilitates knowledge communication between writers and their targeted readers. Within the framework of Hyland' s (2000, 2005) claim of disciplinary discourse, this study shows a correlational relation between the use and frequency of different TMDMs across academic disciplines. The quantitative results indicate that the use of transitions outnumbered all other TMDMs in the four BAWE academic divisions, accounting for almost 76.76% of the total occurrences of TMDMs. The results also indicate a greater tendency to use endophoric markers in the physical sciences whereas the social sciences and arts and humanities exhibit larger quantities of evidentials and code glosses. The results are interpreted in terms of the epistemological nature of the academic divisions as well as the target readership.

Research on Self-Mentions and Author Identity in Academic English Writing

Self-mentions can help second-language learners establish author identity in academic English writing. This study employs both qualitative and quantitative methods, with the help of the search tool Antconc3.2.0 to investigate the characteristics of self-mentions and author identity in postgraduates’ academic English writing. The research results show that most postgraduates have the awareness of using self-mentions but cannot use them properly. They tend to use “we” instead of “I” to weaken their author identity and the role of discourse constructor is not well played. This research has some pedagogical implications for academic English writing and teaching of Chinese college students.