Using gamification to develop academic writing skills in dental undergraduate students

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maha El Tantawi ◽  
Shazia Sadaf ◽  
Jehan AlHumaid
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Skills

scholarly journals Teaching Writing in EAP Contexts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viorica Condrat
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Process Development ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Teaching Writing ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Discourse Community ◽  
State University ◽  
Efl Students

Academic writing is a particular type of scholarly interaction which signals the writer’s affiliation to a specific discourse community. Developing academic writing skills should become a priority for higher education. This paper describes a small-scale study which investigates the role of blogging in developing academic writing skills in undergraduate students. Blogging is viewed as a platform where the scholarly interaction between members of the same discourse community can take place. The paper is based on the survey data and observation during the experiment conducted at Alecu Russo Balti State University of Moldova. It reports on how EFL students reacted to the use of blogs for academic writing tasks. The findings suggest that students seem to have a positive attitude to blogging pointing out to such benefits as: enhanced self-efficacy, awareness of the writing process, development of reader awareness, increased responsibility for the quality of the writing. We argue that blogging can yield significant improvement in undergraduate students’ academic writing.

scholarly journals An Error Analysis of Research Project Abstracts Written by Thai Undergraduate Students

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Wirada Amnuai
Keyword(s):  
Error Analysis ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Word Choice ◽  
Writing Ability ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
Sentence Level

Errors in writing are unavoidable while students are trying to develop their writing skills. There have been several studies on identifying writing problems or errors in students’ writing. It is believed that identifying students’ written tasks is an effective tool to explore the difficulties involved in learning language. This helps teachers’ awareness of the serious problems which occur in students’ writing and allows them to pay closer attention to their errors. The aim of the present research study is to pinpoint writing errors in English abstracts written by Thai undergraduate students. Forty abstracts of research projects were collected and analysed. The error analysis was conducted at the sentence level, word level, and mechanics aspect. The five most frequent error types ranking from the most frequent to least frequent were word choice, preposition, sentence construction, singular or plural forms and quotation marks. The findings of the present study have shed light on the students’ writing ability and give an insight into what the problems students face when writing their abstracts. Also, the errors found in the abstracts in the present study have pedagogical implications concerning English language learning, particularly with writing courses. The findings will be helpful for teachers to develop teaching materials to assist their students from committing errors when writing English abstracts and to improve academic writing skills.

Write on the edge: using a chemistry corpus to develop academic writing skills resources for undergraduate chemists

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 580-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. L. Bruce ◽  
P. K. Coffer ◽  
S. Rees ◽  
J. M. Robson
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Language Pedagogy ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Chemistry Research ◽  
Second Language Pedagogy

Many undergraduate students find the production of an extended piece of academic writing challenging. This challenge is more acute in the sciences where production of extended texts is infrequent throughout undergraduate studies. This paper reports the development of a new English for Academic Purposes (EAP) workshop and associated resources for third year undergraduate chemists to support their dissertation module. The workshop is designed to utilise a searchable database of student texts (a corpus) developed as part of the FOCUS project at Durham University. This novel use of data-driven learning (DDL), common in second language pedagogy, transfers well to the chemistry classroom as the processes of research and discovery (of words rather than chemicals) involved in DDL parallel similar processes in chemistry research. Our workshop and online consolidation activities have been positively evaluated by both staff and our current cohort of students. The project is being rolled out across other departments at Durham as well as the corpus tool being utilised at other UK HEIs. This corpus-based approach to academic writing in chemistry offers a unique perspective on the interplay between language and scientific literacy.

A Student Perspective of Plagiarism

2011 ◽  
pp. 10-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Zimitat
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Student Perspective ◽  
Note Taking ◽  
Borderline Cases ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Writing Processes ◽  
Work Samples

This paper reports on an Australian study of undergraduate students’ engagement in plagiarism-related behaviours, their knowledge of plagiarism and their academic writing skills. Students were surveyed to: (i) estimate the incidence of plagiarism behaviours; (ii) examine students’ self-reported academic writing skills; (iii) their knowledge of plagiarism; and (iv) their ability to identify plagiarised work. Across all three undergraduate years, approximately 90% of students believed that direct copying of text or ideas without acknowledgement constituted plagiarism, whilst around 5% were unsure if it constituted plagiarism. The majority of students (80% or more) claimed never to have plagiarized. About 80% of undergraduate students said they possessed the skills of note-taking, paraphrasing, citing and referencing etc., but barely half of students in each year group reported confidence with these skills. Students were able to distinguish between clear-cut cases of plagiarism and paraphrasing when presented with either different writing processes or different work samples, but they were less able to distinguish between “borderline cases”. There are clear implications for classroom practice. First, students need the opportunity to practice and develop their academic writing skills, in the context of articulating their understandings of their own discipline. This requires teachers to recognise that academic writing is a developmental skill and to learn how to improve the writing skills of their students. Second, in this process, teachers need to ensure that students are inducted into the conventions of the academy that relate to the use, manipulation and transformation of knowledge.

The Use of Peer Assessment as an Inclusive Learning Strategy in Higher Education Institutions

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Eleni Meletiadou
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Alternative Assessment ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Peer Assessment ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Training And Support

Peer assessment (PA) is one of the most popular forms of alternative assessment currently used in higher education institutions worldwide. In the current study, PA was used as an inclusive assessment tool to enhance students' writing skills and motivation towards writing and learning in general. Forty-two undergraduate students attended an academic writing module for one academic semester. The overall aim was to develop their writing skills taking into consideration their individual differences and ensuring all students had an opportunity to succeed. Students received training in PA and were then involved in reciprocal anonymous PA. Findings indicated that learners improved their writing skills considerably and became more independent learners. Their motivation also increased as they could better understand the assessment criteria. However, they confessed that they needed more training and support and they believed that PA should also be used in other modules and courses to enhance student collaboration and reflection.

scholarly journals Academic Literacy: The Analysis Of First-Year Ukrainian University Students’ Errors In Essay Writing

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1Sup1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksana Nikolenko ◽  
Maryna Rebenko ◽  
Natalia Doronina
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Academic Literacy ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
First Year ◽  
Word Choice ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Word Spelling ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Impact

Ukrainian undergraduate students face challenges in demonstrating high-level proficiency in most of their academic writing. As an integral part of academic achievement, writing skills are essential for success at the various levels of students’ future career paths. Thus, academic literacy has raised considerable attention to teaching English as a second language. This study explores the writing competence level of 90 first-year students of Computer Science and Cybernetics Faculty at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and analyzes essay errors that are identified, classified and explained. The study describes the main categories of errors and reveals the causes of their production. It is evaluated that the major types of errors committed in students’ writing are: word choice, word spelling, verb tense, articles, and prepositions. We consider that the main reasons for errors are the native language interference, the lack of English academic writing knowledge and insufficient English grammar and functional use practice. Focusing on the importance of encouraging students to develop their academic literacy, we defined the approaches and strategies that can help teachers and language learners to overcome difficulties in writing. After defining the essay errors, the students were given a set of tips on academic writing proficiency and presented with contrastive L1-L2 comparisons, which resulted in significant improvement of the required academic writing skills. Finally, we measured the impact value of error difference aimed at describing the relationships between pre-analysis and post-analysis writing. Learning academic writing literacy may be an appropriate way to arise overall disciplinary literacy with the students.

scholarly journals FROM NEEDS ANALYSIS TO DESIGNING ACADEMIC WRITING MATERIALS FOR DIPLOMA STUDENTS OF MARA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY (UITM), MALAYSIA

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-86
Author(s):  
Nancy Chiuh Noemi
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Needs Analysis ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Semester ◽  
Undergraduate Studies ◽  
University Of Technology ◽  
Administration Students

When students begin their undergraduate studies, they will need to adjust to the demands of the undergraduate studies with regard to academic English at university level. Dudley-Evans & St. John (1998, p.37) maintain that “their English tuition up to the tertiary level will generally have been in the area of General English, and is unlikely to have included specific preparation for study at university level…” Barker (2000, p.8), in his study on first year students’ perception of writing difficulties, found that the students “come to realise during first semester that they are not adequately prepared for the writing demands required at university”. Pecorari (as cited in Phakiti & Li, 2011) found that Asian ESL students had problems in academic writing; “the students begin their aca-demic writing from ‘copying’ which implies a lack of training in academic writing and arouses accusations of plagiarism in their writing” (p.232). Being an English-medium public university in Malaysia, MARA University of Technology (UiTM) poses challenges to both its students and instructors, as a good command of English is essential. In its attempt to equip its undergraduate students with language skills, UiTM has introduced credit-bearing English courses. This paper presents the findings from a research project to identify the academic writing needs of first-year Diploma in Public Administration students in UiTM Sabah. A total of 110 Diploma in Public Administration students and six instructors responded to the questionnaires. The research examined the students’ and instructors’ perceptions of the importance of academic writing skills the students need in order to complete their undergraduate programmes, assessment of the students’ academic writing skills, and the difficulty of academic writing skills. The findings indicated that there was consistency of response between the students and instructors. The follow-up interviews and focus groups with instructors and students confirmed this. The findings from the needs analysis are then used as the basis for developing academic writing materials to complement the existing English courses in UiTM.

scholarly journals Fostering Stance-Taking as a Sustainable Goal in Developing EFL Students’ Academic Writing Skills: Exploring the Effects of Explicit Instruction on Academic Writing Skills and Stance Deployment

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4270
Author(s):  
Lu Zhang ◽  
Lawrence Jun Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Group ◽  
Writing Instruction ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Comparison Group ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Quasi Experimental

Effective stance-taking is considered as a crucial skill for successful academic writing and sustainable development of writing scholarship. However, student writers often encounter difficulties in this aspect. Scholars have thus called for explicit instruction to develop students’ academic writing ability as a sustainable goal. Learning stance-taking is a particularly relevant area of intensive interest among writing scholars. Yet, few empirical studies have been conducted to examine its effectiveness on students’ academic writing quality and stance deployment. To fill this gap, a quasi-experimental research was conducted with 46 undergraduate students in a Chinese university, who were randomly assigned to two conditions: a treatment group and a comparison group. The treatment group received an eight-week explicit stance instruction, while the comparison group received curriculum-based writing instruction at the same time. Academic texts were collected both prior to and after the period of intervention. Results revealed that the treatment group outperformed the comparison group in the post-test in terms of academic writing quality and stance performance. Their writing also exhibited changes in the frequencies of an array of stance types deployed (e.g., proclaim: pronounce, proclaim: endorse, entertain, attribute), indicating their enhanced understanding of stance and improved competence of mitigation and integrating external voices for better academic writing. Implications for writing instruction are discussed.

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