Navigating through Space Butterflies

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-194
Author(s):  
Vivian Asimos
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Field Site ◽  
Contemporary Religion

This article seeks to query the typical way research in novel fields are expressed in academic writing. The high structured presentation assumes a high structured field, which is often conceived of as necessary for new sites to assert their academic validity. However, many times, as is the situation for the case study presented here, what is considered new and novel is simply a new medium through which already properly understood concepts thrive. This misunderstanding often leaves scholars in new fields defending their field site more than analysing it, and a higher scrutiny is placed on these locations. This article hopes to demonstrate just one example of this, the fan convention, and demonstrate how this field site is not as new as typically considered, and arguing, therefore, for a more open representation of the improvised and fluid conception of research on contemporary religion.

Markers of identification in Indigenous academic writing: A case study of genre innovation

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shurli Makmillen ◽  
Michelle Riedlinger
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Academic Genres

AbstractThis study contributes to research into genre innovation and scholarship exploring how Indigenous epistemes are disrupting dominant discourses of the academy. Using a case study approach, we investigated 31 research articles produced by Mäori scholars and published in the journal AlterNative between 2006 and 2018. We looked for linguistic features associated with self-positioning and self-identification. We found heightened ambiguous uses of “we”; a prevalence of verbs associated with personal (as opposed to discursive) uses of “I/we”; personal storytelling; and a privileging of Elders’ contributions to the existing state of knowledge. We argue these features reflect and reinforce Indigenous scholars’ social relations with particular communities of practice within and outside of the academy. They are also in keeping with Indigenous knowledge-making practices, protocols, and languages, and signal sites of negotiation and innovation in the research article. We present the implications for rhetorical genre studies and for teaching academic genres.

scholarly journals Exploring the Writing Challenges Faced by M.Phil. and Ph.D. Scholars: A Case

2021 ◽  
Vol VI (IV) ◽  
pp. 34-41
Author(s):  
Hina Iqbal ◽  
Muhammad Saeed
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Interactive Programming ◽  
Report Quality ◽  
Grammatical Errors ◽  
Language Courses

Academic writing plays a pivotal role in developing research proposals. The present study aimed to explore the grammatical errors that M.Phil/PhDs scholars commit in academic writing. The present study employed a qualitative case study designed to explore the challenges in the English language faced by the M.Phil and PhDs scholars. The 20 Ph.D. and 36 M.Phil scholars were selected by busing purposive sampling technique. Data were collected by using two self-developed semi-structured interviews protocol. Thematic analysis approach was employed for data analysis. The findings revealed that all the participants reported that correct use of tenses was a big hurdle that entailed the other grammatical mistakes and reduced the report quality because all the lexical aspects are linked with these mechanics. The study recommended that English language courses be offered to postgraduate, M. Phil and Ph.D. scholars to learn the technical aspects of the language and provide students with online interactive programming.

scholarly journals Toward an Intercultural Rhetoric: Improving Chinese EFL Students’ Essay Writing through Outline Writing

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Fang Li ◽  
Yingqin Liu
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Essay Writing ◽  
Intercultural Rhetoric ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Main Ideas ◽  
English Academic Writing ◽  
Chinese And English

This study explores the effects of teaching EFL students to use an outline in their English essays. The researchers maintain that using outlines can raise students’ awareness of different audience expectations embedded in the rhetoric of the target language (English) and culture and can improve their English academic writing. The study was based on a four-week long case study at a university in Xi’an, China, in which 24 Chinese EFL students at the College of Translation Studies participated. A discourse analysis was conducted by comparing the Chinese EFL students’ English essays produced at the beginning of the study with those produced at the end of the study after learning and practicing outlining for writing the English essays. Email inquiries were used for understanding the participants’ viewpoints on learning how to write English essay outlines. The findings reveal that teaching EFL students to use outlining in their English essays is an effective way to help them improve their essay writing. Not only can it enhance the students’ understanding about using the English thesis statements, but it can also help improve the use of related, logical, and specific detailed examples to support the main ideas in their essays. The email inquiries also revealed that the students believe that outline learning helped them to understand the differences between Chinese and English essay writing. The implications of the study for intercultural rhetoric are also discussed.

Teacher Self-Assessment of Feedback Practices in an EFL Academic Writing Class - A Reflective Case Study

2017 ◽  
pp. 162-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eddy White
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Teacher Feedback ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Teacher Commentary ◽  
Feedback Interventions ◽  
Giving Feedback

Unlike studies of teacher feedback on student writing, research into teacher self-assessment of their own feedback practices is quite rare in the assessment literature. In this reflective case study, the researcher/teacher systematically analyzed feedback practices to clearly determine the form and kind of formative feedback being provided on student essays, and also to compare these feedback practices to recommended practice from the feedback literature. The research took place in an academic English writing course for third-year students at a Japanese university. A close examination of the teacher feedback on the first draft of 21 student essays was undertaken, and more than 800 feedback interventions were identified and coded. Results of this investigation show a number of patterns of practice in giving feedback, including; extensive use of questions in teacher commentary, very limited use of praise comments, and varying amounts of feedback provided on individual essays. Results also show that the feedback practices discovered through this investigation align well with recommended best practice. The case study positions the teacher as ‘learner' in this feedback process, and calls for similar published research describing in detail what teachers do when providing feedback to students on their work.

The Impact of Knowledge of English Rhetorical Patterns of Organisation on BA Accounting and Finance Students' Writing Academic Genres

2020 ◽  
pp. 128-149
Author(s):  
Malika Kouti
Keyword(s):  
Direct Instruction ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Rhetorical Patterns ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Academic Genres ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

This chapter discusses the impact of knowing the English rhetorical pattern of organisation on BA Accounting and Finance students' academic writing. More specifically, it focuses on the knowledge of how to structure a letter of application for job hunting purposes. This case study involved the analysis of 40 letters of application written by 40 Accounting and Finance students in the Department of Accounting and Finance at the University of Ghardaïa, Algeria after they had been trained to structure this type of letter. The training lasted for two sessions in the Department of Accounting and Finance at Ghardaia University, Algeria. The training was a direct instruction in which students were shown activities that assisted them in mastering the rhetorical pattern of organisation that concerns letters of application. They were also shown the difference between formal and informal letters of application. The obtained results demonstrated the efficiency of the direct instruction in teaching Accounting and Finance students how to write a letter of application.

The use of general and specialized corpora as reference sources for academic English writing: A case study

ReCALL ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Yeon Chang
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Discourse Community ◽  
Academic Experience ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Training Corpus ◽  
English Writing ◽  
English Speaking

AbstractCorpora have been suggested as valuable sources for teaching English for academic purposes (EAP). Since previous studies have mainly focused on corpus use in classroom settings, more research is needed to reveal how students react to using corpora on their own and what should be provided to help them become autonomous corpus users, considering that their ultimate goal is to be independent scholars and writers. In the present study, conducted in an engineering lab at a Korean university over 22 weeks, data on students’ experiences and evaluations of consulting general and specialized corpora for academic writing were collected and analyzed. The findings show that, while both corpora served the participants well as reference sources, the specialized corpus was particularly valued for its direct help in academic writing because, as non-native English-speaking graduate engineering students, the participants wanted to follow the writing conventions of their discourse community. The participants also showed disparate attitudes toward the time taken for corpus consultation due to differences in factors such as academic experience, search purposes, and writing tasks. The article concludes with several suggestions for better corpus use with EAP students regarding the compilation of a corpus, corpus training, corpus competence, and academic writing.

Understanding the use of mediational means in academic writing

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 378-407
Author(s):  
Peisha Wu ◽  
Shulin Yu
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Master Level ◽  
Mediational Means ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
Present Case Study

Abstract While the majority of previous studies on EAP (English for academic purposes) writing have been devoted to professional or academic writing at a more advanced level (i.e., PhD students and scholars) in ESL contexts, little attention has been paid to the academic writing of master-level novice writers in EFL contexts. From a sociocultural perspective, the present case study examined the writing strategies of a master-level novice writer – Alice in Macau context. Non-structured, semi-structured and text-based interviews were used as the primary source of data, with document analysis used for triangulation. The study identified two major categories (i.e., artifacts and community) and five subcategories of mediational means (i.e., journal articles and theses, languages, online writing materials, peers and experts) as significant in the novice writer’s academic writing activities. It also unveiled double-edged features of mediational means and recognized their interplay with the writer’s goals and relatedness to her situated context.

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