Multiplex Aspects in the Construction of Academic Writer Identity among ESL Doctoral Students

The present study revisits writing retreat participants who have spontaneously formed writing groups before or after attending a retreat hosted by the Unit for Academic Language at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. All in all, 11 doctoral students and 1 post doc were interviewed using a semi-structured interview model. The answers were thematically analysed based on Murray’s (2014) concept of coherence in writing groups as well as parts of Aitchison and Lee’s (2006) key characteristics of writing groups. The two main research questions posed concern (i) whether the informants have changed their writing practice and/or the way they think and feel about writing since joining a writing group, and (ii) whether possible changes have aided the development of their identity as academic writers. Results show that the informants have indeed changed central aspects of their writing practice and that this in turn has positively influenced how they now think and feel about writing. This has to some extent contributed to the informants’ development of their writer identity; however, the present study also sheds light on the fact that more needs to be done at departmental levels across the university to make academic writing visible.

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Academic Knowledge Formation Through Blogs

Futuristic and Linguistic Perspectives on Teaching Writing to Second Language Students - Advances in Linguistics and Communication Studies ◽

10.4018/978-1-7998-6508-7.ch008 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 118-140

Author(s):

Işıl Günseli Kaçar

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Preservice Teachers ◽

Identity Development ◽

Language Learning ◽

Academic Writing ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Writer Identity ◽

Academic Knowledge ◽

Academic Writer ◽

Writer Identities

Blogs are an integral component of blended learning environments in English as a second language (ESL)/English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. Although they are used in higher education to promote language learning, their impact on EFL preservice teachers' writer identity development in academic writing is underexplored. Utilizing Hyland's metadiscourse model, this qualitative case study in the Turkish higher education context investigated EFL preservice teachers' writer identity development on blogs. The data were collected via reflective journals, semi-structured interviews and reflective essays. Triangulation and corpus-based analysis of Hyland's metadiscourse markers were used in the data analysis. The findings revealed the EFL preservice teachers' multifaceted and even contradictory academic writer identities on blogs and numerous challenges they encountered regarding their identity displays. This study highlighted a blended and corpus-based futuristic perspective on the exploration of EFL writer identities.

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Academic publishing: Making the implict explicit

10.20944/preprints201607.0035.v1 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Cecile Badenhorst ◽

Xiaolin Xu

Keyword(s):

Doctoral Students ◽

Academic Publishing ◽

Complex Nature ◽

Writing Fluency ◽

Implicit Processes ◽

Writing For Publication ◽

Academic Writer ◽

Publishing Career ◽

Emotionally Intelligent ◽

Publishing Practices

For doctoral students, publishing in peer reviewed journals is a task many face with anxiety and trepidation. The world of publishing, from choosing a journal, negotiating editors and navigating reviewers’ responses is a bewildering place. Looking in from the outside, it seems that successful and productive academic writers have knowledge that is inaccessible to novice scholars. While there is a growing literature on writing for scholarly publication, many of these publications promote writing and publishing as a straight-forward activity that anyone can achieve if they follow the rules. We argue that the specific and situated contexts in which academic writers negotiate publishing practices is more complicated and messy. In this paper, we attempt to make explicit our publishing processes to highlight the complex nature of publishing. We use autoethnographic narratives to provide discussion points and insights into the challenges of publishing peer reviewed articles. One narrative is by a doctoral student at the beginning of her publishing career, who expresses her desires, concerns and anxieties about writing for publication. The other narrative focuses on the publishing practices of a more experienced academic writer. Both are international scholars working in the Canadian context. The purpose of this paper is to explore academic publishing through the juxtaposition of these two narratives to make explicit some of the more implicit processes. Four key themes emerge from these narratives. To publish successfully, academic writers need: 1) to be discourse analysts; 2) to have a critical competence; and 3) to have writing fluency and 4) to be emotionally intelligent.

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The structure of academic writer identity in L2 book reviews by Russian undergradu-ates: Voice and stance

Science for Education Today ◽

10.15293/2658-6762.2104.08 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 156-169

Author(s):

Tatiana Borisovna Alenkina ◽

Keyword(s):

Science Text ◽

Source Text ◽

General Science ◽

Written Discourse ◽

Writer Identity ◽

Academic Writer ◽

The Social ◽

Russian Linguistic

Introduction. The article focuses on theoretical and practical aspects of academic writer identity. The theoretical aspect comprises the analysis of the Anglo-American bulk of research devoted to the problem of writer identity in the academic written discourse. The purpose of the article is to define the structure of writer identity, its voice and stance. The practical objectives of the study is to investigate the identity of novice academic writers represented in their language choices as well as to describe the mechanism of such choices. In order to accomplish the purpose of the research, three types of writer positioning are distinguished: ideational, interpersonal, and textual. Materials and Methods. The theoretical analysis is based on the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach and Rhetorical Genre Studies as well as recent developments of ESP. The analysis of empirical data has been conducted using the methods of discourse analysis as well as qualitative and quantitative methods of data processing. The study reveals the voice and stance represented by lexico-grammatical means of the English academic written discourse. The conducted experiment introduces the context of ESP and models the situation of the implementation of the genre approach in the Academic Writing course in the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, which is one of the leading technical universities in Russia. The research materials include texts of academic book reviews written in English by Russian undergraduates. Results. The study has revealed the social nature of writer identity determined by the genre hybridity of a book review. It is shown that identification and positioning are in direсt connection with the source text; thus, while choosing a textbook of a general science book, the writer identity is getting to be collective or professional. Depending on the functional style of the source text, the rhetorical markers are changing as well. Thus, while choosing a textbook, students are writing for the teacher and addresses the student audience; at the same time in case of the general science text, the student rises to the level of an expert and addresses the scientific community. The popular science text helps work out the individual voice while the author’s style is changing toward the creative one and the dialogue between the writer and the reader is taking an intimate coloring. Subjectivity markers (adjectives with the negative value, boosters) are getting to be typical for the Russian linguistic and academic culture. Conclusions. The article concludes that constructing the socially-predetermined writer identity is an essential skill for students and academics. The writer identity is fluid and changeable depending on the social context – academic discourse and genre characteristics. The genre of a book review that combines objectivity and subjectivity gives an opportunity to construct writer identity according to the choice of the source text. The writer identity is culturally-predetermined and connected with the standards of Russian linguistic culture, academic rules and traditions of teaching English as a foreign language in Russia.

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Cluttering in the Communicative Disorders Curriculum

Perspectives on Fluency and Fluency Disorders ◽

10.1044/ffd19.2.52 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 19 (2) ◽

pp. 52-57

Author(s):

John A. Tetnowski

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Doctoral Students ◽

Communication Disorders ◽

Educational Opportunities ◽

Opportunities For Learning ◽

Communicative Disorders ◽

Theoretical Issues

Abstract Cluttering is discussed openly in the fluency literature, but few educational opportunities for learning more about cluttering exist in higher education. The purpose of this manuscript is to explain how a seminar in cluttering was developed for a group of communication disorders doctoral students. The major theoretical issues, educational questions, and conclusions are discussed.

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Exploring Barriers to Doctoral Education in Communication Sciences and Disorders: Insights From Practicing Professionals

Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups ◽

10.1044/2020_persp-20-00019 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (6) ◽

pp. 1552-1563

Author(s):

Denise A. Tucker ◽

Mary V. Compton ◽

Sarah J. Allen ◽

Robert Mayo ◽

Celia Hooper ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Doctoral Students ◽

Online Survey ◽

Academic Research ◽

Doctoral Degree ◽

Full Time ◽

Doctoral Study ◽

Doctoral Research ◽

Part Time ◽

Advance Research ◽

Doctor Of Philosophy

Purpose The intended purpose of this research note is to share the findings of a needs assessment online survey of speech and hearing professionals practicing in North Carolina to explore their interest in pursuing a research-focused PhD in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) and to document their perceptions of barriers to pursing a PhD in CSD. In view of the well-documented shortage of doctor of philosophy (PhD) faculty to attract, retain, and mentor doctoral students to advance research and to prepare future speech and hearing professionals, CSD faculty must assess the needs, perceptions, and barriers prospective students encounter when considering pursuing a doctoral research degree in CSD. Method The article describes the results of a survey of 242 speech and hearing professionals to investigate their interest in obtaining an academic research-focused PhD in CSD and to solicit their perceived barriers to pursuing a research doctoral degree in CSD. Results Two thirds of the respondents (63.6%) reported that they had considered pursuing a PhD in CSD. Desire for knowledge, desire to teach, and work advancement were the top reasons given for pursuing a PhD in CSD. Eighty-two percent of respondents had no interest in traditional full-time study. Forty-two percent of respondents indicated that they would be interested in part-time and distance doctoral study. The barriers of time, distance, and money emerged as those most frequently identified barriers by respondents. Conclusion The implications inform higher education faculty on how they can best address the needs of an untapped pool of prospective doctoral students in CSD.

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Telepractice: A Survey of AuD Students Pre- and Post-Telepractice

Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups ◽

10.1044/persp2.sig18.28 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2 (18) ◽

pp. 28-41

Author(s):

Kelli M. Watts ◽

Laura B. Willis

Keyword(s):

Doctoral Students ◽

Graduate School ◽

Professional Services ◽

Hands On ◽

Before And After ◽

Lack Of Knowledge

Telepractice, defined by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA, n.d.) as “the application of telecommunications technology to the delivery of professional services at a distance by linking clinician to client, or clinician to clinician, for assessment, intervention, and/or consultation,” is a quickly growing aspect of practicing audiology. However, only 12% of audiologists are involved in providing services via telepractice (REDA International, Inc., 2002). Lack of knowledge regarding telepractice has been cited as one of the reasons many audiologists do not use telepractice to provide audiology services. This study surveyed audiology doctoral students regarding their opinions about the use of telepractice both before and after their opportunity to provide services via telepractice sessions. The authors expected that by providing students the opportunity to have hands-on training in telepractice with supervision, they would be more open to using telepractice after becoming licensed audiologists. Overall, the data indicates benefits of exposing students to telepractice while they are in graduate school.

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The Education of Research Psychologists in Sweden

European Psychologist ◽

10.1027//1016-9040.8.1.34 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 34-38 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Knut Larsson ◽

Josef Frischer

Keyword(s):

Social Science ◽

Doctoral Students ◽

Doctoral Programs ◽

Science Department ◽

Research Education ◽

The Core ◽

Social Science Department ◽

Learning Alliance ◽

Laissez Faire ◽

The Government

The education of researchers in Sweden is regulated by a nationwide reform implemented in 1969, which intended to limit doctoral programs to 4 years without diminishing quality. In an audit performed by the government in 1996, however, it was concluded that the reform had failed. Some 80% of the doctoral students admitted had dropped out, and only 1% finished their PhD degree within the stipulated 4 years. In an attempt to determine the causes of this situation, we singled out a social-science department at a major Swedish university and interviewed those doctoral students who had dropped out of the program. This department was found to be representative of the nationwide figures found in the audit. The students interviewed had all completed at least 50% of their PhD studies and had declared themselves as dropouts from this department. We conclude that the entire research education was characterized by a laissez-faire attitude where supervisors were nominated but abdicated. To correct this situation, we suggest that a learning alliance should be established between the supervisor and the student. At the core of the learning alliance is the notion of mutually forming a platform form which work can emerge in common collaboration. The learning alliance implies a contract for work, stating its goals, the tasks to reach these goals, and the interpersonal bonding needed to give force and endurance to the endeavor. Constant scrutiny of this contract and a mutual concern for the learning alliance alone can contribute to its strength.

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