scholarly journals Academic writing for Spanish scholars: exploring the challenges with argumentation analysis

10.29007/lrb9 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samira Allani
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Argumentative Discourse ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Academic Environments ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Academic Communities ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Argumentation Analysis ◽  
Argumentative Strategies

The present study focuses on the academic discourse shaped by Spanish scholars publishing in English. Writing and publishing in the academia are regarded as central not only to the construction of knowledge in individual disciplines but also to the construction of the identities of scholars and the negotiation of their positions and voices within academic communities (Hyland 2013). Drawing upon the theoretical stances of argumentation theory and more particularly on Pragma-dialectics (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004), the aim of this study is to explore the discursive practices of the Spanish scholars who engage in the academic “debates” of their respective communities using English as a second language. While the need for participation in English is increasing around the world, the experience of publishing in a second language has been widely identified as challenging (Hanauer & Englander, 2010; Moreno et al., 2012). The study uses the systematic method of Pragma-dialectics to examine sixty research articles from scientific and engineering disciplines and to determine how their authors discursively construct their work and how they make a case for their contributions. The analysis focuses on the authors ́ strategic maneuvering, which is the efforts arguers make in argumentative discourse to reconcile aiming for rhetorical effectiveness with maintaining dialectical standards of reasonableness (van Eemeren, 2010). Argumentative strategies highly underlie the reasoning patterns of individuals (Mercier & Sperber, 2011) and the way they position themselves and their claims within a given communicative situation. The systematic analysis of argumentative strategies attempts to shed some light on the writing practices of Spanish scholars and the stances they maintain within more and more demanding academic environments.

scholarly journals Polish and Ukrainian University Students’ Perspectives on Academic Writing: A Comparative Overview

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3(27)) ◽  
pp. 352-370
Author(s):  
Mariya Kozolup ◽  
Mariya Kokor ◽  
Ruslan Savchynskyi
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Master's Degrees ◽  
Academic Communities ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Professional Success ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Academic Communication

Communication, both written and oral, as the key to academic and professional success has received much scholarly attention in the academic communities of Western Europe and North America. However, in the Eastern European educational scene, teaching academic communication, especially academic writing, in institutions of higher education has been largely neglected for a long time. This research attempts to look at academic writing practices at two universities in Ukraine and Poland from the students’ perspectives. The survey conducted among students pursuing master’s degrees in education and pedagogy at both universities aimed to reveal their attitudes, beliefs and opinions in three domains: cognitive, social and affective. The results lead to some important inferences: students’ exposure to academic writing is insufficient; the potential of writing as a learning tool is not fully understood; students’ awareness of academic integrity is rather low. The tendencies observed across institutions are mostly similar with occasional significant differences.

Toward the understanding of Chinese ESL writing

English Today ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Hu
Keyword(s):  
Learning Styles ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
The United States ◽  
Esl Students ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
Academic Environments ◽  
English Writing ◽  
The Usa

It is worth noting that an increasing number of international students, especially Chinese students, have been flooding into English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States or Australia in pursuit of advanced knowledge and better academic environments. As ESL students are enrolling in writing courses in colleges and universities, teachers are confronted with problems that non-native speakers bring to the class when it comes to their academic writing. The problems are more serious than they appear to be. For one thing, according to Reid (1993: 774), there is a dramatic difference between native students and ESL students in ‘the needs, backgrounds, learning styles, and writing strategies’. For another, the situation becomes worse due to ‘considerable diversity even among ESL students in terms of language and cultural backgrounds, prior education, gender, age, and ESL language proficiency’ (Reid, 1993: 774). Although there is not a single solution which is effective in solving complex ESL issues, teachers would be in a better position to understand their ESL students' writing problems if they were to learn about the distinct nature of L2 writing shaped by linguistic and cultural differences. In this article, the author, who was once a Chinese ESL student in the USA and is now an EFL teacher in China, explores how English writing differs from Chinese writing and how these differences lead to Chinese ESL students' difficulty with English writing. This article is expected to increase ESL practitioners' awareness of the urgency for them to recognize and deal with these differences in order to teach L2 writers effectively, to treat them fairly and thus provide them with equal opportunities to achieve academic and professional success.

Seeking transformation: how students in nursing view their academic writing context – a qualitative systematic review

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim M. Mitchell ◽  
Laurie Blanchard ◽  
Tara Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Education ◽  
Identity Development ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Relationship Building ◽  
Student Perspective ◽  
Professional Identity Development ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Qualitative Systematic Review ◽  
Transformative Writing

AbstractWriting practices in nursing education programs are situated in a tension-filled context resulting from competing medical-technical and relational nursing discourses. The goal of this qualitative meta-study is to understand, from the student perspective, how the context for writing in nursing is constructed and the benefits of writing to nursing knowledge development. A literature search using the CINHAL, Medline, ERIC, and Academic Search complete databases, using systematic methods identified 21 papers and dissertations which gathered qualitative interview or survey data from students in nursing at the pre-registration, continuing education, and graduate levels. The studies provided evidence that writing assignments promote professional identity development but overemphasis on writing mechanics when grading have a deleterious effect on learning and student engagement with writing. Relationship building with faculty should extend beyond what is needed to maximize grades. Suggestions for writing pedagogical reform are identified to facilitate a change in focus from mechanical-technical to transformative writing.

Instruction of Nominalization by Applying Enabling of POA

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-358
Author(s):  
Hao Chen
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Academic English ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Learning Journals ◽  
English Majors ◽  
Chinese English Learners ◽  
Oriented Approach

AbstractIt is noticeable that the academic papers written by Chinese English learners are lacking in academic features largely due to their poor ability to use nominalization. Therefore, the instruction of nominalization in an academic English writing course is badly needed. The author conducted one-semester-long instruction of nominalization to 90 non-English majors under the guidance of the production-oriented approach (POA). This research demonstrated how to apply POA, specifically, the enabling procedure to the teaching of nominalization. By triangulating the data of students’ interviews, learning journals and written output, and the data of 4 teachers’ class observations and interviews, this study found that the accurate application of the three criteria of effective enabling contributed to the improvement of the quantity and quality of nominalization in academic writing.

scholarly journals Error Analysis of Students Essays: A Case of First Year Students of the University of Health and Allied Sciences

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Benjamin Amoakohene
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Error Analysis ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Communicative Skills ◽  
Daunting Task ◽  
Integral Role ◽  
The University

Writing is considered as a daunting task in second language learning. It is argued by most scholars that this challenge is not only limited to second language speakers of English but even to those who speak English as their first language. Thus, the ability to communicate effectively in English by both native and non-native speakers requires intensive and specialized instruction. Due to the integral role that writing plays in students’ academic life, academic literacy has garnered considerable attention in several English-medium universities in which Ghanaian universities are no exception. It is therefore surprising that prominence is not given to Academic Writing and Communicative Skills at the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS). In this paper, I argue for much time and space to be given to Academic Writing and Communicative Skills, a programme that seeks to train students to acquire the needed skills and competence in English for their academic and professional development. This argument is based on the findings that came out after I explored the errors in a corpus of 50 essays written by first year students of  UHAS. The findings revealed that after going through the Communicative Skills programme for two semesters, students still have serious challenges of writing error-free texts. Out of the 50 scripts that were analyzed, 1,050 errors were detected. The study further revealed that 584 (55.6%) of these errors were related to grammatical errors, 442 (42.1%) were mechanical errors and 24 (2.3%) of the errors detected were linked to the poor structuring of  sentences. Based on these findings, recommendations and implications which are significant to educators, policy makers and curriculum developers are provided. This study has implications for pedagogy and further research in error analysis. 

scholarly journals A Study of University Students in Japan: Learning and Application of Academic English Writing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
James Graham McKinley
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Social Constructivist ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Writing Classes ◽  
Writer Identity ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
The Rich

<p>This study investigated Japanese first and second year undergraduate students learning English academic writing in their compulsory English composition courses in a Japanese university. The thesis takes a social constructivist approach to investigate the aspects of critical argument and writer identity in these students’ classes and their writing.  The data for the study include classroom observations and teacher and student interviews, all conducted monthly throughout the academic year-long course. In total there were six courses, four teachers, and sixteen student participants. The observations were analyzed using an adapted version of Ivanič’s (2004) Discourses of Writing framework, which focused on aspects of identity construction in the writing classroom. The linguistic data included a selection of one major piece of writing from each student, analyzed using an adapted Appraisal framework within Systemic Functional Linguistics (Martin, 1997; 2000). In order to maintain a focus on writer identity in the analysis, Clark and Ivanič’s (1997) selves were identified through this analysis. In addition, the texts were analyzed for use of Casanave’s (2002) writing game strategies, in order to further establish the students’ approaches in writing their texts. The objective was not to generalize about how Japanese students learn to write academic English, but rather to provide, from a social constructivist, Western researcher’s perspective, an analysis of what happened in these students’ writing classes and how it affected their writing for those classes.  Teachers’ general practices in the observed courses mainly focused on two aspects of writing: 1) as a communicative act (writing for a reader), and 2) as an exercise in critical thinking (developing a thesis). These two aspects emerged from the observation and interview data collection. The four teachers used very different approaches in designing their courses, and the students in the same classes responded in different ways, mostly depending on their ability to understand their teachers’ intentions and to form appropriate academic identities in an attempt to meet their teachers’ expectations. The analysis of the students’ written texts revealed that students often did not meet the teachers’ expectations of writing objectively and using a genre-appropriate voice as students often resorted to the same authorial voice to push their thesis.  This investigation was designed to inform pedagogic practices for university teachers of academic English and curriculum designers in Japan to establish effective English writing courses. The rich description of classroom practices and resulting written texts and the focus on differences in cultural expectations between teachers and students provide significant contributions to this area of inquiry. The main pedagogical suggestions are standardizing course objectives and goals, assigning more reading as a part of writing, and teaching students how to write authoritatively.</p>

Automatically Augmenting Academic Text for Language Learning

2018 ◽  
pp. 512-537
Author(s):  
Shaoqun Wu ◽  
Alannah Fitzgerald ◽  
Ian H. Witten ◽  
Alex Yu
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
British Library ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Design Considerations

This chapter describes the automated FLAX language system (flax.nzdl.org) that extracts salient linguistic features from academic text and presents them in an interface designed for L2 students who are learning academic writing. Typical lexico-grammatical features of any word or phrase, collocations, and lexical bundles are automatically identified and extracted in a corpus; learners can explore them by searching and browsing, and inspect them along with contextual information. This chapter uses a single running example, the PhD abstracts corpus of 9.8 million words derived from the open access Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS) at the British Library, but the approach is fully automated and can be applied to any collection of English writing. Implications for reusing open access publications for non-commercial educational and research purposes are presented for discussion. Design considerations for developing teaching and learning applications that focus on the rhetorical and lexico-grammatical patterns found in the abstract genre are also discussed.

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