scholarly journals How to create and develop writing centres

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Galtung ◽  
Solveig Kavli ◽  
Dina Møll Schoder ◽  
Marianne Tønnesen

This roundtable addresses how two Norwegian writing centres –in different stages of establishment and settled within different constitutional frames –handle staff policy and aim to facilitate academic writing to their target group and main users, namely the students.We will structure the discussion around four main themes that we juggle in our daily work: 1.Using strategic plans to promote academic writing development and student throughput 2.Co-creating learning activities with and for MA students 3.Keeping up with the Library and Faculty 4.Strengthening and further developing academic writing in HE Attendees at the roundtable will be invited to discuss and participate in a dialogue on the way in which writing centres can improve the students’ writing process; why we find teaching and preaching academic writing to be an important skill, and how we can co-create learning activities in libraries and writing centres with academic staff and students. We will also touch on the issue of legitimacy, and how writing centre activities can be moved from the periphery to the centre of the institution and its pedagogical mission. The audience will leave with ideas and inspirations on how to facilitate and build good writing centres in collaboration between staff, librarians and experienced students.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Galtung ◽  
Cathinka Dahl Hambro ◽  
Solveig Kavli

This roundtable addresses how three Norwegian writing centres – in different stages of their establishment and settled within different constitutional frames – handle staff policy and aims to facilitate academic writing to their main users; students and PhD candidates. We will structure the discussion around four main themes that we juggle in our daily work:  Using strategic plans to promote academic writing development and student throughput Co-creating learning activities with and for MA students Keeping up with the Library and Faculty Strengthening and further developing academic writing in Higher Education Attendees at the roundtable will be invited to discuss and participate in a dialogue on the way in which writing centres can improve the students’ and PhD candidates’ writing process; why we find teaching and preaching academic writing to be an important skill, and how we can co-create learning activities in libraries and writing centres with academic staff and students. We will also discuss the issue of legitimacy, and  what it takes to move writing centre activities from the periphery to the centre of the institution and its pedagogical mission. The audience will leave with ideas and inspirations on how to facilitate and build good writing centres in collaboration between staff, librarians and experienced students.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Eden

This article attempts to first speculate and then demonstrate how Dada methods can be used by creative practitioners or writers in general within an academic essay. In particular, the inclusion of randomness and chance is examined in the writing process with a view to foreground materiality in writing development and execution. Methods to make use of chance and to randomize text are outlined and the distinction between randomness and chance is clearly drawn. Antecedents to Dada and to the cut-up techniques that form the focus of the method outlined here are examined and offer context for the development of an embodied and empowered approach to challenges encountered around academic writing. Furthermore, contemporary scholarship that reflects on writing in higher education is drawn on to highlight the article’s primary purpose; that being to offer a background, explanation and useful methodology for the inclusion of randomness and chance which addresses the institutional demands encountered by students. The article draws on work created and discussed at a workshop that took place at Central St Martins in 2019, called ‘Breaking Into and Out of Academic Writing’. This workshop included various students from University of Arts London experimenting with the cut-up techniques and discussing their potential use in writing.


2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sachiko Yasuda

This study offers some insights into the writing process of ESL students in a natural academic context. The theoretical framework used in this investigation is activity theory, which emphasizes the sociocultural and historical nature of the learning environment in determining the way students interpret the task requirements and the way they behave. Two major data sources were utilized: all the drafts students had written until they completed the final version, and retrospective interviews on students’ perception of their revision behaviors. While the analyses of drafts produced at different stages focus on how students go about writing, their previous writing experiences compiled through interviews, help explain why students act the way they do. The results showed that different activities were underway even though all of the participants were engaged in the same task. They also illustrated that students’ beliefs about academic writing, which were shaped through their previous experiences, determined the nature of their activities during the writing process. 本研究は、日本人学習者による英語での文章作成過程を検証する。分析のための理論的枠組として「活動理論(Activity Theory)」を使用し、同じ作文課題(task)に取り組む学習者が作成過程において、どの程度異なる活動(activity)に従事しているかを明らかにする。文章作成過程を知るために学習者が作成した複数の原稿をすべて回収し、一度書いたものを学習者がどのように推敲したかを分析した。その直後にインタビューを行い、推敲の際に何を考えたか、文章のどのような要素を改善しようとしたかについて質問した。分析の結果、分かったことは以下の2つである。(1)学習者はそれぞれ異なる点に推敲の焦点を当てており、それに従って異なる推敲の方法を採用していた。(2)各学習者によって異なる文章作成過程がとられていたが、それには各学習者の過去の経験とそれに基づいた学習者の作文に対するビリーフ(belief)が大きく関与していた。つまり、学習者はそれぞれが過去の経験を通して築き上げてきたビリーフに基づいて、それぞれ異なる目標を設定し、それに向かって作文活動を展開したのである。この結果は、教室内で同じ課題に取り組む学習者は必ずしも同じ活動に従事しているとはいえないことを示唆している。


2015 ◽  
Vol 166 (4) ◽  
pp. 213-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Kräuchi ◽  
Martin Tschannen

Yes to revitalisation of watercourses: (not) a question of loss of arable land (essay) Because of the reduced availability of soil resources, projects for flood control, renaturation or revitalisation of watercourses have been opposed on the grounds of their excessive consumption of land in general, and arable land in particular. By the way of the Water Protection Act, which has been revised and came into force in 2011, the Confederation obliges the cantons to prepare strategic plans for revitalisation of watercourses. In the Canton of Aargau, it is planned to revitalise 152 km of watercourses between 2015 and 2035, which will lead to the loss of 32 ha of arable land. This is about 1.5 ha per year, or 6% of the annual loss of arable land, which is about 24 ha per year. Three quarters of this total is lost to settlements. If one only considers losses outside built-up areas, in 2014, more than half was lost to buildings connected to agricultural activity. We can demonstrate, using the Siegfried maps of 1880, that more than 1,000 ha of former marsh and wetland are now arable land. The planned revitalisation of watercourses in Aargau over the next 20 years is equivalent to about 3% of the marsh and wetlands converted over the last 135 years. Revitalisation is compulsory, and the planned obligation to compensate the loss of arable land disregards the true situation: the major consumers of soil resources are settlements and, outside built-up areas, agriculture.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5923
Author(s):  
Liliana Mâță ◽  
Otilia Clipa ◽  
Venera-Mihaela Cojocariu ◽  
Viorel Robu ◽  
Tatiana Dobrescu ◽  
...  

Our study aims to identify students’ attitudes towards the use of mobile technologies (MT) during learning activities in higher education. Data were collected using the Mobile Technologies Questionnaire/MTQ, a ten-item brief questionnaire that was designed to determine attitudes towards the use of mobile technologies in the learning process among university students and academic staff. The MTQ was completed by 575 students from a state university in the northeastern region of Romania. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed two latent factors: MT facilities for study resources and communication and MT facilities for learning. Along with general analysis of the statistical indicators regarding the attitude towards the use of MT, the relationships between the use of MT and five socio-demographic variables (gender, age, place of residence, year of study, academic status and study program) were analyzed. Comparative data showed some statistically significant differences but with small or modest effect sizes, depending on age, year of study, place of residence, academic status and the study program in which the students were enrolled. This study provides additional support for the construct validity of a brief tool that was designed to measure students’ attitudes towards the use of MT during learning activities carried out in higher education.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-140
Author(s):  
Lee Jin Choi

Summary The increasing number of international students enrolled in higher education in English-speaking countries has presented the growing need to support their academic writing development. It, however, has often led to the hasty assumption that English language learner (ELL) writers need to quickly adopt the dominant academic writing conventions in order to succeed in an English-speaking academic community. Even though the growing number of scholars have started to pay attention to ELL writers’ diverse writing styles and multiple identities, little research and discussion have taken place on how language practitioners could engage ELL writers in developing their voices as multilingual and multicultural writers. By analyzing a qualitative interview with ten experienced writing consultants and instructors, this paper explores major challenges that ELL writers experience and different strategies that could effectively help them develop their voices as writers in the academic context where English is dominantly used as the medium of instruction. Findings show that while many colleges and universities in English-speaking countries still adopt a monolithic view and label ELL writers as ‘a troubled non-native writer’, it is crucial for writing consultants and instructors to acknowledge ELL writers’ multilingual background and help them to develop their unique voices and achieve sustainable development and progress.


Author(s):  
Yamin Qian

While rubrics have been widely recognized as an effective instructional tool for teachers to evaluate students’ writing products, fewer studies explored how students use it for their writing process in an EFL university academic writing classes. This study explores the application of process-oriented rubrics in two EFL writing programs, and investigates whether English language proficiency, motivation to writing, and their previous experiences with writing programs would significantly affect the use of the rubrics. The participants (N=190) were from two student cohorts, each of which had 95 participants. The data set includes students’ self-, peer- use and the instructor’s use of the rubrics, and students’ written reflection upon peer feedbacks. The data showed that the rubrics can guide students to practice a writing process, and that the 20-item rubric was statistically reliable.  The data of rubrics also showed that the participants were more critical on their peers’ writing, and the reflection data showed students’ awareness of revision strategies. The qualitative data seemed to suggest that peer reviews and reflections upon such reviews could enhance students' revision strategies. This article will conclude itself by providing some pedagogical suggestions in EFL contexts


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 447
Author(s):  
Ria Yulianti ◽  
Achyana Izzatun Nisa

The objective of this paper is to describe the implementing of experiential leaning in writing class. Writing is the process of expressing ideas into a good writing and composing the ideas into a proper arrangement. Writing is one of language abilities that is taught in the school. The students should be mastered some text types in writing class, such as descriptive text. Descriptive text is a text which says what a particular thing, person or place is like. In the writing process, the students face some problems in writing, such as finding ideas, developing ideas, and arranging ideas into good composition. In this case, the teacher uses a new method to solve that problems. The teachers use experiential learning to enhance the students’ writing. Experiential learning is a learning method where the educators engage the students to learn through experience directly to enhance students’ knowledge and skills. It is also called learning by doing. The steps of implementing experiential learning are doing, reflecting, analyzing, generating and application. In descriptive writing, the students can describe the object easily because they use real experience. The students also feel more enthusiasm in learning process. Therefore, hopefully the students can expand their writing in good construction.  


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 610-616
Author(s):  
Euis Meinawati ◽  
Prapti Wigati Purwaningrum ◽  
Herlin Widasiwi Setianingrum ◽  
Sufi Alawiyah ◽  
Lia Nurmalia ◽  
...  

Students have a different pattern in using the learning strategy. It is seen in their activity when they do the writing. The objective of this research was to observe the students’ pattern using metacognitive strategy in English Academic Writing learning through an online zoom application. The method used descriptive qualitative research. The data is taken from observation and survey from 20 participants who got the English academic writing subject in 2019/2020 academic years at English Program Study Universitas Bina Sarana Informatika. Analysis procedures include observation of activity patterns, identifying learning strategy patterns, categorizing, and strategy learning pattern analysis. The results showed that the students used metacognitive strategy in the academic writing process with different patterns. It can see from activity steps of the metacognitive strategy that is implemented in the class. Students’ activity pattern is planning, identifying, correcting errors, revising, rereading, monitoring, and evaluating. Metacognitive strategies had used by students to consciously control the writing activity because each segment of one’s stored world knowledge help students to create the story. The study's implication is managing students’ activity patterns when the teacher used the strategy learning. It has to be appropriate to students’ needs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 50-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Chernysheva ◽  
A. O. Kozlova ◽  
E. V. Donova

The paper discusses the preliminary results of teaching academic writing to scientific and academic staff at South Ural State University (national research university) within the framework of advanced training courses. The 36 and 72-hour training programs were developed by the academic and methodological department of the Office of Academic Writing. The Office was opened at the university in 2016 in order to improve the academic literacy of the university’s academic staff, develop professional communication skills in English, and assist authors who aspire to get their papers published in top rated scientific journals indexed in the scientific citation databases Scopus and Web of Science. Upon completion of these programs, authors of scientific papers gain knowledge about the basics of academic writing, the structure of a scientific paper, the English scientific style and its lexical and grammatical features, as well as editing a paper, working with scientific citation databases, and elaborating a publishing strategy. We conducted a study from October 2016 to December 2018 and calculated data on the attendees’ affiliation (an institute or higher school), the contingent (position), and the importance of the offered training programs (the number of attendees in each course). The obtained data indicates that representatives of social-humanitarian and technical fields show a special interest in the courses. The courses of academic writing are most popular among associate professors who have experience in publishing papers in Russian. Authors are especially interested in intensive practice-oriented programs. Upon completion of the courses and with the support of the Office of Academic Writing, attendees prepared scientific texts in English and submitted them to top rated journals and conference proceedings. The educational activity of the Office of Academic Writing can be developed through elaboration and implementation of new advanced training programs, including the distance ones. Their effectiveness will be evaluated by an increase in the publication activity of the university’s employees.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document