New Perspectives On Academic Writing

Particularly for the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, for which writing is their lifeblood, the crisis in academic writing has become existential. It is not hard to diagnose the disease, and its causes. This book showcases what we desperately need: radical alternatives, experiments we can try out, ways of writing that don't just tweak the system but plot a different course altogether. This isn't just about finding new genres, for these only change the surface appearance without altering the underlying dynamic. Rather, the editor and contributors focus on finding new ways to join thinking both with writing and the things of which, and with which, we write. Each chapter brims with the kind of liveliness, outspokenness and urgency that their theme demands. Far from tiptoeing around the edifice of academia they are intent on stirring things up, reigniting their scholarship with a fuse of activism, in the hope of setting off an explosion that could send ripples throughout the academy.

Now in its third edition, Academic Writing offers a succinct and practical introduction to the development of research papers across the disciplines. Structured around contemporary genre theory, which establishes the importance of context for effective communication, the text describes the writing process step by step, including how to formulate a topic; gather and properly document sources; develop strong proposals, introductions, core paragraphs, and conclusions; and refine the final draft. Additionally, readers will observe the progress and thought processes of Jenna, a first-year student, as she crafts her own paper. New to this edition are materials for instructors that include full-length research papers, PowerPoint slides, an exam bank, and ideas for study. Rich with such pedagogical features as chapter learning objectives, annotated passages that illustrate aspects of academic style, and a glossary, Academic Writing is a must-have textbook for students developing their research and writing skills.

This book brings together a variety of voices – students and teachers, journal editors and authors, writers from the global north and south – to interrogate the notion of risk as it applies to the production of academic writing. Risk-taking is viewed as a productive force in teaching, learning and writing, and one that can be used to challenge the silences and erasures inherent in academic tradition and convention. Widening participation and the internationalisation of higher education make questions of language, register, agency and identity in postgraduate writing all the more pressing, and this book offers a powerful argument against the further reinforcement of a ‘northern’ Anglophone understanding of knowledge and its production and dissemination. This volume will provide food-for-thought for postgraduate students and their supervisors everywhere.

Despite the increasingly global implications of conversations about writing and learning, U.S. composition studies has devoted little attention to cross-national perspectives on student writing and its roles in wider cultural contexts. Caught up in our own concerns about how U.S. students make the transition as writers from secondary school to postsecondary education, we often overlook the fact that students around the world are undergoing the same evolution. How do the students in China, England, France, Germany, Kenya, or South Africa--the educational systems represented in this collection--write their way into the communities of their chosen disciplines? How, for instance, do students whose mother tongue is not the language of instruction cope with the demands of academic and discipline-specific writing? And in what ways is U.S. students' development as academic writers similar to or different from that of students in other countries? With this collection, editors David Foster and David R. Russell broaden the discussion about the role of writing in various educational systems and cultures. Students' development as academic writers raises issues of student authorship and agency, as well as larger issues of educational access, institutional power relations, system goals, and students' roles in society. The contributors to this collection discuss selected writing purposes and forms characteristic of a specific national education system, describe students' agency as writers, and identify contextual factors--social, economic, linguistic, cultural--that shape institutional responses to writing development. In discussions that bookend these studies of different educational structures, the editors compare U.S. postsecondary writing practices and pedagogies with those in other national systems, and suggest new perspectives for cross-national study of learning/writing issues important to all educational systems. Given the worldwide increase in students entering higher education and the endless need for effective writing across disciplines and nations, the insights offered here and the call for further studies are especially welcome and timely.

Each chapter provides an answer to the titular question by an EAP expert based on research which includes analysis of student writing and interviews with academics from around the world, as they are the people who determine what 'good writing' is in their discipline. Chapters look at established disciplines which have had less attention in the EAP and academic writing literature to date, including music, formal linguistics, and dentistry, as well as new and growing fields of study such as new media

WRITING PROGRAMS WORLDWIDE offers an important global perspective to the growing research literature in the shaping of writing programs. The authors of its program profiles show how innovators at a diverse range of universities on six continents have dealt creatively over many years with day-to-day and long-range issues affecting how students across disciplines and languages grow as communicators and learners.

Plagiarism and intellectual property law are two issues that affect every student and every teacher throughout the world. Both concepts are concerned with how we use texts - print, digital, visual, and aural - in the creation of new texts. And both have been viewed in strongly moral terms, often as acts of 'theft'. However, they also reflect the contradictory views behind norms and values and therefore are essential to understand when using all forms of texts both inside and outside the classroom. This book discusses the current and historical relationship between these concepts and how they can be explicitly taught in an academic writing classroom.

This book provides critical perspectives on issues relating to writing norms and assessment, as well as writing proficiency development, and suggests that scholars need to both carefully examine testing regimes and develop research-informed perspectives on tests and testing practices. In this way schools, institutions of adult education and universities can better prepare learners with differing cultural experiences to meet the challenges. The book brings together empirical studies from diverse geographical contexts to address the crossing of literacy borders, with a focus on academic genres and practices. Most of the studies examine writing in countries where the norms and expectations are different, but some focus on writing in a new discourse community set in a new discipline. The chapters shed light on commonalities and differences between these two situations with respect to the expectations and evaluations facing the writers. They also consider the extent to which the norms that the writers bring with them from their educational backgrounds and own cultures are compromised in order to succeed in the new educational settings.