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Automated writing evaluation (AWE) technologies are common supplementary tools for helping students improve their language accuracy using automated feedback. In most existing studies, AWE has been implemented as a class activity or an assignment requirement in English or academic writing classes. The potential of AWE as a voluntary language learning tool is unknown. This study reports on the voluntary use of Criterion by English as a foreign language students in two content courses for two assignments. We investigated (a) to what extent students used Criterion and (b) to what extent their revisions based on automated feedback increased the accuracy of their writing from the first submitted draft to the last in both assignments. We analyzed students' performance summary reports from Criterion using descriptive statistics and non-parametric statistical tests. The findings showed that not all students used Criterion or resubmitted a revised draft. However, the findings also showed that engagement with automated feedback significantly reduced users' errors from the first draft to the last in 11 error categories in total for the two assignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, many second/foreign language (L2) academic writing instruction programs place a high premium on pre-writing strategies. The current study examined the effect of software-supported concept mapping on lexical diversity (LD) of English learners' argumentative essays within a process writing framework. Additionally, the relationship between the learners' LD and their overall writing quality was investigated. To this end, 53 university English as a foreign language (EFL) undergraduates were assigned to a computer-aided concept mapping (CACM) and a traditional outlining condition over a span of seven weeks. The CACM group was instructed through the graphic organizer software Inspiration®, whereas the comparison group underwent outlining instruction for planning their writing tasks. Measure of textual lexical diversity (MTLD) was used to assess the so-called D values of the assignments. The results revealed that the CACM group outperformed the outlining group in terms of LD scores. Also, no relationship was found between LD and overall quality of the essays. The findings provide L2 researchers and teachers with insights into understanding the use of CACM strategy in process writing. Moreover, exploiting MTLD afforded our experiment the opportunity to counteract potential pitfalls associated with text size. Further implications for the L2 teacher are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educators are increasingly aware of the role of classroom talk in cultivating students' language knowledge, which in turn supports their skilled reading comprehension. The result has been greater attention to teacher talk moves that transform class discussions into opportunities for language learning. However, less focus has been placed on the strategies used by students as they work together to both learn language and learn about language. The authors focus on a fourth‐grade classroom in which students scaffold one another's language development through powerful language‐focused talk, or metatalk, during a small‐group vocabulary activity. By examining the characteristics of these metatalk episodes and delineating talk moves used by students within them, the authors make visible moves that educators might note and build from. This study informs instruction that capitalizes on the language knowledge held by individual learners in the service of collective language learning for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the acceptance of social robots by higher education students in the social sciences. Pepper, a humanoid social robot from SoftBank Robotics, provided a sample of its capabilities during a first semester, large‐scale, university course, "Introduction to academic writing."From this course, 462 freshmen participated in our survey. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) acts as the conceptual framework, and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS‐SEM) as the method for data analysis. The four perceived characteristics—trustworthiness, adaptiveness, social presence and appearance—all predict the intention to use the robot for learning purposes; anxiety regarding making mistakes in handling the robot and about privacy issues are not significant predictors. An importance‐performance map analysis indicated adaptiveness as the robot's most important characteristic for predicting student behavioural intention. Overall, however, the study shows that students do not have the intention to rely on social robots for learning purposes at the current level of state‐of‐the‐art technology: behavioural intention reaches only 36.6% of the theoretical maximum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores possible benefits of freewriting for EFL students' writing anxiety and fluency. Thirty university students who were enrolled in an academic writing class participated in the study. Pre- and post-writing anxiety surveys, freewritings, pre- and post-essays, and student reflections were collected as data. The study found that EFL students experience varying degrees of writing anxiety, and anxious students tended to perform poorly on the writing test. Analysis of 540 freewritings revealed that all students' fluency improved as the semester progressed, showing a similar trend. Students generally reported positive attitudes toward the freewriting activity. They largely agreed that it improved their confidence, lessened their fear of evaluation, and deepened their thinking skills, but they disliked the absence of feedback, the topic selection, and the activity's time limits. Benefits, possible adaptations, and the pedagogic value of freewriting were also discussed in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper lends support to the argument that students require a variety of teaching strategies to help them improve their academic writing. The study described here took place in 2014 in the context of embedding the teaching of academic writing into anthropology modules. The strategies implemented were microthemes, peer feedback, annotated bibliographies, and, for the sake of introducing blended learning, word clouds. The findings provide an overview of what aspects of each teaching strategy were helpful and which were problematic. In this regard, differences between the perspectives of the anthropology lecturer and the students were revealed, with the lecturer’s opinion differing from that of the majority of students regarding peer feedback. The findings should be useful to lecturers who wish to help their students with academic writing, and to academic developers who are responsible for showing staff how to embed the teaching of writing into the disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article summarizes the author's evolution as a writing instructor toward a career as a librarian teaching information literacy and finally as a scholar and researcher studying information literacy as an academic subject. Changes in writing pedagogy are explored as they relate to changes in the author's instructional practices and how they underlie an understanding of information literacy as a form of literacy practice closely related to writing. Questions about the future of information literacy under current management philosophy are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the notion of proficiency in relation to English language teaching (ELT). Topics include the standards of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages, the relation of proficiency to higher-level language skills, and the distinction between Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Communicative Academic Language Proficiency (CALP).

There is still debate surrounding what constitutes the most effective feedback on EFL learners' writing, particularly in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) settings. Unanswered questions are found in the literature on topics such as the best formats for feedback, the role of technology, authors' authority over written texts, and ways of helping learners develop into autonomous writers. This study explores students' receptivity to an approach to giving feedback on essays which I have developed to address learners' preferences, include various delivery formats, and help students develop into independent academic writers: learner-driven feedback (LDF). In LDF, the feedback is given to the students by the teacher, but the learners 'direct' how and on what they receive feedback comments. The findings from the detailed survey data highlight a high level of student receptivity, and several other compelling reasons for piloting LDF on EAP writing courses, many of which may also justify trialling the approach in other ELT classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to explore the issue of intercultural and transnational negotiation in written English communication. I am interested in the reciprocal development of written discourse across cultural boundaries. My analysis focuses on academic writers’ sense of self and their individual ability to reach otherness when they share the roles of writer, translator, editor and reader. Using my experiences of writing instruction, translation and editing in the USA, South Korea and Russia, this article discusses the unconventional yet resourceful development of confidence in writing in English in the context of cross-lingual and transnational communication. As the examples show, emotional clarity and care for specific social purposes are often important in intercultural English academic written discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the importance of writing in academic work along with in daily communication tasks. The article further explains the need for using mentor texts to provide writer with strong support in order to improve their style and genre, while also stating that genre analysis, studies of the characteristics of specific types of writing can be difficult.

Peer feedback is a potentially beneficial yet highly complex process that can be influenced by a variety of social, historical and cultural factors. Here, we focus on learner proficiency and learners' perceptions of their own and their peer's proficiency, in addition to other factors, and we describe how these factors may influence the quantity and type of feedback given and utilized during feedback sessions. In the context of an undergraduate academic writing course, data was collected from six undergraduate Japanese learners of English who participated in dyadic peer feedback. Written texts, interview data and classroom observation formed a triangulated data set that was used to inform our inquiry. The writers' initial and revised drafts and the reviewers' comments were used in individual interviews as a basis for discussing the feedback process and the factors that influenced it. Differences in language proficiency and perceived relative proficiencies of the peers appeared to be important factors influencing the process. The results of the study are discussed with reference to pedagogical applications during peer feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text is a response to some European-oriented journals in the field of English language teaching who reject submissions on the basis of their particular use of academic discourse. It is therefore deeply indebted to some open-minded editors and some narrow-minded reviewers who functioned as my imaginary interlocutors. I hope it can inspire more academics to struggle against the dictatorship of traditional journals and their dictatorial ways to control language. From my experience growing up in the 1970's in Brazil, I learned to feel strongly about freedom of expression: enough of totalitarian regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on academic writing has been the focus of several international publications, seminars and conferences during the last decades. However, knowledge of the practices and conceptions, along with the status of writing in higher education, is quite disparate depending on the contexts and traditions. In this paper, we survey the research on representations of academic writing internationally as well as the background of the European Writing Survey (EUWRIT), which has two versions, one targeted at students and the other at faculty, both of which were used in our research project. This paper explains the rationale of the scales and describes the items and the international underpinnings which endorse their development. Then, the characteristics of the sample, which were shared by all the studies included in this special issue, are outlined. Participants were 1,044 students and 280 faculty in different disciplines at nine Spanish universities. The theoretical structure and reliability of each of the scales are analysed. The paper ends with the descriptive general results regarding faculty and students and the differences observed based on some characteristics of participants from different disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the various training initiatives available in some Spanish universities which aim to promote academic writing. It focuses mainly on three existing writing initiatives developed at the Ramon Llull University, the Faculty of Education of the Complutense University of Madrid and the University of Deusto. These initiatives aim to meet the needs of students who would like to improve the quality of their academic writing and are addressed to students in any degree programme, including undergraduate degrees, Master’s and doctorates. Feedback on students’ written work is essential in all three programmes. In addition, student support throughout the writing process is available, as are sessions where students can enlist the guidance of a tutor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the state of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teaching and learning. He focuses on three EAP traditions, namely: Social/Genre, Intellectual/Rhetorical, and Academic Literacies. A number of books related to academic writing that may be used in the EAP classroom are evaluated, including "Writing: Learn to Write Better Academic Essays," "50 Steps to Improving Your Academic Writing," and "Great Writing: From Great Paragraphs to Great Essays."

Adopting a case study approach with multiple data sources, this paper explores the ways in which rapport is built, and its impact on the learning process based on five successive writing support consultations between a native English-speaking (NES) tutor and her second language (L2) tutee in a Hong Kong university. With reference to the prepared coding categories, six strategies that realize the four key elements of rapport management were identified, namely greetings, small talk, the use of qualifiers and mitigation devices, first-person plural pronouns, praises and expressions of empathy, and open-ended questions. These strategies symbolized association, addressed face work and emotional reactions, and encouraged equity in the directive and tutor dominance writing consultations. Motivated by the harmonious relationship, the tutee gradually took a more active role in learning in different ways by asking questions, expressing an opposite view, admitting inadequate knowledge, reflecting on cognitive processes, and initiating small talk. The implicit impact was further reflected in her improved self-rating and the completion of the five consultations. Pedagogical recommendations for tutor training are made. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Lack of knowledge in the conventional use of vocabulary and multiword patterns in one's respective field of expertise causes Taiwanese students to produce academic writing that is markedly “non-nativelike.” This is because Taiwanese students are first and foremost second language readers and often have difficulty “picking up on” the regularly encountered language patterns found in scholarly texts. As one step in determining a solution to this problem, this article reports on a pilot implementation encouraging graduate Taiwanese students for whom English is a foreign language to use self-editing techniques in their own field-specific academic writing by use of a corpus tool. Classroom interviews, draft comparisons, and individual stimulated recall interviews showed a difference in acceptance and success after using the corpus tool (StringNet Navigator) as an aid to self-editing academic English writing. The corpus tool's functions, results of its use by industrial management graduate students for self-editing academic writing, and pedagogical implications are described. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that all students, whatever their linguistic identities, can benefit from an explicit and structured introduction to academic writing. It argues that this tuition should no longer be seen as support, and therefore marginalised, but as a transformative process of acculturation that needs to be located in the mainstream of the university. For illustration, it examines a course that does precisely this and which, in a radical departure from other practices, is embedded in the curriculum as a requirement. It discusses the theoretical contexts of the course and shows how the content and methodology is underpinned and informed by new understandings of the cultural, linguistic and epistemological aspects of acquiring academic literacies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing feedback on students’ written work is a key professional activity in tertiary education. Although there has been research into the effectiveness of lecturers’ feedback, there is a need for more studies comparing students’ perceptions with those of their teachers. This article discusses the design and implementation of an innovatory approach to both peer review and associated collaborative action research in an undergraduate writing course in a New Zealand university. Data were collected from extracts of students’ written reflective journals and a focus group of the teaching team. These data were subjected to grounded analysis to identify the extent to which the respective perceptions converged. The findings from both sources indicated that the students’ initial apprehensions about giving and receiving peer feedback changed, and their skills improved during the course. The article concludes by explaining how this project was framed as mutual scaffolding in a zone of proximal development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Overcoming pedagogical concepts based on behavioral models and implementing other methodological styles can lead to natural critical learning. This is an environment conducive to generating new ways of building knowledge, by considering the participants in educational action as subjects of pedagogical interaction. Academic writing and literacy can be identified in this context as epistemological processes for the construction and transformation of knowledge on criminal law. This is because it confronts the need to acknowledge writing as a process that is constructed permanently by academic communities and not by isolated individuals. This process is characterized as being one that makes it possible to build new, thoughtful and analytical knowledge on teaching/learning. It should be recognized as an element in the educational process and as part of thinking on educational action, so as to transform the way criminal law is taught. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher-led collaborative modelling is a type of scaffolded instruction in which the teacher and learners compose and edit an academic text in a process that involves negotiation and shared responsibility. This study examined observed episodes of collaborative modelling of summaries, paraphrases, and other text types in pre-university and university academic writing courses. In interview statements, teachers pointed out a number of benefits of this instructional strategy. They included the opportunities it provided for them to support and respond immediately to learners' contributions, and the feedback it gave them about learners' current levels of ability and confidence. Despite the heavy cognitive demands it makes on teacher and learners, teacher-led collaborative modelling appears to be a useful instructional strategy that supports learning processes by focusing simultaneously on process and product components of academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graduate writing is receiving increasing attention, particularly in contexts of diverse student bodies and widening access to universities. In many of these contexts, writing is seen as ‘a problem’ in need of fixing. Often, the problem and the solution are perceived as being solely located in notions of deficit in individuals and not in the broader embedded and sometimes invisible discourse practices. An academic literacies approach shifts the focus from the individual to broader social practices. This research project emerged out of an attempt to develop a graduate research-writing pedagogy from an academic literacies perspective. We present a detailed case study of one Masters' student to illustrate the results of a pedagogy that moved beyond notions of deficit and support. We argue that to be successful research writers, students need to (1) become discourse analysts; (2) develop authorial voice and identity; and (3) acquire critical competence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The role of power in an English-as-a-second-language classroom has yet to be fully explored by an action research practitioner, especially in a Malaysian higher education setting. This study aims to contribute to this gap by working within an academic literacies perspective to teaching academic writing, which propagates the understanding of power-relational, socio-cultural and epistemological conditions for effective teaching and learning. As the teacher in this classroom, I focus on how power-relational conditions play out. To activate the power conditions, I used a teaching principle in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)-negotiated interaction to reduce power-based mismatches between participants in a teaching or learning relationship in my classroom, drawing upon Kumaravadivelu’s work on post-method pedagogy for TESOL; that is, not being bound by any specific method of teaching. In analysing the different types of power that were operational in my classroom, wider implications of power that operate beyond the classroom level and how they impacted teaching and learning decisions were found to be highly illuminating. The action research methodology used for this study enabled me to reflect critically on my detailed diary recordings and student letter and interview collections, which in turn impacted on my teaching decisions as each teaching cycle was completed. My reflections also help shape my evolving identity as a teacher-researcher throughout this ongoing Malaysian action research journey. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Peer review is a significant component in scientific research. Introducing peer review into inquiry processes may be regarded as an aim to develop student understanding regarding quality in inquiries. This study examines student understanding in inquiry peer reviews among pre-university chemistry students, aged 16–17, when they enact a design of a mimicked scholarly peer review. This design is based on a model of a human activity system. Twenty-five different schools in Brazil, Germany, Poland and The Netherlands participated. The students (n = 880) conducted in small groups (n = 428) open inquiries on fermentation. All groups prepared an inquiry report for peer review. These reports were published on a website. Groups were randomly paired in an internet symposium, where they posted review comments to their peers. These responses were qualitatively analyzed on small groups’ level of understanding regarding seven categories: inquiry question, hypothesis, management of control variables, accurate measurement, presenting results, reliability of results, discussion and conclusion. The mimicked scholarly review prompted a collective practice. Student understanding was significantly well on presenting results, discussion and conclusion, and significantly less on inquiry question and reliability of results. An enacted design, based on a model of a human activity system, created student understanding of quality in inquiries as well as an insight in a peer-reviewing practice. To what extent this model can be applied in a broader context of design research in science education needs further study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this study was to investigate social science doctoral students' preferences and needs with regard to written feedback on academic writing and to develop a written feedback categorization. In an exploratory mixed methods approach, qualitative data collected during interviews were used to form a questionnaire to collect quantitative data in two research-intensive universities. The results based on 276 doctoral students' responses provided a clear list of feedback types needed by doctoral students, including comments addressing their main idea, argumentation, clarity, and information coverage. Their preferences varied on issues of autonomy, criticism, and ambiguity, all critical factors in the transition to independence expected during their doctoral education. The resulting written feedback categorization encompasses three aspects: function, focus, and presentation. The findings of this study have the potential to guide supervisors, feedback providers, and doctoral students as well as inform further research, including instrument development and written feedback content analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a debate between explicit instruction and implicit acquisition of genre regarding genre-based pedagogies. However, relatively few studies have investigated the extent to which explicit instruction shapes students' genre knowledge development by scrutinizing their learning trajectories. This study examined a Taiwanese Ph.D. student's genre knowledge development in a genre-based research writing course. This study collected and analyzed students' oral interaction data and their multiple drafts, and found that explicit genre instruction on rhetorical moves and linguistic features helped the student gain formal knowledge, process knowledge, and rhetorical knowledge, albeit to different degrees. The findings of the study support explicit genre instruction in shaping novice EFL scholars' knowledge of writing for publication in English. In contexts like Taiwan, where publishing articles in indexed journals has become a Ph.D. graduation requirement, a genre-based research writing course featured by explicit and systematic instruction may be highly beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the authors' efforts to debunk several myths regarding scholarly writing by American law school students, focusing on issues related to preparations for the practice of law in the U.S., as well as articles for law school journals and writing skills for prospective attorneys in America. The teaching of scholarly writing is examined in relation to a U.S. legal education and problem-solving skills. Law reviews and the composing of legal briefs and memoranda are mentioned.

Highlights: [•] Forty graduate academic writing students built personal corpora. [•] One year after the course 70% still used their corpus. [•] Thirty-eight percent were regular users (1/week or more); 33% irregular users (1/month or less). [•] Ninety-three percent of users thought using their corpus helped improve their writing. [•] Long-term corpus use depends on individual writing processes and writing concerns. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In South Africa and in other parts of the world, many professions are bemoaning the poor ability of many graduates to communicate their skills and knowledge effectively once they enter the workplace. Increasingly, pressure is placed on higher education to do more in terms of equipping future professionals with the necessary critical reading, research, thinking and writing skills the workplace demands. However, in South Africa especially, the demand for access to higher education is resulting in increased admissions, and in many lecturers standing in front of larger classes filled with students from a wide range of home and educational backgrounds with 'variable' commands of English as a medium of instruction and communication (Greenbaum and Mbali in S Afr Linguist Appl Lang Stud 20:233-244, ). This makes the task of equipping these students with disciplinary knowledge and skills a challenge. In responding to this challenge, the Law Faculty at the University of the Western Cape, in collaboration with a writing specialist, initiated a project aimed at transforming the way in which legal writing was taught at first year level. The overall aim was to start training students, from first year, to adapt their thinking and writing to the kinds of knowledge and practice required by academic study as well as the legal profession. The project was successful in achieving its modest aims, but certain challenges remain. This paper reflects critically on the development and evolution of the model for teaching legal writing in large classes. It argues that teaching legal writing in large classes requires creative and sustainable approaches so that students can become active and critical writers, readers and thinkers over time in this, or any, field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research into research supervision practice focuses on functional, collegial or problematic power-related experiences. Work developing the supervisory role concentrates on new supervisors, and on taught development and support programmes. Most literature on academics’ professional learning concentrates on learning to be a university teacher and, latterly, a researcher. However, the research supervisor’s role is constantly evolving in response to experiences with students, and reflection on this can contribute to professional learning. Initial research suggests examiners learn from examining experiences feeding back into supervisory roles. We argue that being a thesis examiner provides academic staff with opportunities to learn about their own supervisory practices, enhancing their professional learning. Our research reports on examiner perceptions of learning from examining doctoral theses, which can be taken back into supervisory practice, and translated into advice for other supervisors and doctoral students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The growing interest in the higher education sector in publishing pedagogical research has led to a focus on professional development for staff who wish to engage in this endeavour. This paper describes and evaluates a specific programme designed to help university staff to prepare and submit a high-quality paper to a peer-reviewed journal. Features of the programme that contributed to outcomes include the systematic, structured support provided by the programme and facilitator and the opportunity to work with a peer support group, as well as the use of technology to allow participation across campuses. The positive outcomes of the programme in terms of publications and professional and personal benefits for participants are outlined. The programme resulted in peer-reviewed and other publications, as well as increasing the participants’ knowledge and confidence related to academic writing and publishing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Highlights: [•] Classroom practices and cognitions of two groups of Iranian EAP teachers in teaching reading comprehension were explored. [•] Three ELT instructors and three content teachers teaching discipline-based EAP courses were observed for eight sessions. [•] Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted to probe the teachers’ underlying cognitions. [•] Results indicated a noticeable gap between the practices and cognitions of teachers teaching EAP reading comprehension. [•] Findings suggest implications for EAP teacher education. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Connectives (e.g., although, consequently, in contrast) are often considered the 'signposts' of texts. In this article we argue that connectives represent a special kind of vocabulary knowledge that students need to develop both in order to read challenging, academic texts with understanding and to produce academic writing. Yet tapping the meaning of connectives to support comprehension and academic writing may be especially difficult for some students, especially English-language learners. In this article, we address how and why to provide instruction about connectives to students in the middle grades. Our research with students in fifth grade suggests that young adolescent learners will benefit from explicit instruction about the meanings and roles of connectives, but that this instruction-while direct-should be provided within engaging, meaningful contexts. Examples of instructional practices illustrating how educators can teach about connectives are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we examined, based on the theoretical perspective of academic literacy, various strategies used in a course of Antropología de la Educación (AE) with the aim of improving the abilities of critical reading and academic writing of the participant students. The study had place in a public Mexican university, specifically in students of the third semester in an education degree. The information was collected and analyzed with ethnographic methods, generating a complementary perspective and holistic aspiration starting from the teacher's points of view and the observations of a student, both co-authors of this document, plus the interviews made to the participants of the course. In the conclusions are located the results obtained with help of the strategies used along the course and are established potential investigation subjects for subsequent research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an examination of the literature on issues surrounding the problems Japanese university students face in learning critical argument in their English academic writing courses. Japanese students’ critical thinking skills are criticized as not fostered in their university education, perhaps due to Confucian education ideals, Japanese ‘reader-responsible’ rhetorical structures, or misinterpretations by Western instructors. The article is presented in four sections providing first, an examination of English L2 in the Japanese context, second, an analysis of Japanese to English contrastive rhetoric, and third, a discussion of the debate on Japanese university students’ critical thinking in EFL writing. The article finishes with several suggestions to provide ways of dealing with the key challenges and fostering more positive development of critical thinking in Japanese students’ EFL academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the general guidelines and devices designed to implement an institutional program for developing academic and professional writing at Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento (Argentina). The program integrates three traditions of teaching writing, based on genres: New Rhetoric, English for Specific Purposes, and the Theory of Genre and Register of Systemic Functional Linguistics. After contextualizing and describing the program, the bases of these perspectives are reviewed to show their articulation in various actions. The purpose is to contribute to debates in the field on academic literacy, with the idea that the relevance of the problem requires a model to elaborate the most fruitful elements of each tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of writing across the curriculum proposes that university reading and writing are necessarily inscribed in specific disciplinary cultures, and that the teachers in these disciplines must be responsible for teaching reading and writing since they have mastered the rhetorical habits and epistemological frameworks of their social spheres. Based on interviews, assignments, and instructions, I research the degree this knowledge is effectively included in teaching, in student trajectories, and in the curriculum materials of undergraduate degree programs in humanities in Argentina. The results show that rhetorical competencies, although evaluated, do not tend to be a systematic object of teaching; they also show that specifi c didactics for teaching rhetoric must be implemented. To respond to this problem, I present an institutional proposal for interdisciplinary teacher education in scientific/academic reading and writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper elaborates a critical reflection over academic discourse and practice faced with ordinary life. On the one hand, a space reserved for Olympic gods who no longer belong to the space of simple mortals and, on the other hand, the layperson and the ordinary human being. And, through this dichotomic pair - the academic "divine" and the mortal "human" - vectors bearing political powers with sociabilities of/in conflict are formed. Based on the ironical idea that academia is "a republic of good senses", the discussion is devoted towards the ingenuity of the academics who, isolated in the arena of political fights, are not connected to the movements of revitalizing powers concerning the society where they live in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the results of a pilot study investigating the usefulness of IWill 2.0, a web-based writing platform located at http://cube.iwillnow.org/IWiLL/, for Tawainese graduate students learning academic English writing and their advisers. The importance of English as a foreign language (EFL) instruction in Taiwanese graduate education is examined, and the study's goals and methodology are described. The finding that the students and advisers surveyed found the platform useful is examined, and suggestions for further research are presented.

Medical writers often help train researchers to compose and publish scholarly articles. Although this represents only a small portion of what medical writers do, it is important for those who train academic researchers to be knowledgeable and competent. Here, I describe 16 modules, each consisting of specific writing and editing activities, which need to be taught to publication writers. I also suggest a simple evaluation system for assessing 14 competencies in medical writing and editing needed by publication writers to perform their role successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study examined how undergraduate students’ ability to write in science changed over time as they completed a series of laboratory activities designed using a new instructional model called argument-driven inquiry. The study was conducted in a single section of an undergraduate general chemistry lab course offered at a large two-year community college located in the southeast USA. The intervention took place over a 15-week semester and consisted of six laboratory activities. During each laboratory activity, the undergraduates wrote investigation reports, participated in a double-blind group peer review of the reports, and revised their reports based on the reviews. The reports written during each laboratory activity were used to examine changes in the students’ writing skills over time and to identify aspects of scientific writing that were the most difficult for the undergraduates in this context. The reviews produced by the students during each report were used to evaluate how well undergraduates engage in the peer-review process. The results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the reports and reviews indicate that the participants made significant improvements in their ability to write in science and were able to evaluate the quality of their peers’ writing with a relatively high degree of accuracy, but they also struggled with several aspects of scientific writing. The conclusions and implications of the study include recommendations for helping undergraduate students learn to write by writing to learn in science and new directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the results of two independent studies that assessed the impact of writing as a learning tool in introductory-level geography courses. Student attitudes toward writing and their performance on exams were analyzed to determine the impact of writing for comprehension and application of geographical concepts. Student perceptions were mostly positive; however, there was no significant improvement in grades. As both students and instructors view writing as valuable for learning, these results underscore the need to develop alternative methods of assessment and additional studies to quantitatively determine the impact of writing on learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We examined the effectiveness of the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model of writing instruction with a self-determination training component for middle school-age students with emotional and behavioral disorders. We randomly assigned students to experimental or comparison treatments during which special education teachers provided the intervention. Students in the experimental groups received instruction on how to plan and write persuasive essays, were trained on self-determination skills, and were taught how to use persuasive writing to self-advocate. Students in the comparison condition received writing instruction with the established school writing curriculum. Instruction for both groups lasted 33 days, four days a week during 30-minute sessions. Experimental students significantly outperformed comparison students at posttest in all the persuasive essay-writing components assessed, in their ability to recall the parts of a persuasive essay, in the self-efficacy measure, and on self-determination knowledge. Experimental students were able to maintain gains in almost all writing measures and were able to generalize to content areas, although comparison students slightly increased in number of words. Student and teacher interviews revealed an overall satisfaction with SRSD procedures and the results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While there is considerable research on interventions to support academic staff in writing for publication, there is limited literature on writing interventions for librarians. This article explores the potential of a blended learning approach to support librarians to develop the motivation and skills to write for publication. The program combines three elements: a formal writing seminar; a structured series of online exercises and mentoring support; and two peer-feedback days. The article suggests that the combination of online and face-to-face activities has the potential to be a sustainable model for helping to develop librarians as academic writers. It suggests that this type of model could provide a context, which is currently lacking, for librarians to develop their identity and skills as academic writers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers advice for encouraging literacy skills necessary for success in secondary science education, with particular focus given to inquiry-based learning strategies, teaching students to understand discipline-specific types of discourse, and choosing texts which present science as a set of guidelines rather as a set of received facts. The value of taking advantage of "teachable moments," in which questions naturally arise and can be answered when students are most receptive, is also discussed.

The authors developed and assessed a new undergraduate psychology course: Thinking and Writing in Psychology. A description of how the course was developed using the APA learning goals as well as results from an analysis of the course’s effectiveness are offered. The course demonstrated a positive impact on the overall grade point average and thinking and writing skills of students within the course as well as in more advanced courses. Implementing and requiring a thinking and writing course relatively early in the undergraduate psychology major was strongly supported by this study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: This paper is a preliminary investigation into how the context of student life influences student writing. Specifically, activity theory is drawn upon to explore how the role of assessment affects students’ attempts to participate in knowledge-producing communities, a relatively under-researched aspect of student writing. To identify rhetorical characteristics characteristic to student writing, the introductory sections of master’s theses in the field of educational philosophy are compared with the introductory sections of journal articles published within the same discipline. The analysis is framed using modification of Swales’ (1990) “Create-A-Research-Space” model for philosophy texts, and specific attention is paid to how students present themselves as agents through their use of inter-textuality and the use of the first-person pronoun. It is suggested that student writers represent themselves as accomplishing more tasks, thereby asserting themselves as experts in ways published authors need not. Activity theory is used to link the distinctive rhetorical practices of student theses to the functions they serve in acadamic settings. As primarily a theoretical piece, this paper makes an argument in favour of a rhetorical, context-sensitive approach to the study of student writing. The texts analysed serve to exemplify the power and utility of this approach. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]