Annual one-day seminar

Research, scholarship and practice in the area of Academic Literacies

Friday 30 June 2006

University of WestminsterThe Centre for Higher Education Research,

the Educational Initiative Centre, Polylang EAP and the Academic Writing Centre

An Investigation of Genres of Assessed Writing in British Higher Education

Warwick - Reading - Oxford Brookes

RES-000-23-0800

Current Researchers

Hilary Nesi, Sheena Gardner, Jasper Holmes, Sian Alsop, Laura Powell,

CELTE, Warwick

Paul Thompson, Alois HeuboeckSLALS, Reading

Paul Wickens, Signe Ebeling, Maria LeedhamICELS, Oxford Brookes

Project Aims

Develop a Corpus of British Academic Written English (BAWE)

Characterise proficient student writing across disciplines and years

BAWE Corpus Grid

1 2 3 4

Arts & Humanities

Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Social Sciences

The probable 28 disciplines

Arts and Humanities

Applied Linguistics, Archaeology, Classics, Comparative American Studies, English Studies, History, Philosophy

Life Sciences Agriculture, Biochemistry, Food Science and Technology, Health and Social Care, Medical Science, Plant Biosciences, Psychology

Physical Sciences Architecture, Chemistry, Computer Science, Cybernetics & Electronic Engineering, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics

Social Sciences Anthropology, Business, Economics, Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism Management, Law, Publishing, Sociology

Planned Corpus Size

from 28 disciplinesfrom each of 4 ‘years’

6-8 instances of 4 different assignments

= 3000+ assignments,An estimated 10 million words

Four Research Strands

1. Corpus development

2. Discourse community perspectives

3. Multidimensional analysis of register

4. SFL analysis of genres

1. Corpus Development

Collect assignments Tag files and prepare for submission to

Oxford Text Archive Develop interfaces for end users

Access to the Corpus

?Full texts available from the Oxford Text Archive

?On-line search engine to allow for concordancing with limited co-text

?Shared portal with BASE, MICASE, MICUSP

2. Discourse Community

a. Departmental documentation

b. Tutor interviews

c. Student interviews

d. Assignment submission forms

3. Multidimensional Register Analysis

•Biber’s dimensions; lexico-grammatical features

•Feature analysis of the academic corpus

•search for clusters of distinctive features by•<level, <disc, <discGroup and <type

4. Systemic Functional Genres

School history genres1. Analytical exposition: (Background)^ Thesis^ Arguments^ Thesis Reinforcement

2. Analytical discussion:(Background)^ Issue^ Arguments^ Position

3. Challenge:(Background)^ Arguments^ Anti-Thesis

Tutor Interviews What role does assignment writing play in your

department?

What different types of written assignment do you set your students?

What are the main differences between these types?

In what ways does student writing progress?

What do you value / dislike in student writing?

Essays

All assign essays ‘Essay’ has many meanings….

Essays have a basic structure

Introduction, body, conclusion (Biological Sciences)

Introduction, logical sequence of argument, conclusion (Medicine)

Argument, counter-argument, conclusion (Hospitality & Tourism)

Compared to other assignment types

The structure of essays is less prescribed (Theatre Studies)

Greater scope .. in terms of what they’re writing about (Engineering)

An essay is generally more ‘rangy’, with a freer structure (Law)

Essays have more flexibility than practical reports, and may address only a subset of the classic RA (Psychology)

Essays involve critical thinking ‘A chance to show .. that you can think

deeply about a subject’ (Anthropology) Give more scope for originality

(Psychology) ‘The traditional Law essay would

probably take the form of a critical discussion’

Engineering assignments: Essays Laboratory reports Project reports Reflective journals Posters (e.g. for transport museum) Summaries of analysis + recommendations Site investigation reports (both factual and

interpretative) Funding proposals Business plans

Published Academic Research ‘Over time, student writing should approximate ever

more closely to the writing that academics submit for publication in learned/scientific journals’ (Economics).

student writing should conform to ‘the style you’d expect in a research paper’ - ‘publishable in style, but not in content’ ( Food Sciences)

Biology students are advised to ‘write in the style of current opinion journals’.

Physics expects students ‘to write a scientific paper – as might be published in a scientific journal for an audience of their peers’.

Professional Writing

Publishing project proposals and letters to authors, in the persona of a publisher.

Case reports (patient description + management plan) assess competence to progress as a medical practitioner.

Demonstration and analysis of computer coding (‘preparing students for real life’)

‘problem questions’ apply the law ‘rather as barristers and solicitors have to do’.

Disciplinary differences:

‘education is a value in itself, and it’s part of a person’s development of selfhood …… it depresses me when students view it as a kind of grim vocationalism’ (Theatre Studies)

there is ‘little point’ in writing academic essays in some modules, as Publishing is a vocational degree and assignments ‘try to replicate what goes on’.

For some, the essay is limiting

‘The fact that essays are still used as the only mode by the majority of English literature assessors seems to me very limiting’ (English Studies)

‘We are a traditional department and we still use mainly essays and we’re very conscious that we would like to, and perhaps need to, do something about that’

(Sociology)

a) Creative writing

Crime fiction (Sociology)

dramatic dissertation: playscript of the facts or trial of a legal case (Law)

b) Reflective writing Students produce original work and then evaluate it

(Computing, English Studies, Theatre Studies)

Students write reflectively about their experiences during group work (Engineering, Hospitality & Tourism)

Students write reflectively about the educational value of a practical task (Anthropology)

Students reflect on past personal experiences (Medicine)

c) Empathy Writing

writing for school children, friends, museums, or newspapers (Physics, Biology, Mathematics and Engineering)

d) New Technologies

Blogs Website evaluations (Medicine, Theatre

Studies) Web-page design (Publishing) Powerpoint presentations (Business and

others)

UUndergraduate Research Project:

Centre for English Language Centre for English Language Teacher EducationTeacher Education

*

Laura Powell

Aims && Objectives

•Student attitudes towards different Student attitudes towards different genres of academic writing genres of academic writing

Eg, Essays, Lab Reports, Case Studies, Creative SketchesEg, Essays, Lab Reports, Case Studies, Creative Sketches

•How does the student know what is How does the student know what is expected?expected?

Interview 36 students

Physical Physical SciencesSciences

PhysicsPhysics Chemistry Chemistry

EngineeringEngineering

ArtsArtsEnglishEnglishHistoryHistory

PhilosophyPhilosophy

Social Social SciencesSciences

LawLawBusinessBusiness

SociologySociology

LifeLifeSciencesSciences

MedicineMedicinePsychologyPsychology

Biological SciencesBiological Sciences

What is the most What is the most important feature of important feature of an academic essay?an academic essay?

2% 5%

16%

2%1%

12%

25%

18%

19%

Time Invested Expression/Voice

Arguing and Counter Arguing Creativity or Originality

Presentation Research

Demonstrating Understanding by Explaining Background Structure

Clarity

TITI

BB

CLCL AA

SSRR

EXEXCRCR

PRPR

What is the most important feature of an academic essay?

Time Invested Expression/Voice

Arguing and Counter Arguing Creativity or Originality

Presentation Research

Demonstrating Understanding by Explaining Background Structure

Clarity

Physical Sciences

Social SciencesArts

Life Sciences

Trigger Questions

•Structure

•Creativity or Originality

•Is there a right answer?

•How standardised is too standardised?

Structure: &&

“It’s proof, proof, proof. A fixed journey on a regimented path.”

PPhilosophy

MMedicine

“The more unique, the higher the mark. They don’t agree with set structures. They don’t agree with exams even.”

Social Sciences

Structure

BB RR

AA

EXEXCLCL

“Just argue for and against the title to provide as balanced a viewbalanced a view as possible and to cover the cover the subject mattersubject matter in enough depth.”

Structural Flexibility and Creativity

Law, First YearLaw, First Year

“It’s a means to an end. We have x-points and x-answer. It’s just a case of getting there really.”

Physics, Second YearPhysics, Second Year

Structural Flexibility and Creativity

How do you know?

Feedback

Course Handbooks

Website

A-Levels

Intuition

Marker’s Subjectivity

I cater my essays to the first-markerEnglish Literature 3nd year

It’s easier to know what they want and write to them when you’ve read their papers and interests

Chemistry 4th year

Marker’s Subjectivity

“No, it doesn’t vary from marker to

marker. They have to follow a very

specific set of marking guidelines, you

see.”

Law, First YearLaw, First Year

Time Invested

Expression/ Voice

Arguing and Counter Arguing

Creativity or Originality

Presentation

Research

Demonstrating Understanding by Explaining Background

Structure

Clarity

First YearFirst Year

&&FinalistsFinalists

“It’s taken a year of trial and error

and I still don’t have an inkling

of an idea what they want. We need

guidance. It’s insufficient.”

StandardisationFirst YearFirst Year

&&Second YearSecond Year

1st year, Philosophy

“To get beyond a 2:1, individuality is key. ‘This is what I want to say and that’s how I will say it.’ If we curb subjectivity, how would we deserve the marks?”

StandardisationFirst YearFirst Year

Second YearSecond Year&&

2nd year, Philosophy

Questions?

Your possible use of the corpus?