cdn.ymaws.com€¦ · Web viewWriting is generally the primary medium for demonstrating knowledge and expertise, and therefore plays a key role in assessing learning. It is also associated

Graduate Student Writing 1

Supporting the Development of Doctoral Student Writing:A Review of the Literature

and accompanying resources

Alisa Belzer, PhDRutgers University

with assistance from

Martin Reardon, PhDEast Carolina University

Chris Ray, PhDNorth Dakota State University


The importance of being (or learning to become) an effective writer in graduate school,

especially among doctoral students, probably cannot be overstated. Writing is generally the

primary medium for demonstrating knowledge and expertise, and therefore plays a key role in

assessing learning. It is also associated with functioning appropriately and successfully on the

professional level after graduation (Ondrusek, 2012). However, there is frequent

acknowledgement, through faculty report, that graduate students struggle with writing (Switzer

& Perdue, 2011). Mullen (2001) finds that most graduate students would concur; they report that

writing is difficult for them. The cost of these difficulties is considerable. Poor writing abilities

in graduate school are associated with delayed or decreased graduation rates (Aitchison & Lee,

2006; Casanave & Hubbard, 1992; Lee & Aitchison, 2009; Ondrusek, 2012; Switzer & Perdue,

2011) making attention to this issue of great importance. When placed against a backdrop of

increasing demands for accountability regarding time to completion and graduation rates

(Aitchison & Lee, 2006; Lee & Aitchison, 2009; Skillen & Purser, 2003), the need to attend to

the development of graduate student writing skills is imperative.

Faculty who teach in EdD programs may want to assume that students know how to write

by the time they get to graduate school. However, the expectations for writing in graduate

school are often quite different than those for undergraduates in terms of complexity, detail, and

specialization (Koncel & Carney, 1992; Lavelle & Bushrow, 2007), or for what they need to do

to function successfully in their day to day work lives as professionals. Additionally, Bloom

(1981) argues that graduate students are different from undergraduates. They are older, more

mature, usually working harder and for longer hours at jobs, and they face a “mixture of

dependence and independence, freedom and responsibility [which] create tensions and problems


particular to their writing that are far more common among graduate students than

undergraduates” (p. 103-104). This means that helping graduate students develop their writing

skills may be less about remediation and more about helping them step into new writing

identities (Ivanic, 1998; Sallee, Hallett, & Tierney, 2011). Yet focus on this aspect of graduate

education is often scant. Writing difficulties often go unattended to, and when they are

addressed, for example by a dissertation supervisor who painstakingly works with the student to

revise and edit drafts, it may be too little or too late (Switzer & Perdue, 2011). Maher, et al.

(2008) observe, ironically, that many programs take it as an obvious responsibility to train

students to do research, but neglect to make sure they can effectively write about their findings

when they have completed their research. Instead, many students are left to learn on their own

by trial and error, by observation, and sometimes by trying to get help from dissertation advisors

who may not be well equipped to teach writing and may not have the time to help (Lee &

Aitchison, 2009). Depending on the dissertation chair to address writing difficulties can

significantly slow the dissertation process and be especially problematic in programs with

accelerated timelines typical of CPED-influenced EdD programs.

Wellington (Wellington, 2010) asserts that graduate programs must take the writing issue

on explicitly and directly, warning that if they do not address it, student writing is unlikely to

improve. Yet, Kamler and Thomson (2008) observe that, although of central importance, writing

is rarely systematically taught. This paper reviews the literature on this topic in the hopes that it

can assist CPED-influenced EdD programs respond to Wellington’s warning. In particular, I

argue that we should not depend on the dissertation chair to teach writing--often a painstaking,

time consuming, and frustrating experience for both the student and the chair--when we want our

students to complete their dissertations in a timely way and focus on doing impactful work rather


than on developing their communication skills at the 11th hour. Because “the development of

writing and research skills involves a long-term process (Maleny, 1999). Mullen (2001)

recommends that it be initiated when students first start in doctoral programs. Wellington (2010)

argues that a multipronged effort is warranted—an effort which includes substantive feedback

from instructors, writing workshops, and exhorting students to make conscious efforts to

improve.

I argue here for the importance and efficacy of embedding efforts to support the

development of graduate student writing in course work. Although I discuss more traditional

solutions such as requiring students to take writing courses (or making academic writing the

focus of a required professional seminar or other stand-alone course) or offering workshops or

peer writing groups, the literature suggests that these are only partial solutions. Writing courses

and workshops may be decontextualized and generic making it difficult for students to benefit

from them. Additionally, the working professionals that tend to populate CPED-influenced EdD

programs may have little time to participate in anything beyond coursework. Their identities as

successful and driven professionals may also work against their seeing themselves as in need of

help. Koncel and Carney (1992) underline this situation by reporting that students whom they

studied did not choose to take advantage of voluntary writing supports either because they did

not feel they needed them or did not feel they had the time to use such supports. Supporting the

development of graduate student writing is a pedagogical problem which should not be separated

from increasing content knowledge and skills. Therefore, it should be treated as a critical

element of graduate education (Aitchison & Lee, 2006).

This review of research literature focuses in particular on writing support that is

embedded and contextualized by incorporating it as an ongoing aspect of coursework. For this


reason, this review excluded literature on the pedagogy of dissertation mentoring or writing for

publication. It also generally excluded research which falls under the topic “writing for

academic purposes”, which focuses on non-native English speakers, unless the research seemed

relevant to all learners. On the assumption that graduate student writing tasks, the graduate

school context, and graduate students themselves are different from undergraduates and

undergraduate education, this review also excluded literature on the vast body of research on

undergraduate writing support. Although the literature on undergraduate writing support is

replete with many teaching strategies that could translate to a graduate school setting, that which

is most relevant is often also introduced in “how-to” and “instructional tip” type texts intended

for graduate students and instructors. In other words, material aimed at undergraduates but

useful to graduate students is often replicated in literature included in the search criteria.

The purpose of this literature review is to describe broadly the strategies for supporting

graduate student writing and to make an argument for doing so not only in isolated workshops

and free standing required or optional writing courses, but in the context of course work. While

specific strategies are discussed, this is less of a “how-to” than an attempt to direct faculty

thought and effort toward working explicitly on improving student writing from the first class of

the EdD program to the end. This paper is intended also to raise institutional awareness of the

benefits associated with smoothing doctoral students’ paths to graduation, and more fully

preparing them to communicate their findings effectively and in ways that can increase the

impact of their work well beyond their graduate school experiences.

Theoretical Framework

A socio-cultural view of writing, which emerges from New Literacy Studies theorists

(Street, 1984), suggests that the writing that doctoral students must learn how to do is distinct


from all other writing tasks they have thus far encountered (and hopefully mastered) in school.

This view rejects the notion that literacy consists of a static set of skills that is learned once and

done, albeit applied to increasingly complex tasks. Instead, the assumption is that the parameters

of all literacy tasks, and thus what constitutes competence, are shaped by purpose, audience, and

social contexts. When applied to academic writing, scholars can be seen as participating in

discourse communities with a specific set of social practices (Aitchison, 2009; Berkenkotter,

Huckin, & Ackerman, 1988; Blakeslee, 1997; Gee, 1996; Ivanic, 1998; Kamler & Thomson,

2006; Kamler & Thomson, 2008; Lea, 2004; Lee & Aitchison, 2009). Lea and Street (2006)

crystalized this socio-cultural approach by identifying and comparing and contrasting three

perspectives on academic student writing. The first, a study skills approach, assumes writing is a

cognitive skill. Typically, instruction from this perspective focuses on supporting the

development of surface level writing skills and assumes that these skills are generally

transferrable from one writing task and context to the next.

The second perspective Lea and Street (2006) name, academic socialization, is more in

line with a socio-cultural perspective because it assumes that there are discipline-specific

discourses and genres. However, these discourses and genres are viewed as relatively stable;

once they are learned they can be reproduced relatively unproblematically. An academic

literacies perspective, Lea and Street’s third way of thinking about academic writing, is distinct

from this perspective, however, because it assumes that mastery is ultimately defined and shaped

by identity, power, and authority at the personal, institutional, and society levels. Kamler and

Thomson (2006) further explain the academic literacies perspective by referring to Fairclough’s

(1995) three dimensions of discourse: text, discourse practice, and sociocultural practice. Here,

the text can be conceived of as at the center of three, nested layers, each shaping the one inside


of it. In this way, scholars participate (and students must learn how to do the same) in a

discourse community with a set of social practices that are shaped “locally” by the institution and

the advisor, and more distally by the discipline (Kamler & Thomson, 2008). Research in this

area has tended to point out the challenges of students coming to understand and demonstrate

competence according to the particular writing expectations and standards particular to their

departments, universities, and disciplines.

Although Lea (2004) argued that a pedagogy of academic literacies has not been well

developed, this approach makes clear that writing instruction would need to be contextualized

within the actual discourse community of doctoral programs. Lee and Aitchison (2009) assert

that

According to the view of writing as a socially constructed enterprise, the best kind of

writing assistance is that which is embedded in real-life writing practices offering a range

of strategies that focus on the socially situated (institutional and disciplinary) processes

and practices of text-construction while acknowledging the emerging and multifaceted

identity of the writer (p. 92).

Here, a focus on the surface features of writing (study skills approach) would be assumed to be

ineffective because it fails to take into account disciplinary practices and broader institutional

expectations and norms (Kamler & Thomson, 2008). Similarly, writing workshops for graduate

students from across the university offered by university writing centers are assumed to have

limited impact because they are by definition generic and can only help students learn how to

demonstrate writing competence in an academic community of practice in the most general

sense. Based on an academic literacies perspective, “academic writing is better learned along


with subject content and knowledge, rather than ‘bolted on’ as a separate activity” (Aitchison,

2009, p. 906)

In addition to recognizing the importance of context in learning how to be effective

writers at the doctoral level, others have focused on the internal processes involved in doctoral

students coming to see themselves as competent writers. If doing so means becoming a part of a

discourse community, then this often involves taking on a new identity (Berkenkotter et al.,

1988). In particular, Ivanic’s (1998) ground breaking work on writing identity points out that

“writing is an act of identity in which people align themselves with socio-culturally shaped

possibilities for self-hood, playing their part in reproducing or challenging dominant practices

and discourses, and the values, beliefs, and interests which they embody” (Berkenkotter et al.,

1988; Ivanic, 1998). Although Ivanic argues that writing identities are not fixed, she also

suggests that writing support should include efforts to help developing writers see themselves as

members of a discourse community that writes.

This literature review emanates from an understanding that an academic literacies

perspective should undergird the support of writing development and that this process means

taking on a new identity as a scholarly practitioner.

The Nature of Graduate Student Writing

A literature review that focuses on supporting the development of doctoral students, as

distinct from undergraduates is appropriate because writing expectations for them are different

from those of undergraduates (Ondrusek, 2012; Rose & McClafferty, 2001; Starke-Meyerring,

2011). At the academic skills level, they are expected to have mastered basic sentence

construction, grammar, punctuation, and organizational challenges (although it cannot be taken

for granted that they have). The nature of graduate student writing builds on these expectations


by demanding the more frequent exercise of those academic skills of writing in more complex

contexts. Graduate students typically have to write more extended pieces and in a range of

genres. In addition, they may be assessed more frequently, and more weight is assigned to their

writing abilities than when they were undergraduates (Lavelle& Bushrow, 2007; Rose &

McClafferty, 2001). Furthermore, as suggested in the theoretical framework, they also have to

learn how to participate actively in a discourse community in which undergraduates, at best, only

participate on the periphery.

An academic literacies perspective might suggest that every discipline, every university,

every department, and even every dissertation chair has expectations related to a distinct

discourse community. However, articulating the nature of graduate student writing expectations

more generically can make sense if the texts they have to produce (especially the dissertation)

are understood as a genre (Carter, 2011). When the discourse community is conceptualized more

broadly in this way, there are at least two skills that can be identified as those that graduate

students must master to become competent writers: the ability to conduct and communicate text-

based analysis, synthesis, and critique, and the ability to formulate arguments (Casanave &

Hubbard, 1992; Kamler & Thomson, 2006; Tardy, 2005). However, even these generic skills

may be expressed in distinct ways depending on the more specific discipline and institution-

based discourse community of which the student is a member. Kamler and Thomson (2006)

assert that writing at this level consists of recount (what happened), summary, and argument, and

that these elements have to be mixed and organized in just the right way if doctoral students are

“to make their mark, to state their case, to stake a claim” (p. 85).

Being able to demonstrate competency in these areas is complex. Students need to know

enough about the topics about which they are writing to know how to participate appropriately in


the larger, extended conversations of the particular discourse community they are seeking to join.

This involves knowing “what content to transmit…[and] how to transmit that content in a

persuasive way” (Tardy, 2005). Further, they need to nurture their emerging identities as

researchers in order to comfortably take up an authoritative stance (Kamler and Thomson, 2006)

needed to join these conversations. They must also find ways to balance convention and

innovation (Blakeslee, 1997) so that they enliven the discussions of the discourse community

with fresh insights. This type of competence includes using the rhetorical conventions of the

discipline while infusing the texts with individual voice (Cotterall, 2011).

It is no wonder that most doctoral students need guidance in achieving writing

competence at the doctoral level. To be regarded as competent, doctoral students must master

many complex skills that most have not been asked to demonstrate previously. Rose (2001)

observes that most graduate students have not had the kind of training as undergraduates that

would prepare them adequately for the writing expectations of doctoral level work. He

acknowledges that many doctoral students have writing difficulties, but asserts that the support

they need should not be viewed as remedial. Although it is important to address the skill and

technical challenges they sometimes demonstrate, it is as important to support the development

of their identity as scholarly writers and to nurture an understanding of what it means to

participate in an academic discourse community. This makes the focus of writing support for

graduate students very different from an appropriate focus for undergraduate students.

The Writing Challenges Graduate Students Face

On the assumption that writing tasks for graduate students are different than for

undergraduates, many researchers have focused on identifying the nature of the difficulties they

face in mastering the tasks of becoming effective academic writers at this level. Although


Casanave and Hubbard (1992) identified a wide range of writing tasks faculty assign to graduate

students, much of the literature that focuses on graduate student writing difficulties focuses on

the challenges of producing a high quality literature review. Perhaps this task is viewed as

particularly problematic because it requires so many different skills that must be used in

combination. These include knowing how to search systematically for, identify, evaluate, and

analyze appropriate sources (Kwan, 2008; Plakhotnik & Rocco, 2012; Switzer & Perdue, 2011).

However, beyond these tasks, comes the even more daunting identity work they must undertake

when “the novice researcher enters what we call occupied territory--with all the imminent danger

and quiet dread that this metaphor implies” (Kamler & Thomson, 2006, p. 29).

While others use less dire language to talk about the challenges of writing a literature

review specifically, or completing other graduate writing tasks generally, there is much that

suggests graduate students engage in writing at the very edges of a discourse community. While

they may be there legitimately, and may learn to some extent by participating in the discourse of

that community (Lave & Wegner, 1991), they often continue to struggle to become competent.

At least part of the problem is that the experts--their teachers, mentors, and advisors--do not fully

recognize how unfamiliar the community is to many students. Through years of experience, they

have come to see academic writing as normal and universal. Starke (2011) suggests that

experienced academics lose sight of the situated and culturally specific nature of academic

discourse.

Hedgcock (2008), a graduate student who documented his development as a scholarly

writer, supports Starke’s suggestion by asserting that many of his difficulties could have been

averted if writing expectations had been made more explicit. For example, he points out that the

common assignment of “write a paper” is vague for most novices. Similarly, Bharuthrem and


McKenna (2006) identified “difficulty in understanding or interpreting the question” (p. 500) as

a student-reported challenge. Hedgcock (2008) was gradually able to suss out what his

professors expected by paying attention to frequently used terms in both the language of

assignments and the feedback he got. However, his difficulty understanding faculty expectations

is a helpful example of what students often go through while trying to join the unfamiliar

discourse community that is academic writing. Another metaphor that is often invoked to

describe this situation is that student have trouble understanding the “rules of the game”

(Berkenkotter et al., 1988; Wellington, 2010) indicating that they experience difficulty figuring

out how to appropriately join in to the community.

Perhaps an even more apt metaphor is that of a conversation in which academic discourse

could be compared to the written version of a lively conversation taking place among a group of

loquacious interlocutors. Graduate students then have the complex and dogging challenge of

joining a conversation already in progress among experts, about which they may lack the back

story, and may not be up-to-date on the current topic, even while they are struggling to figure out

the etiquette of participating (Kamler & Thomson, 2006; Ondrusek, 2012; Tardy, 2005). Given

that the other participants are preoccupied with their own role in the conversation, unskilled (and

sometimes unwilling) in helping newcomers, and may be not even fully aware of the difficulties

the newcomers face (Skillen & Purser, 2003), the challenge becomes clear. For example,

novices need to learn the right way to ask questions and “what kinds of disciplinary orthodoxies

must be reproduced” (Starke-Meyerring, 2011, p. 81). Further, the most listened to and

respected speakers are often the best story-tellers. Yet, how to insert story-telling into academic

writing seems to be a poorly understood task among most graduate students, who do not

understand this as their task, and do not appreciate that their story can function as the next


installment in someone else’s story. It may not be possible to participate in the conversation

without engaging in extensive reading and gaining the experience with the topic that graduate

students often lack (Maher, Feldon, Timmerman, & Chao, 2014). Thus, success in entering the

conversation hinges “on the learner’s ability to integrate subject matter knowledge with a

knowledge of situationally appropriate linguistic and rhetorical conventions” (Berkenkotter et al.,

1988, p. 37).

While the challenges of figuring out how to become a member of a discourse community

are daunting, they cannot be totally separated from more surface level technical challenges, some

of which are identified in the literature as discrete skill deficits. For example, Kiley (2009)

argues that graduate students experience “stuck points” such as making an argument by using

defensible evidence, understanding the role of theory as both underpinning and being an outcome

of research, and using a framework to locate and bound research. Kammler and Thomson (2006)

point to the problem of students who pile up quotes and summaries. In such instances, they do

not connect the literature to their studies and fail to point to the relative importance of one

reference over another; student authors’ voices disappear and they become invisible in their own

texts.

Other researchers identify difficulties at the sentence and paragraph levels. For example,

Delyser (2003) observes that students have difficulty drawing strong connections from one

sentence to another, and others point to difficulty organizing ideas, summarizing, writing

persuasively, using correct grammar, word usage and vocabulary, citation, and revision (Can

and Walker, 2011; Carter, 2012; Casanave and Hubbard, 1992; Rose, 2001). Lastly, the

literature points to the difficulty that graduate students demonstrate in formulating arguments (N.

Carter, 2012; Davies, 2008; Kiley, 2009; Koncel & Carney, 1992).


In addition to and perhaps undergirding all other difficulties, are affective barriers that

students encounter (Bloom, 1981). Bloom (1981) was particularly sensitive to the distinct ways

in which doctoral students’ lives can contribute to anxiety, procrastination and perfectionism can

be exacerbated for funded students who feel a particular obligation to be high achievers and

worthy of the support they receive. Although some researchers suggest that studying examples

of proficient writing can be helpful, Bloom suggests that it can also add to students’ insecurity by

creating disconcerting comparisons between the goal and their present writing abilities. The lack

of structure and the long term nature of the dissertation process can make things more difficult

especially when an advisor leaves, or when a student’s job or personal responsibilities change.

Wellington (2010) observes that negative feelings about writing come from a sense that

the work is frustrating and hard, and that graduate students experience stress, fear, and

uncertainty about the task. Onwuegbuzi and Collins (2001) studied relationships between

writing aversion, procrastination, and apprehension. They found that “graduate students’

apprehension about writing appears to be related to academic procrastination stemming from fear

of failure and task aversiveness” (p. 562). It seems likely that procrastination can contribute to a

negative cycle regarding writing. Other factors that contribute include unrealistic expectations

on the part of the student writers, fear of negative evaluations coupled with resistance to critique,

unrealistic time management, over-emphasis on the production of error-free texts, prior academic

experiences, and low self-efficacy fueled by worry and doubt (Ondrusek, 2012). These affective

issues may be exacerbated by misconceptions about what successful writers do (Koncel &

Carney, 1992). For example, many students believe they have to have everything worked out in

their minds before they begin to write or do not understand the importance of iterative revision

(Maher et al., 2014; Ondrusek, 2012; Wellington, 2010).


To return to a point made earlier, an additional challenge of becoming a proficient writer

in graduate school involves identity formation (Ivanic, 1998). Making the necessary

developmental transition (Maher et al., 2014) can be difficult when it means taking on a new

identity as a “doctoral researcher” or scholar (Kamler & Thomson, 2006). Engaging

simultaneously in what Kamler and Thomson (2006) call “text work” and “identity work” is

inherently stressful and uncomfortable (Ivanic, 1998). Kamler and Thompson observe that

“what is at stake is the difficulty of writing as an authority when one does not feel authoritative”

(p. 508). This dissonance can contributes to difficulty establishing an appropriate voice in

written work as students struggle to take up their own authoritative voice and integrate it with the

scholarly works they must cite (Ivanic, 1998; Kamler & Thomson, 2006; Rose & McClafferty,

2001)

Writing within the distinct discourse community of a professional practice education

doctoral program also brings distinct writing challenges. Rather than course work that helps

students move toward the typical PhD task of identifying a gap in the knowledge base as the

starting point of a dissertation project, EdD students are expected to frame their dissertations

around problems of practice. This problem of practice orientation also impacts the writing

assignments they are expected to complete during their course work leading up to the

dissertation. In delineating a problem of practice, students have to identify a specific, local

problem, but position it within larger educational issues. Therefore, they may struggle to find an

appropriate balance between the personal and the general. When more experiential and localized

information is included, it must still link up to the broader research topic and the relevant

literature.


San Miguel (2007) helps make clear that the problem of practice dissertation is an

unfamiliar genre for students (and perhaps for faculty as well). While first person narrative

accounts and references would be the norm in a professional practice dissertation, there is also an

expectation of a more scholarly approach using an appropriate discipline-specific academic

writing style. Hence, San Miguel conjectures that “it seems that a key challenge for practice-

based researchers is how to go about adopting or adapting textual conventions so that one’s own

and one’s colleagues’ professional expertise can be reconfigured as legitimate academic

knowledge” (p. 81). This challenge hearkens back to foundational philosophical issues of what

counts as knowledge and evidence, what is appropriate for citation, and raises the question of

who is considered a knower, and the appropriate medium in which to communicate with diverse

audiences (e.g., scholars and practitioners). All of these additional issues understandably create

confusion and represent challenges not only for students, but for faculty who have been trained

in the PhD tradition (San Miguel, 2007).

Strategies for Supporting Graduate Student Writing

The remainder of this paper focuses on specific strategies for supporting the development

of graduate student writing skills. It is divided into two sections. The first section focuses on

what I call “traditional” strategies because they are grounded in legacy assumptions about

doctoral students including that they are full time, probably funded, maybe quite young with few

responsibilities other than being a student, and fully able to engage in their doctoral work without

many competing demands on their time. These traditional strategies are also grounded in

pervasive assumptions about writing--that it is comprised of a set of skills that can be learned and

applied across a wide spectrum of contexts, texts, audiences, and purposes. Approaches based

on the traditional view tend to be voluntary and are offered outside of course work. These


approaches tend to be generic, and, consequently, are often made available to graduate students

across the university.

The second section focuses on what I call “alternative” strategies. This section is

grounded in assumptions that are diametrically opposed to the traditional assumptions, including

that professional practice doctoral students are part-time students who are extremely busy full-

time professionals, often with families and other pressing responsibilities that limit the amount of

time they can devote to their graduate work, and that the tasks of competent writing at this level

are shaped by conventions of the discipline, the department, the academic unit, the university,

and the academic and practice fields. Consequently, alternative approaches are embedded in

course work so that assistance is situated and experiential (Kolb, 1984; Lave & Wegner, 1991),

does not require extra time outside of course work, and is grounded in an academic literacies

framework (Lea & Street, 2006).

The terms “traditional” and “alternative ” are not meant to imply any value judgments

and should not be thought of as presenting an either/or set of choices. Potentially, deploying a

broad range of strategies encompassing both approaches can help graduate students improve

their writing. In this way they can function as scholarly practitioners (CPED citation) who can

effectively share their research with a variety of stakeholder so as to impact the field and

improve educational outcomes for a wide range of learners. However, I argue here that it is

imperative to provide alternative strategies given what we believe to be the realities that

professional practice doctoral students and programs face.

Traditional Approaches

Traditional interventions, because they make assumptions about students and about the

tasks of writing, tend to be generic and voluntary. The most commonly suggested are advice


books, free-standing writing classes (credit or non-credit), workshops and retreats, and peer

writing groups. However, these interventions tend to locate the problem in the student and focus

on technical difficulties. In fact, it is probably easier to try to address a skills deficit than to

teach social practices (Badenhorst, Moloney, Rosales, Dyer, & Ru, 2014), especially in the

context of interventions that are in any way separated from the actual contexts in which writing

takes place (i.e., to complete specific assignments, tasks, and purposes). This is not to say that

they are ineffective. In fact, many researchers report on specific traditional approaches for the

sake of sharing their successes. However, they do not generally demonstrate how short term

successes contribute to long term development of writing skills across different developing

scholarly practitioner writing tasks, nor are they always practical for professional students.

Advice Books and Tips. It is probably commonplace for the harried professor to

recommend that students purchase books that dole out writing advice for academic success

generally or for the dissertation specifically. Presumably, they hope that this will help students

address their writing difficulties and alleviate the time consuming demands of reading

awkwardly written student (Lee & Aitchison, 2009) texts, as well as being an indicator of their

own uncertainty about how best to help their students improve. Doing so, therefore, also has the

advantage of providing expertise where the professor may feel limited; few have learned

systematically how to help students improve their writing and, consequently, most depend on

how they were taught, previous experience, and tips they have accrued from colleagues

(although conversations about practice are often rare in higher education). Speaking from my

own experience, helping students improve their writing in a dissertation is one of the most time-

consuming, exhausting, and frustrating tasks of being a professor. If a book can help, why not

recommend that students read it?


Several advice books are repeatedly recommended in the literature and accrue accolades

from Amazon.com reviewers. For example, Delyser (2003) recommends several books which

she uses in a writing seminar she teaches including Bolker’s (1998) Writing your dissertation in

fifteen minutes a day, Watson’s (1987) Writing a thesis: A quick guide to long essays and

dissertations, Becker’s (1986) Writing for social scientists: How to finish your thesis, book, or

article, and Williams’ (1990) Style: Toward clarity and grace. However, others have critiqued

these kinds of resources. While advice books may tap into doctoral students’ need for assistance

that they may not get from instructors and mentors, Kamler and Thomson (2008), who analyzed

the content of dissertation advice books, found that they tend to characterize the dissertation as

having a rigid format and style. While this may not be problematic in and of itself, an academic

literacies approach (Lea & Street, 2006) suggest it offers an incomplete and misleading response

to the task of writing a dissertation. Paltridge (2002) compared eight dissertation guidebooks to

30 theses in a range of doctoral fields written by students from the U.S., U.K., Australia, and

New Zealand. He found that half of the theses varied from the generic, traditional format

described in these books and thus obscured the variety of expectations and affordances that

actually occur in doctoral programs (and possibly more so in innovating professional practice

doctoral programs) around the world. Although there was considerable variation in the amount

of space devoted to discussion of overall organization and form, these texts failed to touch on the

range of options that are being deployed. Furthermore, “much less attention was given to thesis

or dissertation writing itself, or the content of individual chapters” (p. 136). These features

suggest that dissertation advice books may fail to hit their mark.

Not only is the universal format of dissertations portrayed in advice books unwarranted,

Kamler and Thomson (2008) found that they describe the writing process as a series of linear


steps to be completed rather than the iterative back and forth writing and revising process that it

is. Further, Kamler and Thomson observe that this book genre tends to overgeneralize about

writing rules that are often hard to operationalize, and offer reassurance at the same time that

they instill fear. Therefore, they unrealistically offer hope and promise success if students follow

a “foolproof” set of procedures. Maher et al. (2008), who wrote about their experiences as

graduate students learning to improve their writing, affirm that advice books fail to deliver on

their promises, observing that they tend to focus on tips and tricks and structure and rules rather

than specific ways to become better writers. This is not necessarily to say that dissertation and

general writing advice books are useless. They may sometimes be very helpful, to some

students, under some circumstances, but they clearly do have drawbacks and are unlikely to

deliver on broad claims about writing improvement and dissertation completion.

Writing Classes and non-credit Writing Groups. There are many first-person,

instructor-written accounts which describe the design of writing courses that either stand alone or

are offered as running parallel to a content course, implemented with the aim of supporting the

development of graduate student writing. These tend to build in peer feedback as a key

component (Delyser, 2003; Paltridge, 2002). Rose’s (2001) description is frequently cited by

others as an exemplar of this type of support. He describes a long-running course at UCLA as

being structured as a writing workshop. Students bring what they are working on for other

classes and get feedback on three to five pages at a time. They read aloud, give their own

evaluation of the piece, and then an open discussion of it follows. Rose reports that while

students do often struggle with surface issues such as summary, citation, usage, and punctuation,

discussion of these can lead to more substantive topics about academic discourse including

forming an argument, writer identity, and discipline-specific writing. Because conversations


about basic skills often overlap with much more complex writing issues, “distinctions between

what is basic and what is not become harder to make” (p. 29). Other models described in the

literature follow a similar format (Paltridge, 2003). Rose asserts that there are several benefits of

this course format. Having a structure for reading work aloud is very helpful; often students hear

mistakes and awkward, unclear, or overly long sentences before anyone has to point them out.

The workshop format also helps students begin to see writing as a craft and helps dispel

unhelpful beliefs about writing. Because the class is cross-disciplinary, it can help students deal

with complex issues of audience and become better, more analytical and critical readers. As the

writing course became institutionalized at UCLA, Rose reports that it has had several significant

spin-offs including faculty talking more about supporting writing development with each other

and students, and many students forming their own peer writing groups subsequent to taking the

writing workshop course. Although the success of this course hinges on students learning to give

and receive feedback, Rose does not describe specifically how they develop these skills;

unfortunately, this information is generally lacking in the literature.

Badenhorst et al. (2014) observe that many writing courses for graduate students

typically fail to address the true difficulty of understanding academic writing as a set of social

practices that students need to acquire, opting instead to see the student as deficient and the

writing tasks they must accomplish as a set of technical skills. They, along with others,

developed a course model that focus more explicitly on helping students understand the “rules of

the game” with regard to academic writing. The course they describe was based on an

understanding of the barriers students encounter within the curriculum instead of trying to fix

what is perceived to be wrong with students. The course encourages students to do “discourse

analysis” which clearly assumes that academic writing is a distinct form of communication.


Here the goal is to help them understand and recognize the underlying assumptions of academic

writing. The course activities emphasize writing as a social practice and help students

understand what these are within their discipline, department, field, and university by facilitating

critical dialogue about academic discourses. As a result, Badenhorst et al. report that “students

began to analyze their own position, their audience, what they wanted to achieve and how much

choice they had” (2014, p. 9).

Another course model, described by Delyser (2003) also builds in peer feedback and

analysis of the discourse of academic writing, but additionally seeks to build a writing culture in

which giving and receiving feedback is a primary activity. Each session has three focus areas:

writing process and mechanics, analysis of discipline specific models, and a peer feedback

workshop. Students have short writing assignments for homework and complete writing

exercises during class. Each week they read published papers and analyze them with regard to a

particular topic such as openings, use of theory, audience, transitions, and using evidence.

Students are encouraged to talk to each other about their writing. Through these activities, as

well as an appropriate class size for substantive discussion of one student’s writing each week,

food, and discussions about writing and writing habits, fears and phobias, Delyser asserts that the

students develop a sense of safety and become a community “who can talk with each other about

their writing, who are able to share their work, and help themselves and one another with the

writing process” (p. 174). She claims that this give and take contributes directly to students

learning about the revision process. The final assignment for this course is to submit a revised

version of the chapter or paper that received feedback during class. Although similar to others,

she asserts that few writing guides useful, Delyser does recommend several she finds helpful and

integrates readings and exercises from them in the class segment on process and mechanics.


Descriptions of stand-alone writing classes that enact an academic literacies model are

helpful, but they do not fully document effectiveness. Although students generally evaluate

them favorably, they leave questions about the ways in which students continue to treat writing

as a process, deepen their knowledge of academic writing discourse, and depend on peer

feedback outside of and after they complete the course and face the busy expectations of other

semesters or the isolation typical of writing a dissertation. Even with the best possible outcomes,

the solution of a stand-alone writing course to address the need to develop graduate student

writing skill may be problematic for logistical reasons. First, writing takes time to develop. A

course, even if a semester long, cannot support students over the long haul of graduate training.

If offered as an optional course, busy professional students may be likely to opt out, choosing

instead to focus on content courses that will deepen their knowledge base or further their

professional aspirations. In compressed programs increasingly typical in professional practice

doctoral programs, there may not be room in the curriculum for such a course and faculty may

resist ceding a content course in favor of a course many may perceive as remedial. For these

reasons, it seems unlikely that writing courses can fully address the writing needs of graduate

students.

Descriptions of student writing groups which meet outside of a credit-bearing class

structure share many of the same elements as Rose’s writing course (Aitchison, 2009; Ferguson,

2009; Maher et al., 2008; Plakhotnik & Rocco, 2012) with similar benefits. These include that

they meet on a regular basis every few weeks for an hour-and-a-half to two hours or more, are

voluntary, and feature a workshop approach to writing in which students take turns giving and

receiving feedback on their work. Some are student-run, but others have a professor or writing

center staff facilitator. Studies of student writing groups tend to tout their benefits. For example,


Ferguson (2009) makes claims that writing groups can help students identify and unpack myths

about academic writing that often create barriers to success, help them gain a greater

understanding of academic writing conventions, and improve their critical reading and writing

skills. Aitchison (2009) suggests that writing groups help establish a sense of the craft of

writing, encourage the development of a writing community, and can provide more regular and

timely feedback than faculty may be able to do. They can also help alleviate affective barriers

such as self-doubt, low self-confidence, and anxiety. In general, research in this area tends to

focus on the format and benefits of writing groups. Few point out that students may have some

difficulty or feel uncomfortable critiquing each other’s writing (Aitchison, 2009; Maher, 2008).

However, most report that, as writing became less privatized and students gained experience as

critical readers, their confidence in giving and receiving feedback increased. Even research that

indicates some of the challenges these groups face, however, provides scant or no detail about

how groups overcome them. The literature in this area seems to indicate that an appropriate

process will lead to positive results, despite some initial struggle.

Although their potential value is significant, participation in voluntary writing groups,

separated from course work, may be hard to encourage among graduate students in professional

practice doctoral programs. Many may be squeezing out just enough time from their busy lives

to attend classes and fulfill course requirements. They may encounter significant difficulty

finding time to prepare and participate in writing groups not held during regularly scheduled

class time no matter how much they might like to. Even technology-supported ways of doing

this may fall flat with this population because of the additional time demands this activity

requires to take full advantage of them.


Workshops and Retreats. Descriptions of writing workshops and retreats for graduate

students tend to indicate that they address specific challenges during a short time period.

Because they are often offered to students across the university, they may take a generic stance

on writing, eschewing the academic literacies perspective. This suggests that while they can help

students learn more about some aspects of academic writing, they may more easily circle around

surface level topics and technical difficulties, skirting the specific practices of disciplines,

departments, and programs (Starke-Meyerring, 2011). This means they may be disconnected

from course work and viewed by students as remedial, causing those who attend to feel that their

needs have not been met, and discouraging others from attending (Kamler & Thomson, 2006).

However, Skillen (2003) describes a workshop model that is based on integrating the work of

content area instruction with writing workshop tutors. Here, workshops are offered based on

information gathered from faculty about difficulties students are experiencing and examples of

published research in the discipline which is then annotated with regard to structural features.

During the workshops, students look at the annotated examples, identify the same features in

other examples, and are asked to verbalize an introduction to their research that makes the same

moves. They also use peer review to help students apply what they are learning to their own

writing. Skillen suggests that such workshops must help students gain conceptual understanding

at the same time that they work on surface level issues because these skills are interrelated.

When these aspects of writing are taught in isolation, students have difficulty drawing

connections across them.

Carter (2011) also sees the value of workshops, even when they are generic. She

observes that generic support is practical from an institutional perspective because of the

efficiencies it creates. Pushing back from the academic literacies approach, Carter suggests it


makes sense if the dissertation is viewed, at least on one level, as a genre rather than a discipline-

specific artifact. She asserts that “a thesis from any discipline has a generic quality that

distinguishes it…from an academic article, book, chapter, or paper for a taught course” (p. 731).

Given this conception of the dissertation, workshops can help students with the genre, focusing

in particular on teaching the “rules of the game” of the dissertation genre and as a supplement to

the discipline specific support that a supervisor can provide. Workshop leaders can work on the

common qualities of “thesis-liness” (p. 730), including critical and analytical review of relevant

research literature, a description of research methods, researcher positionality, clear

communication, and the “defensive” discourse common to academic writing. While others have

criticized the cross-campus workshop offering, Carter observes that it can help create a

community of practice across campus and increase interdisciplinary cross-fertilization.

No matter how effective the workshop implementation is, however, at least one negative

that it shares with voluntary student writing courses and extra-curricular writing groups, is that

they depend on students volunteering to participate. Even the best workshop has the chance to

help students improve their writing only if they participate, but many professional practice

doctoral students seem likely to opt out.

Alternative, Course-embedded Approaches

Traditional approaches to supporting graduate student writing development offer several

helpful strategies, but also have inherent drawbacks. For this reason, some researchers suggest

that work on graduate student writing must be considered an integral aspect of the graduate

program curriculum by embedding it in course work (Lea, 2004; Mullen, 2001; Sallee et al.,

2011). Course-embedded approaches to supporting the development of graduate student writing

assume that support should be situated, ongoing, just-in-time (so that it responds to the realities


of our students’ busy lives), focused on accelerated degree completion, and theoretically

grounded in an academic literacies perspective that views all writing tasks and texts as having

distinct expectations and challenges. An analysis of the literature on this topic can be summed

up as pointing to five strategies that can be built into course experiences throughout the students’

program experience. It seems apparent that explicit instruction on writing can support

development (Skillen & Purser, 2003) and two of these strategies focus on this. First is making

expectations regarding writing “rules of the game” for each assignment and for academic writing

in the discipline, the program, and the university more generally as transparent as possible;

second is actually working on writing as part of course activities by analyzing writing models

and reading about writing. The other three strategies cluster around experientially scaffolding

and reinforcing the notion that writing is a process, building habits that support this by

structuring course assignments so that students must revise their writing during the semester,

providing detailed and comprehensible feedback on drafts in a timely manner so that students

can revise based on instructor feedback, and creating ongoing opportunities for peer feedback.

Transparency. Students may have difficulty understanding writing expectations not

only related to a specific course assignment, but also, more broadly, related to the program, the

discipline and the university. Hedgcock (2008), reporting retrospectively about his writing

development, asserted that students should not have to depend on figuring this out on their own

as he did. At the course level, however, instructors may inadvertently assume that assignments

are clear when expectations are more tacit than they realize. Because different courses may

require different kinds of writing (e.g., literature reviews, integration of theory with experience,

reflection), students may need help in understanding specific text demands. An important

starting point in helping students become better writers is for instructors to be reflective and


communicative about the aims, assumptions and goals of assignments, and insure that these are

clear rather than simply taking for granted that they are (Blakeslee, 1997; Koncel & Carney,

1992). Because faculty often have tacit assumptions, knowledge, and expectations, students may

not even know the right questions to ask in order to clarify assignments; therefore, it should be

up to faculty to do this.

Additionally, students need a clear statement of assessment criteria (e.g., by using an

assessment rubric) (Lea & Street, 2006). In order to increase clarity, instructors may need to be

more reflective about their own standards and expectations. In this way, they can share “insider

knowledge” in a comprehensible way with students and help demystify what constitutes effective

writing (Ivanic, 1998). As an example, Hedgcock (2008) reports that he makes an effort “to

demystify the means and the processes of developing professional literacy by acquainting

students with strategies for effective reading and writing, clearly outlining criteria for written

work, and providing benchmark samples” (pp. 43-44). He asserts that these efforts need to work

in tandem with what students can learn through “imitation, explorations, and experimentation”

(p. 44).

Explicit focus on writing during class time. Given that an academic literacies

framework assumes that scholars participate in discourse communities with distinct social

practices and that students have difficulty grasping what these are, researchers suggest that

students need explicit instruction in order for their academic writing to improve. For example,

they need time to talk about different genres of writing, definitions of good writing, and what

practices and skills contribute to being a good writer (Kamler &Thomson, 2006; Skillen &

Purser, 2003). This means, ideally, embedding writing instruction into regular, content-based

coursework.


To do this, strategies for teaching writing in stand-alone courses can be adapted and

embedded in content-focused coursework. A potentially fruitful area for beginning this work is

to create opportunities for students to explore and understand who they are as writers at the start

of their doctoral studies. Although this activity need not be repeated in every course, it could be

helpful to periodically revisit students’ writing identities as they are presumably evolving as they

progress through the program. One way to investigate writing identity is to have students

compose their writing autobiographies. This activity lends itself to periodic revision over the

duration of the program and can be used for self and program evaluation. Another helpful

starting point which Kamler and Thomson (2006) recommend is to have students generate a list

of adjectives which describe themselves as writers, and then sketch a brief history of the types of

writing they have done by focusing in particular on what has been most satisfying and what has

been most challenging. Talking through these autobiographies, they suggest, provides an

opportunity to analyze and unpack students’ (often faulty) beliefs and assumptions about

academic writing. Although she focused on undergraduate writers, Ivanic’s (1998) seminal work

points to the key role that identity plays in the development of academic writing skills. She

suggests that identity study should be part of the work of learning about academic writing. It

gives writers more control of and understanding that writing is a means of portraying a particular

type of person, and that writers must make important choices based on an understanding that

writing is a complex social act. They should also have the opportunity to learn and make choices

about the ways that different discourses position them in different communities (Gee, 1996) and

understand the consequences of those choices. Given this, Ivanic argues that instructors “should

learn to view students’ writing as the product of their developing sense of what it means to be a

member of a specific academic community, of who they are and how they want to be….They


[then] might …be less inclined to jump to damning judgments of student writing, and might

instead be able to help students come to a more conscious understanding of these processes…”

(p. 343). When students engage in the self reflective activities described here, not only do they

benefit from increased self-awareness, but they also provide a window for their instructors to see

how their writing identifies shape their writing.

On a more concrete level of strategies to support writing instruction that is embedded in

coursework, Lavell (2007) developed an instrument, the Inventory of Processes in Graduate

Student Writing that assesses students’ approaches to writing by linking their beliefs about it

with their practices. Presumably, such an instrument is another way to help students be self-

reflective and explicit about who they are as writers and how this influences their approach to

writing. He identified six factors--elaborative, self-efficacy, no revision, intuitive, scientist, task

oriented, and sculptor--which influence students approach to writing, and suggested that

identifying which factors are dominant can help students and instructors target areas of needed

support. To this end, he suggests specific areas of focus that would support growth for each

factor. Using this logic, it is assumed that students who can identify their writing approach can

more directly identify their challenges and consciously and concretely seek to address them.

When embedding the development of student writing skill in course work, it is obviously

important to be parsimonious. Otherwise, the effort could well take away from the instructor’s

goals for coverage of course content. One approach that can help students acquire course content

at the same time that it supports writing development is to treat course texts as writing models

that can be analyzed and discussed not only for their content but for their structure and craft

elements (Harvey, 2008; Kiley, 2009; Lavelle & Bushrow, 2007; Värlander, 2008). This gives

students opportunities to see authors effectively using a range of academic writing strategies at


all levels of writing including sentence, paragraph, section headings and other organizational

features, as well as how arguments are structured and literature is synthesized. San Miguel and

Nelson (2007), in discussing how to implement the use of writing models, suggest that models

need not purposefully illustrate very good or very bad writing; either can open up conversations

about writing. Students report that seeing models not only helps them develop their skills, but

makes instructor expectations more transparent (as cited in Pokorny & Pickford, 2010). Along

the same lines as using published texts as models, Davies (2008) suggests that students follow a

series of steps in the construction of an argument because he observes that they have difficulty

using inference to make an argument and claims that this is a skill that is not often explicitly

taught. Introducing students to language that is used to draw connections in an argument, the use

of graphic organizers, or argument-mapping software tools that force writers to visually

represent the construction of an argument may also help. His suggestions illustrate the power of

teaching writing skills explicitly.

Although not an evidence-based strategy, Kammler and Thomson (2006) suggest using

published texts to create templates upon which students can model their writing. Such a template

can help students take on the identity of a more experienced and authoritative writer by creating

a scaffold before they might be ready to do so independently. This suggestion mirrors an

approach upon which Graff and Birkenstein (2006) structure their text on writing for

undergraduates. Their book is designed to help students see academic writing as a form of

discourse with specific participation moves. They provide templates for many aspects of

academic writing, including appropriately embedding quotes and summaries from other sources

and using signal words to lead the reader through a text. While templates can not provide an


ever useful formula for effective academic writing, students can gain skill through exposure to

this direct instruction approach to direct instruction,

Multiple drafts/revision. Several researchers point to the value of structuring course

assignments to support writing development; the key strategy here is breaking up assignments in

such a way that students are required to submit multiple drafts of the same paper (Bharuthram &

McKenna, 2006; Caffarella & Barnett, 2000; Ivanic, 1998; Starke-Meyerring, 2011). Building

course assignments so that students have more than one opportunity to submit drafts for feedback

serves two important purposes. First, it models the fact that effective writing is typically

produced as the outcome of a process that often includes many efforts at revision interspersed

with feedback from a variety of audiences. Second, it encourages students to revisit their efforts

and work purposefully to improve based on responses from other readers. Researchers have

found that students were more likely to use and learn from feedback on multiple drafts of papers

that they work on throughout the semester than when feedback comes on a final paper. This

makes sense given that Carless (2006) found that feedback on one assignment does not

necessarily translate to skill development for the next one.

One often cited study that demonstrated the value of structuring assignments as a series

of drafts was conducted by Caffarella and Barnett (2000). In a course they studied, the students

were required to submit three drafts of the same paper; the second and third drafts were supposed

to incorporate feedback from both a classmate and a faculty member. For these subsequent

drafts, they were also required to write a memo to describe how they had used the feedback or a

rationale for why they had not. The intervention was designed to simulate a scholarly writing

process. However, opportunities to revise based on feedback can scaffold conceptual

understanding of writing as a process as well. Even if multiple drafts are not possible, breaking


an assignment into small chunks and providing feedback for each chunk can help students focus

more on process than on product (Mullen, 2001; Sallee et al., 2011). Writing multiple drafts in

response to feedback can also help them take a more active role in analyzing the demands and

constraints of various academic writing genres and develop their identity as researchers who can

write effectively about their work (Starke-Meyerring, 2011)

Instructor feedback. Feedback communicates community expectations (Bitchener,

Basturkmen, & East, 2010; Can & Walker, 2011) and therefore is important in supporting the

development of graduate student writing (Hyatt, 2005; P. Ferguson, 2011). Ideally, it should

communicate to learners about the gap between their current performance and where it should be

(Värlander, 2008) and what is needed for meaningful, effective revision (Can & Walker, 2011;

Carless, 2006). Presumably, most faculty would say they give feedback on student work.

However, Hyatt (2005) argues that, if writing pedagogy is going to reflect the developmental

process of learning to write that graduate students must engage in, “then the role and function of

tutor feedback needs to be engaged with more critically” (p. 352). This assessment is echoed by

others who find that feedback often misses its mark because it is poorly done, misunderstood by

students who are not well prepared to receive it, or poorly timed. In other words, not all

feedback is equal in terms of its capacity to promote learning; feedback given does not

necessarily lead to learning (Sadler, 2010). Yet, when feedback is treated and understood as

formative rather than summative assessment, it “has the capacity to turn each item of assessed

work into an instrument for the further development of each student’s learning” (Hyland, 2000,

as cited in Higgins, Hartley, & Skelton, 2002, p. 54).

One of the complications of feedback is that its purpose can vary so significantly.

Several researchers have analyzed actual instructor feedback given to students and note that it


can range from correction and editing at the sentence, paragraph or organizational level, to

rationalizing a grade, to making suggestions about how to do better on future writing endeavors.

Comments can be encouraging or disparaging, and may focus on style, content, argument

formation, and genre. Feedback also varies in terms of the relationship between the instructor

and the student that it implies. While some instructors use imperatives and assume complete

authority, others seek to create dialogue or use passive voice suggesting a more egalitarian

relationship among writers all working toward a common goal (Bitchener et al., 2010; Carless,

2006; Hyatt, 2005; Ivanic, Clark, & Rimmershaw, 2000; Kumar & Stracke, 2007; Mutch, 2003).

Feedback can also be formative, or what Mutch (2003) calls “implied developmental,” or

summative (strictly evaluative). Timing matters too. Pokorny (2010) found that when feedback

comes at the end of a semester on a final project and is accompanied by a grade, even if it is

intended as formative, its developmental impact can be suppressed. Certainly the purpose,

whether it be implicit or explicit, has a significant shaping influence on the form feedback takes

on. Ivanic et al. (2000) suggest that the wide variation in feedback type and style may be due to

diversity of faculty circumstances, values, beliefs, working practices, and purposes for

responding to student work. They find that these are usually implicit and that faculty are not

particularly self-reflective about this issue.

That faculty may not be particularly well thought out in their feedback approach begs the

question of how students perceive it. Findings suggest that they are often confused by it because

it can be vague (e.g., “need more detail” or “need to be more analytical”), obtuse and

incomprehensible, use academic language that is not well understood by students, difficult to

connect to anything specific, or simply illegible (Carless, 2006; Ivanic et al., 2000; Mirador,

2014; Mutch, 2003; Sadler, 2010). Under these conditions, it is understandable that students


have difficulty using feedback to inform and improve subsequent writing efforts. Can and

Walker (2011) surveyed students about their feedback needs and found that they “needed

feedback most frequently for arguments and justifications in their paper, clarity and

understandbility of the statements, inclusion and exclusion of information, introduction, and

conclusion” (p. 518). However, even when faculty work hard to make themselves clear, the one

sided aspect of this type of communication (the receiver is not present to signal understanding)

can lead to misunderstandings (Mirador, 2014; Sadler, 2010). Additionally, students’

interpretations of feedback can be shaped by their own identities. For example, Mirador (2014)

found cultural capital and self-esteem can contribute to the alignment between instructor intent

and student understanding of feedback.

Obviously misinterpreting feedback can create a significant barrier to learning. Other

researchers have identified a strong affective element of feedback that can also contribute to this

problem. This area of research has found that feedback often evokes strong negative emotions

(Can & Walker, 2011; Carless, 2006). Young (2000) argues that these difficulties can be more

intense for older students because it runs counter to their self-concept as adults by reinforcing an

expert/novice relationship with instructors. In particular, he studied the impact of self-esteem on

how students receive feedback and found a strong relationship between them. Regardless of the

nature of the comments, he found that those with high self-esteem viewed feedback positively;

those with low self-esteem had the opposite response and will take negative feedback, even when

it is preceded by positive comments, personally and get upset. Välander (2008) identified the

most common emotions associated with feedback as shame, pride, uncertainty, hope, and fear.

She asserts that students’ ability to use feedback is influenced by their emotions toward it. She

suggests that emotional reactions might completely erase the potential benefits of receiving


feedback because students may have difficulty distinguishing between feedback on their work

and feedback on them personally. A typical recommendation to address the affective impact of

feedback is to begin with positive and encouraging comments, offer suggestions on how to

improve rather than simply describing deficits, and focus on form and content. It should be both

specific to the particular text and general about expectations of the genre so that it can be applied

to subsequent writing tasks. Given that the nature of the faculty/student relationship influences

the way in which feedback is received, treating feedback as an interaction within the context of a

relationship between the instructor and the student can also help. This makes the relationship

that instructors form with students (during class time and through the feedback interaction) at

least as important as the feedback methods (Pokorny, 2010). An additional benefit of treating

feedback as a means of dialogic communication there is less likelihood of misunderstanding

(Sadler, 2010; Värlander, 2008).

Although somewhat sparse, research on the affective impact of feedback suggests that

faculty cannot separate the intended cognitive impact of feedback from the potential emotional

impact. Given the potential for misunderstanding and hurt feelings, several researchers have

made additional recommendations related to preparing students to receive feedback in the most

constructive way possible. Without preparation, feedback may fail to serve a developmental

purpose (Mutch, 2003). For example, Värlander (2008) suggests that instructors discuss the role

of feedback, clarify assessment criteria, and provide models of excellent papers to clarify

expectations. In this way, the process can be made more transparent before feedback is

provided. She also suggests that instructors share their own experiences and emotions associated

with receiving feedback. Sadler (2010) suggests that students need explicit help knowing how to

translate feedback into improved writing. “Unless the prerequisite knowledge is identified and


addressed, the prospects for even the most thorough feedback are inherently limited” (Sadler,

2010, p. 537). This is necessary because it cannot be assumed that they have the same working

knowledge as faculty of how to do so. Another important strategy to prepare students to receive

feedback constructively is to have them engage in peer feedback--a strategy which will be

discussed in depth in the next section. Not only does this help them develop some of the tacit

knowledge about feedback necessary to make sense of it, but also decreases the power

asymmetry of faculty to student feedback (Värlander, 2008) and can help build more of a sense

of working together to improve writing.

In spite of many barriers potentially limiting the usefulness of feedback, when asked by

researchers, students express that they are eager to receive feedback (Higgins et al., 2002). Can

and Walker (2011) describe the research base on student perceptions of feedback as limited

because studies tends to be in one discipline, and focus on one specific aspect of feedback, a

single instructor, or a specific population. However, the research that has been conducted in this

area, unfortunately, generally finds feedback to be problematic. Students report that they get too

little too late and that is often not specific enough to be helpful. They perceive that there is often

a mismatch between the grade and the comments (which may be caused, in part, by the impulse

to be positive) (Ferguson, 2011; Mirador, 2014; Pokorny & Pickford, 2010). The students who

participated in Mirador’s (2014) research said that feedback did not give them enough guidance

on how to join scholarly conversations by meeting the standards for discipline-specific discourse

communities. These perceptions of feedback suggest a number of recommendations for faculty.

It should be supportive, frequent and ongoing. If it cannot be applied to subsequent assignments

in the same course, it is not necessarily very useful. Some want opportunities to talk about

feedback in face-to-face meetings with instructors. Ferguson (2011) conducted a survey on


feedback preferences that garnered 465 responses from graduate students. They rated brief

comments and written summaries/overviews as most useful among a range of feedback types.

One- or two-word comments and tick marks or exes were seen as of no value, especially when

the grade is low. While a few students said that too much detail is not good, most said the more

the better. Feedback on structure, overall content, and key ideas was much more highly valued

than feedback on small details. Given that writing confidence is still a significant issue, even at

the graduate student level, providing at least some encouragement is important. Respondents

also suggest that when feedback is combined with a grade, it is important that the relationship

between the commentary and the grade is clear. Can and Walker (2011) found that students want

straightforward, clear direction on how to improve and detailed feedback that helps them move

forward. They prefer suggestions over directive feedback. Although a lot of students say

feedback affects them emotionally, more than half do not feel discouraged or less motivated by

it. The remainder may need help and support to deal with feedback. While it is important to

note that student preferences are not necessarily related to learning outcomes, the bottom line is

that students feel that what makes feedback useful is when it can truly be used to improve their

writing.

Peer feedback. Strategies for embedding peer feedback in coursework are similar to

descriptions of procedures for both writing workshops constituted outside of classes and writing

classes that draw on peer feedback as an important element in supporting writing development.

The advantage of providing time for peer feedback during classes is that everyone has the

opportunity to receive it, regardless of time constraints or motivation, and the work can be tied to

specific expectations, making it very situated. In this way, all students can benefit from specific,

concrete feedback. Perhaps the two biggest challenges of implementing peer feedback are


finding the time to insert it into course meeting times and helping students learn to give effective

feedback. Several researchers describe course situations where they incorporated peer feedback

on the assumption that reading and responding to other students’ writing could improve all

students’ work (Caffarella & Barnett, 2000; Mullen, 2001; Sallee et al., 2011). However,

Cafarella and Barnett report that students expressed reservations about their ability to give

helpful feedback (although they appreciated receiving it from peers), and Waring (2005) found

that there may be some resistance as students traverse the expert/novice boundaries. To decrease

students’ tension and insecurity that can emerge when students are required to give peer

feedback and to increase their effectiveness, Crossman and Kite (2012) argue that students need

preparation and scaffolding. They suggest the instructor discuss the assignment with students,

review the assessment rubric, and teach students how to be peer reviewers (although they do not

specify how). They and others claim that if peer reviewers work from a well-articulated rubric

or other tools to help them focus on writing expectations, they are able to be helpful to their

peers (Lockhart and Ng, 1996, as cited inCrossman & Kite, 2012; Nackoney, Munn, &

Fernandez, 2011). Students can gain additional insight into providing feedback from instructors

if their own feedback is treated as a model (Sallee et al., 2011).

The benefits of peer feedback are documented by several researchers. They include

students gaining greater insight and a more constructive capacity to reflect on their work, the

development of “academic enculturation” (Samara, 2006) which includes discipline specific

knowledge about writing, improved capacity to engage in critical analysis of texts, increased

capacity for self-critique, and affective improvements in motivation, self confidence, and

empathy (Mullen, 2001; Nackoney et al., 2011; Samara, 2006). Perhaps most importantly,

Crossman and Kite (2012) documented improved writing skills as a result of students engaging


in peer feedback. They found statistically significant gains from first to final drafts. In part, they

suggest that this might be due to students gaining a deeper knowledge of the rubric as they work

to give peers relevant feedback which may, in turn, increase their understanding of an

assignment. The amount and timing of peer feedback may also help explain its positive impact.

Additionally students may be better able to explain something they have themselves just learned,

it provides models of how others have solved a problem, and can be motivational to know that

others are experiencing similar challenges (Värlander, 2008).

Discussion/Challenges

A recurring theme throughout much of the research on supporting the development of

graduate student writing is the importance of being explicit with students. This includes

recognizing that the scholarly writing expected of graduate students is a distinct discourse

community (Gee, 1996) with its own practices and ways of participating. On a more concrete

level, explicitness should extend to how assignments and assessment standards are constructed.

It is clear that it is important to make the improvement of writing an explicit goal for faculty and

students, and that making time to actually teach students how to engage in a specific academic

discourse community is important. For professional practice doctoral students, doing so during

class time is likely necessary to ensure that all students have the opportunity to benefit. Also of

crucial importance is providing feedback that is purposefully designed to be developmental.

There are many specific advice books and a large array of tips and techniques for improving

graduate student writing. However, without implementing elements of explicitness in ways that

all students can access during course work, these types of resources may be ineffective in helping


students fully move into the community of practice of those who use writing to communicate

about their research.

There are several challenges to operationalizing the need to be explicit about improving

graduate student writing during coursework. While students’ emotional barriers to learning from

feedback may be at play, perhaps a bigger barrier is the difficulty of engaging faculty in this

work. First, much of what faculty know and value about writing may be tacit. Additionally,

many faculty may feel unprepared to engage in writing pedagogy, believing that doctoral

students should already know how to write, and they should not have to work on this with them,

or they may feel that they cannot afford the time to engage in writing instruction during class

time, given the amount of content they feel they must cover. In addition, faculty may feel that

taking the time to provide substantive and useful feedback on students’ writing, even if they do

know how to do this effectively (which cannot be assumed) is time taken away from doing the

scholarly work for which they are rewarded.

Faculty development aimed at addressing these issues must be responsive to their beliefs

about and knowledge of writing pedagogy as well as the institutional constraints they face in

implementing an effective approach. Otherwise, efforts to improve faculty ability to support

graduate student writing may face resistance that could mute its impact (Ivanic et al., 2000).

Mullen (2001) points out that faculty development cannot just be a bottom-up effort; rather, a

focus on improving graduate student writing must also be addressed at the institutional level.

Skillen and Purser (2003) describe an approach that accomplishes this through integrated efforts

between faculty and what they refer to as “academic literacy teachers”. Here, staff from the

university-wide “Learning Development” unit work with faculty to create how-to guides that are

connected to writing in specific disciplines. They do this by identifying typical research in the


discipline and then collecting and annotating published examples which are shared with students

to make guides which are connected to specific disciplines. Using the annotations in writing

workshops, students identify the same features in other examples, and then verbalize an

introduction to their research that makes the same moves. Next, they engage with peer reviewers

and then work to apply what they learned to their own writing. Skillen and Purser report that this

approach is far more effective than simply telling students to use published research as models

for their writing. Whether providing writing support in this way, in tutorials that follow a lecture,

or supporting ongoing peer review sessions, the idea is to provide scaffolded support for

students. The academic literacy teachers work collaboratively with faculty to identify students’

writing problem areas and appropriate examples of effective writing, and they do ongoing work

with students. In this way they shift some of the burden off of faculty but still make the work on

writing situated and targeted. Faculty are very supportive once they see that this type of

integrated support is effective. They also appreciate the reflecting and learning that is part of the

faculty/staff collaborative work that they do with tutors from the Learning Development unit.

Skillen and Purser (2003) report that when they work together it helps the content area instructor

and the literacy skills person do more than either could alone.

In the end, no one approach can effectively address the writing challenges that graduate

students face. Programs, units, and institutions must work separately and collaboratively to help

faculty and staff help students by drawing on a range of traditional and course embedded

approaches. In this way, Kamler and Thompson (2006) suggest that a writing culture can be

established that explicitly invites students to be a part of it and supports their entry into an

academic discourse community by helping them learn how to be members. Without such efforts,

students will continue to struggle, often losing their way through programs. Even when they do


complete their work and graduate, they may not have fully learned to participate in the writing

discourses of the many communities in which they should participate as “scholarly practitioners”

(Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate, 2015). Programs that make concrete and specific

efforts to improve their students’ skills and knowledge about writing will produce graduates who

are more likely to disseminate what they have learned effectively, and increase the potential for

their work to have a lasting impact on educational opportunities for learners.


References

Aitchison, C. (. 1. )., & Lee, A. (. 2. ). (2006). Research writing: Problems and pedagogies.

Teaching in Higher Education, 11(3), 265-278. doi:10.1080/13562510600680574

Aitchison, C. (2009). Writing groups for doctoral education. Studies in Higher Education, 34(8),

905-916.

Badenhorst, C., Moloney, C., Rosales, J., Dyer, J., & Ru, L. (2014). Beyond deficit: Graduate

student research-writing pedagogies. Teaching in Higher Education,

doi:10.1080/13562517.2014.945160

Becker, H. S. (1986). Writing for social scientists: How to finish your thesis, book, or article.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Berkenkotter, C., Huckin, T. N., & Ackerman, J. (1988). Conventions, conversations, and the

writer: Case study of a student in a rhetoric ph.D. program National Council of Teachers of

English.

Bharuthram, S. (. 1. )., & McKenna, S. (. 2. ). (2006). A writer-respondent intervention as a

means of developing academic literacy. Teaching in Higher Education, 11(4), 495-507.

doi:10.1080/13562510600874300

Bitchener, J., Basturkmen, H., & East, M. (2010). The focus of supervisor written feedback to

Thesis/Dissertation students. International Journal of English Studies, 10(2), 79-97.


Blakeslee, A.M. ( 1,2 ). (1997). Activity, context, interaction, and authority: Learning to write

scientific papers in situ. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 11(2), 125-169.

Bloom, L. Z. (1981). Why graduate students can't write: Implications of research on writing

anxiety for graduate education. Journal of Advanced Composition, , 103-117.

Bolker, J. (1998). Writing your dissertation in fifteen minutes a day: A guide to starting,

revising, and finishing your doctoral thesis. New York: Henry Holt.

Caffarella, R. S., & Barnett, B. G. (2000). Teaching doctoral students to become scholarly

writers: The importance of giving and receiving critiques. Studies in Higher Education,

25(1), 39-52. doi:10.1080/030750700116000

Can, G., & Walker, A. (2011). A model for doctoral students' perceptions and attitudes toward

written feedback for academic writing. Research in Higher Education, 52(5), 508-536.

doi:10.1007/s11162-010-9204-1

Carless, D. (2006). Differing perceptions in the feedback process. Studies in Higher Education,

31(2), 219-233.

Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate. (2015). Design ConceptDefinitions. Retrieved

from http://cpedinitiative.org/design-concept-definitions.

Carter, N. (2012). Action research: Improving graduate-level writing. Educational Action

Research, 20(3), 407-421. doi:10.1080/09650792.2012.697403


Carter, S. (2011). Doctorate as genre: Supporting thesis writing across campus. Higher

Education Research and Development, 30(6), 725-736. doi:10.1080/07294360.2011.554388

Casanave, C. P., & Hubbard, P. (1992). The writing assignments and writing problems of

doctoral students: Faculty perceptions, pedagogical issues, and needed research. English for

Specific Purposes, 11(1), 33-49. doi:10.1016/0889-4906(92)90005-U

Cotterall, S. (2011). Doctoral students writing: Where's the pedagogy? Teaching in Higher

Education, 16(4), 413-425. doi:10.1080/13562517.2011.560381

Crossman, J. M. (. 1. )., & Kite, S. L. (. 2. ). (2012). Facilitating improved writing among

students through directed peer review. Active Learning in Higher Education, 13(3), 219-

229. doi:10.1177/1469787412452980

Davies, W. M. (2008). 'Not quite right': Helping students to make better arguments. Teaching in

Higher Education, 13(3), 327-340. doi:10.1080/13562510802045352

Delyser, D. (2003). Teaching graduate students to write: A seminar for thesis and dissertation

writers. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 27(2), 169-181.

doi:10.1080/03098260305676

Ferguson, P. (2011). Student perceptions of quality feedback in teacher education. Assessment

and Evaluation in Higher Education, 36(1), 51-62. doi:10.1080/02602930903197883


Ferguson, T. (2009). The 'write' skills and more: A thesis writing group for doctoral students.

Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 33(2), 285-297.

doi:10.1080/03098260902734968

Gee, J. P. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. Bristol, PA: Taylor &

Francis.

Graff, G., & Birkenstein, C. (2006). They say/Isay: The moves that matter in academic writing.

New York: Norton.

Harvey, J. (2008). Bridging the gap: The intellectual and perceptual skills for better academic

writing. Teaching Philosophy, 31(2), 151-159.

Hedgcock, J. S. (2008). Lessons I must have missed: Implicit literacy practices in graduate

education. In C. P. Casanave, & X. Li (Eds.), Learning the literacy practices of graduate

school: Insiders' reflections on academic enculturation (pp. 32-45). Ann Arbor, MI:

University of Michigan Press.

Higgins, R., Hartley, P., & Skelton, A. (2002). The conscientious consumer: Reconsidering the

role of assessment feedback in student learning. Studies in Higher Education, 27(1), 53.

Hyatt, D. F. (2005). ‘Yes, a very good point!’: A critical genre analysis of a corpus of feedback

commentaries on master of education assignments. Teaching in Higher Education, 10(3),

339-353. doi:10.1080/13562510500122222


Ivanic, R. (1998). Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic

writing. New York: John Benjamins.

Ivanic, R., Clark, R., & Rimmershaw, R. (2000). What am I supposed to make of this? The

messages conveyed to students by tutor's written comments. In M. R. Lea, & B. Stierer

(Eds.), Student writing in higher education: New contexts (pp. 47-65). Buckingham,

England: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

Kamler, B., & Thomson, P. (2006). Helping doctoral students write. London: Routledge.

Kamler, B., & Thomson, P. (2008). The failure of dissertation advice books: Toward alternative

pedagogies for doctoral writing SAGE Publications. doi:10.3102/0013189X08327390

Kiley, M. (2009). Identifying threshold concepts and proposing strategies to support doctoral

candidates. Innovations in Education & Teaching International, 46(3), 293-304.

doi:10.1080/14703290903069001

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and

development. Englewood-Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Koncel, M. A., & Carney, D. (1992). When worlds collide: Negotiating between academic and

professional discourse in a graduate social work program. ().

Kumar, V., & Stracke, E. (2007). An analysis of written feedback on a PhD thesis. Teaching in



Kwan, B. S. C. (2008). The nexus of reading, writing and researching in the doctoral undertaking

of humanities and social sciences: Implications for literature reviewing. English for Specific

Purposes, 27(1), 42-56. doi:10.1016/j.esp.2007.05.002

Lave, J., & Wegner, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New

York: Cambridge University Press.

Lavelle, E. ( 1,2 ), & Bushrow, K. (. 1. ). (2007). Writing approaches of graduate students.

Educational Psychology, 27(6), 807-822. doi:10.1080/01443410701366001

Lea, M. (2004). Academic literacies: A pedagogy for course design. Studies in Higher

Education, 29(6), 739-756. doi:10.1080/0307507042000287230

Lea, M. R., & Street, B. V. (2006). The 'academic literacies' model: Theory and applications

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. doi:10.1207/s15430421tip4504_11

Lee, A., & Aitchison, C. (2009). Writing for the doctorate and beyond. In D. Boud, & A. Lee

(Eds.), Changing practices of doctoral education (pp. 87-99). New York: Routledge.

Maher, D., Seaton, L., McMullen, C., Fitzgerald, T., Otsuji, E., & Lee, A. (2008). 'Becoming and

being writers': The experiences of doctoral students in writing groups. Studies in Continuing

Education, 30(3), 263-275. doi:10.1080/01580370802439870

Maher, M. A., Feldon, D. F., Timmerman, B. E., & Chao, J. (2014). Faculty perceptions of

common challenges encountered by novice doctoral writers. Higher Education Research &

Development, 33(4), 699-711. doi:10.1080/07294360.2013.863850


Mirador, J. (2014). 'I'd like to know why': Cultural capital and MA in education students'

interpretation of feedback commentaries

Mullen, C. A. (2001). The need for a curricular writing model for graduate students. Journal of

further & Higher Education, 25(1), 117-126. doi:10.1080/03098770020030551

Mutch, A. (2003). Exploring the practice of feedback to students. Active Learning in Higher

Education, 4(1), 24.

Nackoney, C. K., Munn, S. L., & Fernandez, J. (2011). Learning to write: Wisdom from

emerging scholars. In T. S. Rocco, & T. Hatcher (Eds.), The handbook of scholarly writing

and publishing (pp. 26-43) Jossey-Bass.

Ondrusek, A. (2012). What the research reveals about graduate students' writing skills: A

literature review. Journal of Education for Library & Information Science, 53(3), 176-188.

Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (. 1. )., & Collins, K. M. T. (2001). Writing apprehension and academic

procrastination among graduate students. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 92(2), 560-562.

Paltridge, B. (2003). Teaching thesis and dissertation writing. Hong Kong Journal of Applied

Linguistics, 8(2), 78-96.

Paltridge, B. (2002). Thesis and dissertation writing: An examination of published advice and

actual practice. English for Specific Purposes, 21, 125-143. doi:10.1016/S0889-

4906(00)00025-9


Plakhotnik, M. S., & Rocco, T. S. (2012). Implementing writing support circles with adult

learners in a nonformal education setting: Priority, practice, and process. Adult Learning,

23(2), 76-81.

Pokorny, H. (. 1. )., & Pickford, P. (. 2. ). (2010). Complexity, cues and relationships: Student

perceptions of feedback. Active Learning in Higher Education, 11(1), 21-30.

doi:10.1177/1469787409355872

Rose, M., & McClafferty, K. A. (2001). A call for the teaching of writing in graduate education

American Educational Research Association.

Sadler, D. R. (2010). Beyond feedback: Developing student capability in complex appraisal.

Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(5), 535-550.

doi:10.1080/02602930903541015

Sallee, M., Hallett, R., & Tierney, W. (2011). Teaching writing in graduate school. College

Teaching, 59(2), 66-72.

Samara, A. (2006). Group supervision in graduate education: A process of supervision skill

development and text improvement. Higher Education Research & Development, 25(2),

115-129. doi:10.1080/07294360600610362

San Miguel, C. ( 1 ), & Nelson, C. D. (. 2. ). (2007). Key writing challenges of practice-based

doctorates. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6(1), 71-86.

doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2006.11.007


San Miguel, C., & Nelson, C. D. (2007). Key writing challenges of practice-based doctorates.

Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6(1), 71-86.

doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/10.1016/j.jeap.2006.11.007

Skillen, J., & Purser, E. (2003). Teaching thesis writing: Policy and practice at an australian

university. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(2), 17-33.

Starke-Meyerring, D. (2011). The paradox of writing in doctoral education: Student experiences.

In L. McAlpine, & C. Amundsen (Eds.), Doctoral education: Research-based strategies for

doctoral students, supervisors and administrators (pp. 75-95). London: Springer

Science+Business Media.

Street, B. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. London: Cambridge University Press.

Switzer, A., & Perdue, S. W. (2011). Dissertation 101: A research and writing intervention for

education graduate students. Education Libraries, 34(1), 4-14.

Tardy, C. M. (2005). “It's like a story”: Rhetorical knowledge development in advanced

academic literacy. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 4(4), 325-338.

doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/10.1016/j.jeap.2005.07.005

Värlander, S. (2008). The role of students' emotions in formal feedback situations. Teaching in


Waring, H. Z. (2005). Peer tutoring in a graduate writing centre: Identity, expertise, and advice

resisting. Applied Linguistics, 26(2), 141-168.

http://dx.doi.org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/10.1016/j.jeap.2005.07.005

http://dx.doi.org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/10.1016/j.jeap.2006.11.007


Watson, G. (1987). Writing a thesis: A quick guide to long essays and dissertations. London and

New York: Longman.

Wellington, J. (2010). More than a matter of cognition: An exploration of affective writing

problems of post-graduate students and their possible solutions. Teaching in Higher

Education, 15(2), 135-150. doi:10.1080/13562511003619961

Williams, J. (1990). Style: Toward clarity and grace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Young, P. (2000). 'I might as well give up': Self-esteem and mature students' feelings about

feedback on assignments. Journal of further & Higher Education, 24(3), 409.


Resources


Sample Writing Rubrics

Recommendations for Integrating Writing Instruction with coursework

Writing tips for students

Example feedback template

Template for analyzing academic writing

Reference list of books that may be helpful even though writing support type books have been

critiqued


Does not meet expectations - 1

Developing/Needs Improvement - 2

Good - 3 Outstanding - 4

Organization The writing is often unclear or unfocused. The organization is not obvious throughout and the reader has few or no guides through the document (i.e. by the use of appropriate headings, thesis statements, and transitions).

The writing is only sometimes clear and focused. The organization is not always obvious throughout and the reader has few guides through the document (i.e. by the use of appropriate headings, thesis statements, and transitions).

The writing is clear and focused. The organization is generally obvious throughout, and the reader is usually guided through the document (i.e. using appropriate headings, thesis statements, and transitions).

The writing is clear and focused. The organization is obvious throughout, and the reader is skillfully guided through the document (i.e. using appropriate headings, thesis statements, and transitions).

Argumentation and analysis

Only some paragraphs are fully developed and coherently connected.The writer makes few clear, strong, and logical points supported with relevant details from the data or related research literature.

Only some paragraphs are fully developed and coherently connected.The writer makes some clear, strong, and logical points supported with relevant details from the data or related research literature.

Most paragraphs are fully developed and coherently connected.The writer usually makes clear, strong, and logical points supported with rich and relevant details from the data or related research literature.

All sentences and paragraphs are fully developed and coherently connected.The writer makes clear, strong, and logical points supported with rich and relevant details from the data or related research literature.

Technical correctness

There are some major technical writing errors with regard to APA conventions, sentence structure, spelling or punctuation.

There are some major or minor technical writing errors with regard to APA conventions, sentence structure, spelling or punctuation.

There are few major or minor technical writing errors with regard to APA conventions, sentence structure, spelling or punctuation.

There are almost no major or minor technical writing errors with regard to APA conventions, sentence structure, spelling or punctuation.

Rutgers University Graduate School of Education EdD Writing RubricRutger


From Harris, M.J. (2006). Three steps to teaching abstract and critique writing. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 17(2), 136-146


Developing Graduate Student WritingA process for integrating writing instruction with courseworkAlisa BelzerRutgers UniversityOctober 2013

1. Decide to consciously help students improve their writing in the context of your course. Make this agenda clear to your students, and let them know that this is a goal above and beyond their learning the course content.

2. In addition to your normal, weekly topical reading assignments, assign a short chapter from an instructional text on writing every other week or so. I recommend Graff, G. and Birkenstein, C. (2006). They say/I say: The moves that matter in academic writing. NY: Norton. OR Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G. and Williams, J. M. (2003). The craft of research. Chicago: Univeristy of Chicago Press. OR Johnson, A. P. (2003). A short guide to academic writing. New York: University Press of America. These all have short chapters and each tackle the challenges our student encounter in somewhat different ways.

3. Each week that you have assigned a writing oriented text, take 15 or 20 minutes of class time to look at an assigned topical text relevant to course content in terms of how the writing skill outlined in the assigned writing text is implemented. Have students point out specific examples. Point to other writing strategies the author employs that you think are particularly helpful in making a strong (or problematic) piece of academic writing. This might actually serve a double purpose of making writing strategies explicit through exemplars and be a lead in to discussion of the central arguments of the piece. In discussing how an argument is constructed it can, obviously, lead to a discussion of what the argument is and how it’s made.

4. Use a piece of student writing from a previous semester to have students critique elements of writing they have been reading about that are missing and that improving on would make for a better writing piece. Do this once or twice during the semester and emphasize skills you have covered.

5. Give at least two writing assignments (one early in the semester and one towards or at the end) that require students to employ the writing skills you have been teaching or ask students later in the semester to rewrite something produced earlier in the semester.

6. Ask students to develop specific goals for improving their writing based on feedback from the first task. Encourage them to keep those goals right in front of them as they write, edit, and revise their work for the second assignment.

7. If you can find the time in class or can justify the time as an assignment, have students peer review a draft of the second assignment looking out specifically for the skills you have focused on through the assigned writing texts. Give them a list of those skills as a reminder and guide for peer review. You can consider requiring students to go through one round of revision based on this feedback (and showing evidence of doing so) before submitting a final draft to you.


8. Use the same rubric to assess writing skills for both assignments so that students get a consistent message about what counts as effective writing and have a clear idea of how to improve on the second piece.

Some considerations:1. You might want to identify 2-4 courses throughout the program that follow this procedure and designate them as writing support courses.

2. If you do turn this into more of a program effort, faculty who implement the process should work together to identify which skills will be the focus in each class so there is reinforcement and new material thought out in a coherent way.

3. Consider encouraging faculty to use the same writing rubric for any course that requires traditional academic writing so that students can get a consistent message about what is viewed as effective academic writing and what progress they are making toward developing their skills in this areas.

4. Consider faculty development seminars in which faculty rate student writing using the rubric to improve the reliability of rubric use. These sessions may also be used to increase consistency and skill around providing feedback on writing and other skills and capacities that faculty may use to support student writing development.


Alisa BelzerRutgers UniversityGraduate School of EducationEducation Doctorate ProgramDecember 2014

Some writing tips for the Qualifying Process or other academic writing tasks

1. Framing: Use an ice cream cone or funnel shape metaphor to help you think about how to organize the framing of your problem which should be the key task of the introduction of your paper. Start by describing the problem (or practice) at the broadest level (top of the funnel or ice cream cone) and work your way down to the specific problem or issue in the context where you want to study (narrowest part of the funnel or ice cream cone). Think of organizing things so that the research question or purpose statement seems like the next natural step after getting to that narrowest, most local or specific aspect of the problem on which you are focusing.

2. Overall organization: To check for overall organization, create a skeleton of your draft. This is a great step to take between a first and second draft. Copy your paper into a new document, then delete everything but your introductory paragraph, subject headings and subheadings, and the first two sentences of each paragraph. Check that there is a logical, linear order from one section to the next and from one paragraph to the next, and that the first sentence of each paragraph is making a more global (big idea) point rather than a local (evidence oriented point). This is also a good way to make sure you aren’t circling back and repeating points or skipping key connecting ideas from one section/paragraph to another. Finally, this is a good way to check that each paragraph belongs under the heading where you have put it.

3. Within paragraph coherence: If you note that a paragraph seems particularly complex or convoluted and you’re not sure why or how to fix it, it can really help to look at each sentence separately and evaluate how well it connects to what came before and after it. Visual space may help you do this. Copy the paragraph into another document and double space between each sentence. Then evaluate the relationship between sentences and fill in needed gaps. Check that one thought really does lead to the next. Make sure every sentence in the paragraph is the same “flavor” cookie and that only the first (and possibly the last) sentences are “global”; the others should be “local” (see Tip 4).

4. Paragraph organization: Each body paragraph should be constructed like an oreo cookie. The first sentence (or second if you use the first sentence to build a transition from the previous paragraph) should be a cookie and it should make a “global” statement about what the paragraph is about/arguing. This is otherwise known as the topic sentence. Everything after that should be “local”, the filling, otherwise knows as evidence, support, or examples that make the point of the top cookie layer. The


paragraph often (but does not have to) end in a bottom cookie layer. Make sure the bottom layer (or the end of the paragraph) is the same “flavor” as the top layer (i.e., that you have not drifted from away from ideas that make the point of the top cookie layer). This bottom layer can also help set up the transition to the next sentence. If you are uncertain what your top cookie layer (topic sentence) should be, read all the sentences in your paragraph and ask yourself what are you telling the reader with these detail? The answer to this question is your top layer.

5. Using direct quotes and citations properly: Only use a direct quote if it is seminal, definitional, or said in such a unique way that it can’t be adequately paraphrased. Use direct quotes very sparingly. Otherwise, paraphrase and summarize. Make sure you introduce every quote with some kind of explanation of why you are including it; after every quote you should tell the reader what you want them to get from it. To continue with the food metaphors, think of every quote as being part of a sandwich: your introduction and comment on the quote are the two pieces of bread. Every filling (the quote) needs bread on either side to make it a sandwich.

Avoid starting a paragraph with a quote or a citation. Start with a global sentence that tells the reader what the paragraph will be about. Don’t depend on a source to do that for you.

6. Ways to Synthesize: Think about drawing connections among texts using and, or, or but. Here is an example are example templates to start the process:Connecting with AND:

• Gopnik and de Botton are concerned with the busyness of modern life.Connecting with BUT:

• Gopnik and de Botton are concerned with the busyness of modern life, but they do not reach the same conclusions about whether this lifestyle is desirable.Connecting with OR:

• Either people should just accept that busyness is a permanent feature of modern life as Gopnik contends, or, as de Botton suggests, they can change their mindset and recover some space for solitude.

Avoid summarizing studies one by one. Group them together and discuss them as whole and use connectors to do so. Use one or two studies to illustrate your big points.

7. Take a critical stand on the literature you review: Don’t forget to be evaluative of the literature you review. You can point to strengths and weaknesses or just distinct characteristics of areas of research in terms of research questions, research design, sample (size, selection, ect.), length of study, etc. Be sure to characterize the research in a particular area in general before you discuss any specific studies that you describe as examples.


8. Proof read, proof read, proof read!! Check that every sentence makes sense, has subject-verb agreement, parallel construction, etc. If a sentence is very long, you are likely to lose your reader and may have lost yourself. Consider breaking long sentences up. A sentence should never be three lines or more long. If it is more than a line and half or so, it is probably longer than it should be. Also paragraphs should not be longer than about 2/3s of a page and should never be shorter than 3 sentences. Make sure you are using proper format for citations and references.


GIVING FEEDBACK ON STUDENT WRITINGSUPPLEMENT 2: FEEDBACK FORM

Name: Course/Section:

Essay Number: Essay Assignment: Essay Grade:

What you’re doing well in this essay:

Global writing issues (argument, structure, focus, logic, analysis, evidence, thesis, topic, etc.):

Local writing issues (sentences, paragraph coherence, clarity, grammar, transitions, word choice, specificity, punctuation, etc.)

Prioritizing what to work on for future essays:


A Critical Thinking Template for Analyzing the Logic of an Article

Modified from Paul & Elder, 2001 The miniature guide to critical thinking concepts & tools

1. The authors felt it was important to conduct this study, and write this article, because _________? (State the relevant background information used to justify their work.)

2. The main purpose of this article, or study, was ____________? (State as accurately as possible the author’s purpose for writing the article.)

3. The key questions the author is addressing are __________?(Identify the key questions in the mind of the author when they wrote the article.)

4. The methods used to answer their key questions were __________?(Describe the general approach used and include details that assist in evaluating the quality of the results – sample size, etc.)

5. The most important information in this article is ____________?(Identify the facts, observations, and/or data the author is using to support their conclusions. Be quantitative.)

6. The results can be put into context by comparing them to _________?(Place the quantitative results into an easily understood context by expressing as %s or by comparing to an intuitively understood value - e.g., 2x the size of a football field)

7. The main inferences/conclusions in this article are __________?(Identify the key conclusions the author presents in the article.)

8. If we take this line of reasoning seriously, the implications are ___________?(What consequences are likely to follow if people take the author’s reasoning seriously?)


Helpful books on writing for faculty and students

Becker, H. S. (1986). Writing for social scientists: How to finish your thesis, book, or article.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bolker, J. (1998). Writing your dissertation in fifteen minutes a day: A guide to starting,

revising, and finishing your doctoral thesis. New York: Henry Holt.

Graff, G., & Birkenstein, C. (2006). They say/Isay: The moves that matter in academic writing.

New York: Norton.

Kamler, B., & Thomson, P. (2006). Helping doctoral students write. London: Routledge.

Watson, G. (1987). Writing a thesis: A quick guide to long essays and dissertations. London and

New York: Longman.

Williams, J. (1990). Style: Toward clarity and grace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Zinsser, William Knowlton. (2006) On writing well :the classic guide to writing nonfiction New

York : HarperCollins,


Documents

cdn.ymaws.com€¦ · Web viewWriting is generally the primary medium for demonstrating knowledge and expertise, and therefore plays a key role in assessing learning. It is also associated