Developing academic writers must continually position themselves discursively as they negotiate institutional, programmatic, and disciplinary contexts. The inextricable relationship of writing and identities raises questions of access to social identities in schools, a particularly salient issue when considering the complexities and challenges of…

Various forms of proofreading of student writing take place in university contexts. Sometimes writers pay freelance proofreaders to edit their texts before submission for assessment; sometimes more informal arrangements take place, where friends, family, or coursemates proofread. Such arrangements raise ethical questions for universities…

Peer review is useful for providing students with formative feedback, yet it is used less frequently in STEM classrooms and for supporting writing-to-learn (WTL). While research indicates the benefits of incorporating peer review into classrooms, less research is focused on students' perceptions thereof. Such research is important as it speaks to…

Using a mixed-methods, multi-institutional design of general education writing courses at four institutions, this study examined genre as a key factor for understanding and promoting writing development. It thus aims to provide empirical validation of decades of theoretical work on and qualitative studies of genre and the nature of genre…

This article reports on a study that explored cross-disciplinary variation in the use of metadiscourse markers in advanced-level student writing, put forward as a realistic target for novice writers. Starting from the stance and engagement categories included in Hyland's model, we first conducted a comprehensive quantitative analysis of…

While many STEM faculty believe Writing-to-Learn to be an effective instructional tool, instructional barriers such as the time and effort required to provide substantive feedback to their students limit the use of writing in STEM classrooms. Incorporating peer review and revision into the writing process can help mitigate these barriers while…

This systematic review of 46 published articles investigates the constructs employed and the meanings assigned to writing in writing-to-learn assignments given to students in science courses. Using components of assignments associated with the greatest learning gains--meaning making, clear expectations, interactive writing processes, and…

Stance is a growing focus of academic writing research and an important aspect of writing development in higher education. Research on student writing to date has explored stance across different levels, language backgrounds, and disciplines, but has rarely focused on stance features across genres. This article explores stance marker use between…

Drawing on fieldwork, this article examines nursing students' design and use of a patient health record during clinical simulations, where small teams of students provide nursing care for a robotic patient. The student-designed patient health record provides a compelling example of how simulation genres can both authentically coordinate action…

Drawing on the appraisal framework from systemic functional linguistics (SFL), this article examines patterns of stance in a corpus of 92 high- and low-graded argumentative papers written in the context of an upper-level course in economics. It interprets differential patterns of stance in students' texts in light of interview commentaries…

Recently, scholars have suggested that "second-language writers" are made up of two distinct groups: Generation 1.5 (long-term U.S.-resident language learners) and more traditional L2 students (e.g., international or recently arrived immigrants). To investigate that claim, this study compares the first-year composition writing of…

This article reports the results of an interview-based study which investigated the citation behavior in the assignment writing of two second-language postgraduate business management students, Sofie and Tara. Discourse-based interviews were used to elicit the students' own perspectives on their citation behavior in two of their assignments.…

This study explores how different kinds of arguments are situated in academic contexts and provides an analysis of undergraduate writing assignments. Assignments were collected from the schools of business, education, engineering, fine arts, and interdisciplinary studies as well as the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences in the…

Developmental composition courses serve a sizable and growing number of Generation 1.5 students, or long-term U.S. resident language learners, and it is believed that language challenges may be part of Generation 1.5 writers' difficulty in controlling the academic register. The current study investigates possible similarities and differences…

Studies of university writing assignments demonstrate inconsistencies in the elements examined, making it difficult to achieve a clear understanding of the range, frequency, and characteristics of assignments that students might encounter. In this research study, syllabi from one university college were analyzed to determine the types and…