Student plagiarism in higher education is widespread and presents a growing concern for faculty and administrators who are intent on upholding academic integrity. However, a myopic view of plagiarism as a purely ethical issue is misguided. It is not always simply a deliberate attempt to deceive. Through the involvement of students in an…

The process toward academic literacy aims at developing academic reading and writing together with higher academic competences of increasing relevance for undergraduate students as future teachers and researchers. Such a process is even more complex in ELT vocational courses where non-English speaking trainees study English as a system while they…

This study investigates differences in the language and discourse characteristics of course blogs and traditional academic submissions produced in English by native (L1) and advanced second language (L2) writers. One hundred and fifty-two texts generated by 38 graduate students within the context of the same Master's level course were analysed…

This article makes a case for using creative writing in a second language course. Creative writing increases students' enthusiasm for writing skills development and supports students' creativity, which is a fundamental aspect of education. In order to engage less motivated students, a series of creative writing assignments was implemented in a…

The paper reports the findings of a project that assessed the benefits of peer feedback as a formative assessment intervention for postgraduate international learners in the United Kingdom. The aim was to improve participants' understanding of quality in academic writing, and hence improve the summative assessment scores, by improving the quantity…

In this paper, we report on the development and implementation of a web-based mobile application, "Grammar Clinic," for an ESL writing class. Drawing on insights from the interactionist approach to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the Noticing Hypothesis, and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), "Grammar Clinic" was…

Throughout the last two decades, scholarship discussing learner development and autonomy has expanded from viewing the learner as one who possesses intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to a performer who to varying degrees invests as an agent in the learning process, particularly when able to pursue her or his passions. With this expansion in mind,…

Scholarship in applied linguistics has not sufficiently addressed learner motivation in mandatory writing classes in postsecondary settings. The data collected through short interviews from 20 students enrolled in a mandatory academic writing program at the junior/senior level in a California State University indicated that learner motivation in…

While literacy autobiographies, citizenship autobiographies, and family narratives are common first writing assignments in the freshmen composition classroom, they are usually followed by some kind of research proposal, annotated bibliography, or research essay. While there is nothing wrong with literacy and citizenship autobiographies or family…

Current approaches and trends in writing pedagogy within the composition classroom focus on the development of students' identities through personal, cultural, or disciplinary processes. By employing writing assignments and activities that concentrate on developing certain traits or characteristics of students' identities has led to a "crisis"…

How much do specialized academic discourse communities matter to undergraduate writers? To what degree should theories of specialized discourses influence the design of undergraduate Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programs? At the University of Iowa, where an undergraduate Writing Fellows program engages peer tutors in writing-intensive…

This study uses student reflections of previous success in academic writing to guide instructors as they design writing assignments. Seventy-one students in five classes responded to a questionnaire designed to help them identify particularly successful writing experiences and reflect on the circumstances, strategies, and methods they believed…