The importance of academic literacy acquisition through enculturation in higher education is self-evident. Important within the processes of enculturation is how interactants are positioned. This study examines how interactants within the writing classroom of a higher education institution in Ghana are positioned through dialogue. Data for this…

Very few empirical studies have investigated programmes in which doctoral students act as peer facilitators in faculty writing groups. We report on the development of a centrally delivered doctoral student writing programme in which twenty student participants were mentored and provided with the resources to initiate their own faculty-based…

The paper explores questions of power arising from feminist facilitators running a doctoral writing group at a UK university. Butler's [2014. Re-thinking Vulnerability and Resistance. [Online]. Accessed September 12, 2017.…

Informed by Vygotsky's conceptualization of the Zone of Proximal Development, this case study investigated the benefits of peer feedback on second language (L2) writing for students with high L2 proficiency and the factors that may influence their learning in peer feedback in the Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language context. Specifically, the…

Graduate writing is receiving increasing attention, particularly in contexts of diverse student bodies and widening access to universities. In many of these contexts, writing is seen as "a problem" in need of fixing. Often, the problem and the solution are perceived as being solely located in notions of deficit in individuals and not in…

A major challenge that universities and lecturers face is improving the written output of their students. While many resources are invested in improving tertiary students' writing, lecturing staff and the broader community lament students' abilities. This article reports on a study investigating the characteristics of students' written texts and…

In this case study, we report on the development of a writing-specialist position, the "Writing Resource Coordinator (WRC)", in a school of social work at a large state university in the southern USA. Such programs are facing increasing budgetary pressures at the same time as their growing enrollments strain available resources. Students…

This paper explores issues emerging from the question of how students and teachers negotiate issues of identity, authenticity, ownership, privacy and performativity in high-stakes online reflection in higher education. I examine in particular the notion of traces as both inscriptions and archives. Working online amplifies the destabilising and…

This article examines Anglo-western assumptions about the role of individual views and voices in constructing knowledge, and how these assumptions can disadvantage students from "Confucian-heritage" cultures whose social values around education and authority constrain their self-expression in western classrooms. Lecturers may mistake their good…

This paper discusses the role of a writing centre in creating spaces for talk about and change in disciplinary writing pedagogy. It asks how collaborative partnerships between disciplinary academics and Writing Centre practitioners might be established and nurtured sustainably. Drawing on insights from two collaborations with academics in…

Writing occupies a key role in doctoral research, because it is the principal channel students use to communicate their ideas, and the basis on which their degree is awarded. Doctoral writing can, therefore, be a source of considerable anxiety. Most doctoral candidates require support and encouragement if they are to develop confidence as writers.…

The writing of academic abstracts is more than a tiresome necessity of scholarly life. It is a practice that goes beyond genre and technique to questions of writing and identity. In this article we deconstruct a series of abstracts from a variety of refereed journals to 'read' for the representation of data, argument, methodology and significance.…

Studied how college students acquire academic literacy through their writing. Findings for six South African students for whom English was a second language show the difficulties students have in using their own words and in distinguishing different voices in writing. Explicit assistance from lecturers was found to assist students in understanding…

This article is an account of a cooperative project to develop student writing within an interdisciplinary human sciences degree, in line with the 'Writing in the Disciplines' approach adopted in the USA that aims to develop student writing within mainstream teaching. The course tutor worked with a writing tutor to introduce a 'writing strand'…