This article shares strategies that educators can use to assist students in meeting the challenges of academic writing more effectively. In order to foreground an understanding of struggling writers, the text begins with a brief review of composition theory and history related to basic writers and identity. It goes on to examine classroom…

Academic writing, especially the writing of research articles, dissertations and theses, is often viewed in the literature as "writing up". It is as if first comes the research, an active creation of new knowledge, and then comes the writing, a relatively passive assembling of what has already been achieved. It is as if researching and…

The book introduces readers in the often-overlooked math-related fields to the ideas of writing-to-learn (WTL) and writing in the disciplines (WID). It offers a guide to the pedagogy of writing in the mathematical sciences, and gives theoretically grounded means by which writing can be used to help undergraduate students to understand mathematical…

This article describes and analyses a specific mechanism, the writing consultation, designed to help academics to prioritise, reconceptualise and improve their writing practices. It makes the case for its potential to stimulate consideration of writing practices and motivations, a possible precondition for creating time for writing in academic…

Argues that freshman composition courses should teach students to use writing to develop an awareness and trust in their own thinking processes. Cautions that students who get nothing but directive instruction will be handicapped in learning to think for themselves. (RS)

Describes problem definition in academic writing as existing on a continuum, with literary interpretation near one end and scientific writing near the other. Examines the consequences of this for undergraduate literature and composition assignments. (SRT)

At the intersection of teaching and learning, this guide is intended to introduce and update disciplinary faculty on contemporary writing principles and pedagogy. In addition, it is designed to: alert faculty to the ways in which effective writing helps students not only show what they have learned but also to learn, generate, and communicate…

The first phase of a study into language learning examined six undergraduate students' building of disciplinary discourse knowledge as they became immersed in the disciplinary community of psychology. Students were followed over the entire 4-year course of their undergraduate careers. Data included interviews, questionnaires, papers the students…

When teaching writing in content areas, such as hydrobiology, instructors should remember that what works in a writing class does not necessarily work across the curriculum. Yet although differences exist, content area teachers still need writing departments to teach their students to write. One possible response is the generic course, such as…

A study examined how college students wrote a critique of a sociology article; which features of written critiques were valued most by professors in the discipline; and whether students' educational level and status predicted the quality of their critiques. Subjects, 32 students enrolled in an upper-level sociology course, read and responded by…

This paper describes a simple instructional approach which social science professors can use to teach the fundamentals of academic essay writing to their students. The paper discusses the evolution of this alternative writing approach--the instructional problems leading to its development as well as the process by which a solution was identified.…

A proposal for a term paper writing course associated with a content area course is presented in this paper. The paper outlines the proposed course, in which a content area teacher assigns a term paper and has control over appropriate subjects for the students' papers. The paper explains that the course provides help in library research…

International students travel in many ways. First of all geographically: they move from one country to another. Secondly, they travel through their own identities: they have to find a new place in a new context by familiarizing themselves with new values and customs, while making sure they meet the requirements their studies ask of them. Writing…

An alternative curriculum for Freshman Composition, designed to help students develop cognitive skills useful for academic writing in other courses, involves eight discipline-specific assignments, building from relatively simple writing tasks such as taking lecture notes and keeping an academic journal, through book reports, essay examinations,…

A discussion of writing instruction in law school begins with an overview of the writing process, then looks more closely at student and teacher roles at each stage, offering suggestions for students and teachers. It concludes with ideas about institutional and curricular change that might make scholarly writing in law school a more satisfying…