preparing and supporting graduate student writers comments and considerations

PREPARING AND SUPPORTING GRADUATE STUDENT WRITERS

Comments and Considerations

Graduate Writing Preparation and Support

We need programs for all graduate students as they move through the various stages of their graduate programs.

Goals of Graduate Writing Preparation and Support

Novice Author

Advanced Beginner Author

Competent Author

Proficient Author

Expert Author?

Differences from Novice to Expert(based on Dreyfus 2004)

Novices default to prior knowledge of writing/genre, often looking for rules and directions to follow.

Competent authors can repurpose some writing/genre knowledge, choosing among possibilities and often not knowing what will succeed.

Proficient authors base choices on their genre awareness, take responsibility, and are more likely to succeed.

Experts intuitively see what needs to be done and typically succeed—tacit writing/genre knowledge comes into play.

Importance of Stages

We may have opportunities to support transitioning authors at several points along the way.

We can facilitate both the abstraction/transfer of useful writing/genre knowledge and the process of discarding elements that are no longer useful.

Assigned writing in courses may be intended to guide students as they move through different stages.

Graduate Student Writing

Task Percentage of classes with specified task (%)

Library research paper 38

Article/book review 20

Report on an experiment/project 18

Plan/proposal 12

Case study 12

Summary/abstract 11

Essay 7

Journal article 7

Unstructured writing 8

Annotated bibliography 4

Miscellaneous Less than 2

Graduate Student Writing

Task Social sciences/humanities/arts (SS/H/A)

Sciences/math/engineering (S/M/E)

Chi-square value

N=103 % N=97 % χ2

Library research paper

55 53 19 20 24.50*

Article/Book review

30 29 5 5 19.89*

Report on an experiment/project

21 20 18 19 0.11

Plan/Proposal 21 20 3 3 14.34*

Case study 18 17 5 5 7.45*

Summary/Abstract

17 17 5 5 6.57*

Essay 13 13 1 1 10.31*

Journal article 11 11 3 2 4.42*

Unstructured writing

13 13 2 2 8.03*

Annotated bibliography

7 7 1 1 4.32*

Preparation and Support

Despite assigned writing, guidance may be limited.

External support is a reasonable alternative.

Five Levels of Writing Supportat University of Michigan ELI

Regular university courses

No added tuition

Graded

Credit-bearing

Genre-based pedagogy (GBP): Students as language researchers

Discipline and student specific reference collections

Five Levels of Supportat University of Michigan ELI

Academic Writing and Grammar Novice writers who

are in need of language support have limited academic writing experience believe good grammar equals good writing believe they need “rules”.

Our emphasis is on writing context, genres and sub-genres, trends, and tendencies.

We look at grammar as a matter of choices dependent upon what the author wants to get done.

Preparation and Support: Novices

Support may be decontextualized to a greater or lesser degree.

Decomposing the task environment into context-free features that the beginner can recognize without the desired skill.

Genre analysis is invaluable.

Students may have information, but lack an understanding of the contexts to which that information applies.

Students seek and try to employ “rules”—duplicate the model.


Academic Writing: two semester sequence

Emphasis on sub-genres that ultimately contribute to writing empirical research papers

Greater emphasis on writing and language as a matter of choices and strategies to accomplish a goal

Discipline specific

One semester: short texts on topics in the students’ disciplines

Second semester: source based writing (literature reviews that create an argument and make a point, critiques of scholarship)

Preparation and Support: Advanced Beginner

Support can prompt an understanding of context

Authors in transition may notice or be prompted to notice examples of meaningful additional aspects of the situation or domain—genre awareness is developing.

After seeing a sufficient number of examples, authors learn to recognize these new aspects.

Approach to writing may still be an analytic application of “rules”, but may involve some consideration of context.


Research Paper Writing IMRD focus Literature reviews, introductions, abstracts,

results, discussion, methods, titles Strategies for stance and engagement Argumentation Text analysis and discussion Genre


Research Paper Writing Options

A long literature review that can feed into a proposal or paper for publication

A complete research paper

A proposal

Preparation and Support: Competent Author

Emerging Understanding of Importance of Context Contexts are not static.

As authors in transition recognize aspects of the situation or domain or genre that are important, they may become overwhelmed.

Authors may need support to distinguish relevant new aspects from less relevant ones.

Making these distinctions can result in better understanding and decision making.


Importance of Context

Contexts are dynamic.

Competent authors begin to recognize that there are far more writing situations and genres to be dealt with than can be identified in advance.

It is impossible to prepare a list of all the possible writing situations and genres that need to dealt with.

Authors need to determine for themselves what plan or perspective to employ without knowing whether they will be successful.


Importance of Understanding Context

“Rules” do not work.

Uncertainty can be a source of stress.

Success depends on the author’s choices.

“Correct” choices can boost confidence and satisfaction unknown to novices.

“Poor” choices can demoralize.


Dissertation Writing and Writing for Publication Students must be in their 3rd year of a Ph.D.

program. Most are candidates. Mix of candidates and pre-candidates works very

well.


Dissertation Writing and Writing for Publication Students choose the genres and sub-genres to

be covered. Typical topics include: literature review,

proposals, conference abstracts, IMRD, teaching philosophies, cover letters, CVs, dissertation abstracts


Importance of Understanding Context

Authors in transition are struggling.

They need to accept both positive emotions associated with success as well as negative emotions associated with failure.

A lack of emotional involvement” can lead to stagnation in development (Benner 1984).

Authors who adhere to application of “rules” will not move beyond the stage of competence.


To move on to the next level authors need to develop a tolerance for and sensitivity to changing contexts as well as develop strategies for dealing with them.

Preparation and Support: Proficient Author

Taking Responsibility

Proficient authors move away from “rules”.

Authors may understand their writing goals, but not how to achieve them due to a lack of experience.

Authors may see multiple choices, but have uncertainty as to which “move” to make.

Preparation and Support: Expert Author

Taking Ownership

Experts have a vast repertoire from which to choose.

They see what needs to be done and have had sufficient experience to determine which course of action should be followed.

Experts can decompose the task/genre into sub-tasks/sub-genres, each of which requires a specific action.

Preparation and Support: Proficient Author

Experts simply “know” based on vast amounts of experience.

Students Need Many Types of Support

Courses prior to dissertation writing so students can develop writing competence and confidence.

Genre-based pedagogy

Peer writing support

Dissertation boot camp

Food for Thought

Cooper, A. and Bikowski, D. (2007). Writing at the graduate level: What tasks do professors actually require? Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6(3), 206-221.

Dreyfus, S.E. (2004). The five-stage model of adult skill acquisition. Bulletin of Science and Technology 24(3), 177-181.

preparing and supporting graduate student writers comments and considerations

Documents

levels of writing support

good writing

writing context

levels of support

novices support

graduate students

external support

academic writing experience