Past Event

Emerging Issues in Teaching Academic Writing for Graduate Students

Dr. Christine Feak
(University of Michigan)

With the globalization of education, research and publication, the importance of writing for academic, scholarly and professional purposes in English continues to grow. Through this writing students and scholars contribute to, gain membership in and position themselves in their disciplines and professions. Studies of academic writing over the past decades have transformed our ability to create high quality courses and teaching materials to help students as well as junior and senior scholars to write in ways that are consistent with conventions in their chosen fields. Yet, interestingly, as many English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing courses become more sharply focused, current trends in academic writing demands, research, employment of Ph.D. holders, grant requirements, and journal publication point to the need for writing course designers to take a step back and reassess whether and how we are meeting the writing needs of students. Of particular importance in this reassessment is broadening our knowledge of the writing that graduate students must do (beyond the standard course papers, thesis and dissertation) and for which audiences. A further consideration in re-evaluating our graduate writing courses is whether the traditional division between “non-native speaker” and “native speaker” of English continues to serve a useful purpose at the advanced writing level. Indeed, increasingly faculty across all disciplines complain that graduate students in general struggle with writing, but those same faculty are ill-equipped to provide adequate levels of writing mentoring. These issues will be taken up in this presentation, which focuses on where we are and where we need to be in teaching graduate level writing.

About the Presenter

Dr. Christine Feak is a lecturer at the English Language Institute, University of Michigan, where she is the lead lecturer for graduate student writing and writing for publication courses. She is co-author (with John Swales) of Academic Writing for Graduate Students and the new English in Today’s Research World book series focused on the writing of research genres and subgenres. Her current research interests include academic writing in education, medicine, and business; the academic writing and writing for publication needs of scholars in developing countries; and the development of effective academic writing curricula. Christine is also joint editor of ESP, a journal focused on research and teaching in English for Specific Purposes.