Academic writing

Being a good academic writer involves more than a few skills in referencing, paragraph structure and composing linking phrases. Students also need to understand the principles and expectations of academic writing and have opportunities to practice and to develop their own style.

Staff might involve students in analysing model answers or journal articles, or assessing texts for purpose and style. Sample questions could include:

• Which parts of a journal article usually have more references to previous work?
• Which parts are based on a writer's own ideas?
• How do published writers use the work of others to build their arguments?

Some schools have developed specific support strategies including:

• developing "Writing in the Discipline" modules
• involving postgraduate tutors as writing coaches
• appointing a study skills adviser for students to consult.

One option that staff use is to model appropriate behaviour for a member of the academic community. Strategies used to involve students in the disciplinary culture include:

• showing students how they have changed their mind about a topic in response to new findings
• exploring different sources for quality and reliability and demonstrating that there is usually more than one answer
• explaining how scholars argue in an academic forum
• bringing two contradictory sources together to demonstrate evaluation of competing arguments and the basis for disagreeing with published material
• encouraging students at later stages to attend research seminars in the school
• involving students in analysing samples of their own research data
• creating tasks and milestones along the way to extended writing assignments.

These approaches might be seen in one or more settings: lectures, tutorials or practical work.