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Academic Writing

In 2018 a team from the Department of English of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University embarked on a project to improve written academic English among our students. We talked to teachers and students and identified weak areas that might be fairly easy to fix. Based on these a series of short writing instruction modules was developed. Most teachers do not have time to include writing instruction in their content classes, so we needed material that would be easy to deliver and absorb and could also – if necessary – be viewed by students independently.

The writing modules were then tested with a multi-disciplinary class, revised, presented to teachers, revised and tested again. What you see below are the final versions (although these might change from time to time to incorporate users’ comments!).

Each module comes with a series of four or five short online exercises. We strongly recommend you allow students time to do these (and students: you should do them). Our results indicate that those students who did the exercises are the ones who improved the most. The exercises are based on examples from the Humanities, but discipline specific examples could be used instead.

To test whether the writing instruction had made any difference to our students, we also carried out a Knowledge Survey. This is a survey that captures the level of confidence of students before and after the instruction is given. You can find the survey here (contact us if you would like to have an editable copy). The list of questions can be downloaded here.

The videos can be watched in any order but we recommend you follow the order in this page. The power point presentations are provided through the links next to each video, should you want to edit some of the information or add your own. We would be grateful if you could acknowledge our work (The Department of English and the English Language Center, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University).

For more information on the project, the methodology, pedagogical base and other details please refer to:

  • Lopez-Ozieblo, R. (under review). Improving second language writing across the disciplines: resources for content teachers. In M. Carrió Pastor (Ed.). Teaching language and content in multilingual classrooms: CLIC and EMI approaches. [A copy of this paper will be available here]

  • Lopez-Ozieblo, R. (under review). Learning from a Corpus of Students’ Academic Writing. In Francisco J. Álvarez-Gil and Marina Bondi (Eds). [A copy of this paper will be available here]

Writing Instruction Materials  

This page contains basic writing instruction material for staff and independent learners. We encourage you to watch the videos and complete the exercises (QR codes will take you to them from the videos or you can use the links in the text below each video), as this will help process the information given in the videos. Before you start we also encourage you to complete a questionnaire to evaluate your writing confidence levels. Use the links below to navigate through this page. 

 

Register

Confidence Levels

If you are a student, before you start, fill in this questionnaire to assess how confident you are in your written academic English. The questionnaire has been designed thinking of a specific subject or assignment. Keep your results and after you watch all the videos do it again. Has your confidence improved? Which is your weakest area?

You can download the questions here.

 

 

 

Register

Many students are not sure what academic English actually is. If you have doubts have a look at the Register video below (download the slides here):

Measure your Confidence Levels
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Online Exercises: https://goo.gl/forms/HtdVnIv4iiUwF5Gi1

References: 

 

Nominalisation

Nominalisation allows you to communicate with other academics using a standard and mutually intelligible vocabulary. Have a look at the Nominalisation video below (download the slides here):

Nominalisation
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Our thanks to the presenter, Kathleen Macdonald, for all her help.

 

Online Exercises: https://forms.gle/xNYHV79rew1B5WbNA

 

References: 

       http://elss.elc.cityu.edu.hk/ELSS/Resource/Academic%20Style%20and%20Tone,%20Nominalisation%20ICOSA%20Version/

 

Summarising and Paraphrasing

When you write academic texts you often have to refer to the work of others. This is how to do it, have a look at the Summarising and Paraphrasing video below (download the slides here):

Summarising and Paraphrasing
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Voices and Evaluation

Online Exercises: https://goo.gl/forms/0v7Jz9yr3k5DwnYi2

References: 

  • Hood, S. (2008). Summary writing in academic contexts: Implicating meaning in processes of change. Linguistics and Education, 19(4), 351-365.

  • Keck, C. (2014). Copying, paraphrasing, and academic writing development: A re-examination of L1 and L2 summarization practices. Journal of Second Language Writing, 25, 4-22.

 

 

 

Voices and Evaluating

This video is related to the previous one as, aside from providing information said or written by others you might also need to evaluate that information. Have a look at the Voices and Evaluating video below (download the slides here):

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Online Exercsies: https://goo.gl/forms/2OJ43PliyrNYb9sF2

 

References: 

Structure

When you write you also need to think about the structure of the overall text, the paragraphs and the sentences, to ensure that the information flows coherently. Have a look at the Structure video below (download the slides here):

Stucture
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Cohesion

Online Exercises: https://forms.gle/QXfEtz9baNsMRPfTA

References: 

Cohesion

Aside from coherence you also need to provide cohesion to your ideas, how are they linked to each other? Have a look at the Cohesion video below (download the slides here):

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Online Exercises:https://goo.gl/forms/iAoPJpev8ycuUfvE3

References: 

Genres and argumentative essays:

 

The writing instruction above should be useful for novice writers from all disciplines, regardless of the type of essay they need to write. However, the team had identified the 'argumentation' or ‘evaluation’ genre as being one of the most problematic ones. Among the types of students’ essays we collected and analysed, as part of this project, we mostly came across the following genres (see Table 1), or types of texts, these we categorized into the following different genre families (Nesi & Gardner, 2012). Most of the teachers we spoke to confirmed that their students were often required to write essays that required students to discuss and evaluate a topic.

 

Table 1: genre families and genres encountered in the project

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adapted from Nesi and Gardner (2012, pp. 30-34)

 

One of the reasons for the widespread use of Essays is that they are a good tool to helps students to develop independent reasoning skills, one of the five social purposes of undergraduate texts (as specified by the UK National Education guidelines (Nesi & Gardner, 2012, p. 35)). Other social purposes are listed in Table 2:

 

Table 2: Social Purposes of different genres

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adapted from Nesi & Gardner (2012)

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) divides genres more generally into three families: analytical, factual and personal (Martin, 1989). Analytical genres include account, explanation and exposition under which a judgement is argued through providing and evaluating supporting evidence (grouped in Table 1 under ‘Essay’). The term ‘argumentative essay’ is commonly used in English courses and is also referred to as an ‘expository essay’ (Jenkins & Pico, 2006). The text might present one or various points of view, supporting one. For more information on this, you can refer to the resources provided by PolyU Library here.

   

Hirvela (2011) details two main pedagogical theories covering argumentation essays: learning to argue and arguing to learn. The former, often grounding mother tongue (L1) argumentative pedagogy, focuses on the argument as a form of reason (Toulmin, 2009). The aim is to understand the logic behind the argument and use its elements (claim, evidence, warrants, counter-arguments, and rebuttal) to build a strong case. On the other hand, the arguing to learn theory believes that the elements of the argument are just tools and the aim is not so much to know the argumentative elements but to learn how to argue (Kuhn, 2005). Whichever pedagogy is adopted in the classroom, L1 and second language (L2) students struggle with argumentative writing (Hirvela, 2017). Students need to learn to make claims, rather than just rephrase information from sources, to allow opposing voices to come through their texts, and cite them adequately, to ensure readers are addressed and aligned with the author’s argument (Pessoa, 2017). One of the issues is that Chinese English learners, in particular, have been observed to display a reluctance to use authoritative language that is negatively assessed by L1 readers (J. J. Lee & Deakin, 2016). At the same time Hong Kong students struggle with the use of hedges to tone down their assertions (Zhao, 2019). For more information on this, you can refer to the resources provided by the Department of English here.

Our writing instruction modules have been developed thinking about these types of essays where students have to discuss and evaluate ideas. However, most of the information should be useful in the writing of other types of texts.

Links to other PolyU resources:

 

Writing your MA thesis:

http://www.engl.polyu.edu.hk/academic_writing/index.html

http://www.engl.polyu.edu.hk/academic_writing/RP_structure.html  

 

Writing your Capstone project:

http://www.engl.polyu.edu.hk/BACapstoneProject/index.html  

 

Library resources 

https://libguides.lb.polyu.edu.hk/english-for-university/write  

 

Acknowledgements: 

This study is based on a  proposal by Dr. Gail Forey and funded by the Teaching and Learning Fund of the Hong Kong University Grants Committee (2017). It is supported by the Research Center for Professional Communication in English (RCPCE) of the Department of English of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Thank you to all the participants who have made this study possible, in particular to students who gave us access to their writing and  colleagues who agreed to be interviewed. I am also grateful to colleagues from the ELC, Dr. Julia Chen and Dr. Grace Lim and Dr. Josephine Csete from EDC and to all the other collaborators, Dr.  Marvin Lam, Dr. William Feng, Dr, Nicholas Sampson, Dr. Shirley Ngai and Dr. Tsz Leung Yip, and to the members of the project team: Dr. Eric Cheung, Mary Johannes and Cyril Lam. Our special thanks to Kathleen McDonald who presented the video on Nominalisation.

References and Further Reading: 

  • Bitchener, J., & Storch, N. (2016). Written corrective feedback for L2 development. Buffalo : Multilingual Matters.

  • Bowers, N., Brandon, M., & Hill, C. D. (2005). The use of a knowledge survey as an indicator of student learning in an introductory biology course. Cell biology education, 4(4), 311-322.

  • Byrnes, H. (2013). Positioning writing as meaning-making in writing research: An introduction. Journal of Second Language Writing, 2(22), 95-106.

  • Ellis, R. (2009). Corrective feedback and teacher development. L2 Journal, 1(1).

  • Hirvela, A. (2011). Writing to learn in content areas: Research insights. Learning-to-write and writing-to-learn in an additional language, 159-180.

  • Halliday, M. A. (1993). Towards a language-based theory of learning. Linguistics and education, 5(2), 93-116.

  • Halliday, M. A. (1999). The notion of" context" in language education. Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science Series 4, 1-24.

  • Hirvela, A. (2017). Argumentation & second language writing: Are we missing the boat? Journal of Second Language Writing, 36, 69-74. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2017.05.002

  • Hyland, K., & Hyland, F. (2006). Feedback in second language writing: Contexts and issues. Cambridge: Cambridge Uiversity Press.

  • Jenkins, H. H., & Pico, M. L. (2006). SFL and argumentative essays in ESOL. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the International Systemic Functional Congress (ISFC).

  • Johns, A. M. (2011). The future of genre in L2 writing: Fundamental, but contested, instructional decisions. Journal of Second Language Writing, 20(1), 56-68.

  • Kang, E., & Han, Z. (2015). The efficacy of written corrective feedback in improving L2 written accuracy: A meta‐analysis. The Modern Language Journal, 99(1), 1-18.

  • Kuhn, D. (2005). Education for thinking. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.

  • Lee, J. J., & Deakin, L. (2016). Interactions in L1 and L2 Undergraduate Student Writing: Interactional Metadiscourse in Successful and Less-Successful Argumentative Essays. Journal of Second Language Writing, 33(C), 21-34. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2016.06.004

  • Leedham, M. (2015). Chinese Students’ Writing in English: Using visuals and lists. English Teaching in China (ETiC), 6, 16-20.

  • Martin, J. R. (1989). Factual writing: Exploring and challenging social reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press .

  • Nesi, H., & Gardner, S. (2012). Genres across the disciplines: Student writing in higher education. Cambridge University Press.

  • Nuhfer, E. B., & Knipp, D. (2003). The Knowledge Survey: A Tool for All Reasons. To improve the academy, 21(1), 59-78.

  • Pelaez-Morales, C. (2017). L2 writing scholarship in JSLW: An updated report of research published between 1992 and 2015. Journal of Second Language Writing, 38, 9-19.

  • Pessoa, S. (2017). How SFL and explicit language instruction can enhance the teaching of argumentation in the disciplines. Journal of Second Language Writing, 36, 77-78. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2017.05.004

  • Schleppegrell, M. J. (2004). The language of schooling : a functional linguistics perspective. Mahwah, N.J. : Lawrence Erlbaum.

  • Tardy, C. M. (2011). The history and future of genre in second language writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 20(1), 1-5. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2010.12.004

  • Toulmin, S. E. (2009). Return to reason. Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press.

  • Tardy, C. M. (2011). The history and future of genre in second language writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 20(1), 1-5. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2010.12.004

  • Tso, A. W. B., & Ho, W. S. Y. (2018). Chances and challenges: Teaching academic writing to university students in Hong Kong. The Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching, 9(1), 67-82.

  • Tso, A. W. B., Ho, W. S. Y., & Chung, J. S. K. (2016). Academic Writing for Arts and Humanities Students. New York: McGraw Hill Education.

  • Zhao, C. G. (2019). Writer background and voice construction in L2 writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 37, 117-126. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2018.11.004

Genres and argumentative essays
References
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