Literature Review on Academic Writing
Introduction
Academic writing is mostly used in universities to write scholarly publications and research projects. Graduate students exhibit their writing skills in journals, research papers, and dissertation projects. The writing process must be concise, follow the required format, and be unbiased (Graff, Birkenstein, & Maxwell, 2014). The information in academic writing is professionally conveyed, and arguments are presented with evidence. Students work must also recognize the source of their ideas to avoid plagiarism. This creates consistency in all fields of study as students adopt a similar style of acknowledging the work of other scholars. Globalization has presented new challenges to university students who secure opportunities to study abroad. For instance, international students experience mismatch in their literary skills in their nation with the new country of study. Students spend a lot of time before adapting to the new cultural, linguistic, and literary practices in the new country.
Academic Writing Challenges
Academic writing imparts students with proficient skills in carrying out any academic research even at a doctoral level (Wingate, 2012). It also prepares students to handle all types of writing in their academic journey and corporate world. However, there are significant challenges that students face in academic writing. When joining institutions of higher learning, most students come with varying levels of academic writing competency. Their ability to express themselves via writing differs depending on the quality of education they received in high school (Colwell, Whittington, & Jenks, 2011). One of the writing challenges that students face is encountering a different type of scholarly writing in universities. The scholarly writing in universities takes the form of research papers, lab reports, and thesis, which is totally different from what students learned in high school. Scholarly writing presents new challenges to students as they have to exhibit exceptional skills to present quality work.
According to Arum and Roksa (2011), the lack of student’s experience in academic writing is their greatest impediment. Most of the students have little understanding of academic writing hence cannot present quality work. The lack of awareness of quality writing standards also hinders students from presenting proper academic submissions. Arum and Roksa published an article claiming that students enroll in courses with little writing assignments. This is due to their unpreparedness in handling academic writing since they were not taught in high school. For international students, they face significant challenges since English is their second language. For instance, Arab students face challenges of mastering the English language since they are only proficient in Arabic. Therefore, they concurrently encounter the challenge of learning the English language and academic writing. Arum and Roksa’s arguments are supported by Ruggles (2012), who argued that international students find it hard to meet academic writing demands.
According to Colwell and Jenks (2011), the increased faculty workload and lack of feedback also exacerbate students’ writing challenges. Guiding international students properly on academic writing concepts consumes a lot of time. Most professors lack time to guide the students on academic writing matters. Graduate advisors also require the time to educate the students on writing skills due to workload constraints. Therefore, most international students struggle with writing skills due to the lack of guidance from professors. College instructors also take a different approach to grading assignments. Some concentrate on the content of assignments rather than the writing techniques (Colwell, Whittington, & Jenks, 2011). They fail to provide feedback regarding students’ writing skills, hence leaving the international students facing the same challenges. Others balance the content and the quality of writing skills, thus leaving international students confused on how to approach academic assignments.
Colwell, Whittington, and Jenks (2011) adds that most of the assignments given to students do not require creativity and adherence to academic writing standards. In other cases, some professors even ignore basic writing requirements, such as grammar and commas. Some instructors tend to make the students pass exams for the sake of their evaluation. Therefore, they ignore the basic mistakes done by students when presenting their academic work. This attitude from professors prompts students to ignore the basic guidelines of academic writing. They concentrate on perfecting the content of the assignments and not on their writing prowess. The resentment from students when they perform poorly also forces professors to ease the writing guidelines’ strictness. As a result, most of the international students continue struggling with the challenge of perfecting the skills of presenting quality academic assignments.
The different student’s experiences in their native countries also create problems for them when tackling academic writing assignments. Ibrahim and Nambiar (2011) found that the students’ experiences when obtaining their first degree in Asian countries are different from those of other countries. The academic experiences of international students in their native universities do not prepare them adequately to handle writing projects in foreign nations. The different learning styles and teaching approaches make it difficult for students to cope with foreign universities’ writing demands. As a result, most of them end up facing significant academic writing challenges after joining universities in other countries. In Arab countries, most students fear to ask teachers critical questions. Due to the traditional mindset of not challenging authorities, students only rely on what the teachers deliver. When they join foreign universities where Professors lecture, their traditional reservations of not asking questions heightens their academic writing challenges.
Reading books and note-taking is a challenge for some international students. According to Manjet (2016), most of the Arab students find it challenging to take notes when lecturers are in class. Lecturers in foreign universities lecture in the English language, which is a new dialect for some Arab students. Therefore, listening to teachers is a common problem since they cannot differentiate between written and spoken English. Without taking notes, the students’ academic challenges prolong as they have little understanding of the course subjects. Since library books are also written in English, they lack avenues of conducting further research. This demoralizes them from learning academic writing techniques and sharpen their grammatical and literary skills.
Critical Thinking and Academic Writing
Critical thinking is an act of questioning and having an open mind to learning new ideas and concepts. Critical thinkers evaluate different arguments to generate their own ideas. In academic writing, critical thinking is important to students. It enables them to assess various evidence and generate their independent opinions about certain aspects. Through critical thinking, students compare their thoughts with different authors hence generating independent opinions (Ebadi, & Rahimi, 2018). Moreover, students develop sound arguments about various concepts hence enabling them to write well-reasoned out articles and academic presentations. Data interpretation also requires critical thinking in terms of evaluating observations and initiating the right conclusions.
According to Shaheen (2016), rote memorization is one of the factors hindering critical thinking of Arab students. In most of the Arab education systems, passive learning and rote memorization is a common aspect. Therefore, students focus only on memorizing concepts without synthesizing information to gain a better understanding. Consequently, they lack creativity in generating new concepts and writing research projects. Challenging those in authority is also discouraged; hence students fail to develop an analytical and critical thinking attitude. When these students join universities in other countries, the challenge of critical thinking impairs their academic writing ability. Most of them lack the intellectual skills of evaluating and analyzing new concepts.
International students also face the challenge of expressing their thoughts in English. Some are good critical thinkers but only in their native language. They face the difficulty of expressing their ideas in a foreign language. Most of them have little understanding of the English language hence lack the appropriate words to describe certain thoughts (Kuo, 2011). As a result, the students end up reserving their thoughts or expressing themselves in a way that portrays them as poor critical thinkers. Therefore, the primary challenge inhibiting critical thinking is the lack of understanding of the English language. Besides, most of the books and other literary works are written in English. If the students have little understanding of the English language, they cannot read effectively and analyze what they have read.
Difficulties with Grammar
Correct grammar, tone, logical inference, passive voice, and punctuation marks create coherence in an academic writing assignment. It also creates clarity, and readers can easily understand the student’s presentation. Correct usage of grammar also makes it easy for professors to understand the student’s points. However, grammar is one of the most significant challenges in academic writing. International students face challenges when mastering the grammar to use in writing. Since they have little understanding of the English language, they cannot comprehend the spelling of certain words and punctuation of sentences (Rass, 2015). Therefore, most academic assignments for international students are full of grammatical errors.
Additionally, international students encounter a new writing style that is different from their native country. They face the challenge of new writing formats in a totally different language. Most of them confuse articles such as an, a, and the, which are common aspects of the English language. This creates incoherence in most of the academic assignments of these students. Their work also lacks prose and is full of grammatical errors. Professor’s face many challenges in handling these students since their presentations require a lot of editing and revision. Nevertheless, most faculty members have been debating on how to help international students from the Arab region. Some have even adopted a different grading strategy of Arab students with English native speakers.
The Arabic language is very different from English in terms of sentence structure and metaphoric phrases. The writing rules and symbols used in Arabic are different from those applied in English (Kuo, 2011). For instance, all Arabic words follow at least three consonants with vowels and affixes. However, the vowels in Arabic are not important in communication or writing. In English, vowels and articles are important in sentence structure. They help to create clarity and coherence in a sentence. Therefore, students who are used to Arabic encounter significant challenges when using English in academic work. Most of them lack an understanding of basic vowels and articles, resulting in confusion in their work. Besides, there is little time to learn the English language in universities, which leaves the students with significant challenges of expressing themselves in English.
Conclusion
Academic writing is used in higher learning institutions to write research projects, newspaper articles, books, and journals. Academic writing requires certain literary skills and proper grammar to create clarity in sentences (Wingate, Andon, & Cogo, 2011). Most English speaking students have an easier time applying academic writing in their work. However, international students face critical challenges in academic writing when they join foreign universities. For Arab students, they encounter a different language with unique vowels and sentence structures. This makes it hard to form correct sentences without grammatical errors. Their cultural backgrounds of not questioning teachers also exacerbate their troubles. Most of the academic work of international students is incoherent since they express themselves in a new language.
References
Arum, R. and Roksa, J. (2011) Academically Adrift, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. Arum, R.,
Roksa, J., and Cho, E., Improving Undergraduate Learning may be found at
http://www.ssrc.org/publications/view/D06178BE-3823-E011-ADEF-001CC477EC84/ (2011).
Colwell, J.L., Whittington, J., & Jenks, C.F. (2011). AC 2011-242: Writing Challenges for Graduate Students in Engineering and Technology. American Society for Engineering Education.
Ebadi, S., & Rahimi, M. (2018). An exploration into the impact of WebQuest-based classroom on EFL learners’ critical thinking and academic writing skills: A mixed-methods study. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 31(5-6), 617-651.
Graff, G., Birkenstein, C., & Maxwell, C. (2014). They say I say: The moves that matter in academic writing. Gildan Audio.
Ibrahim, N., & Nambiar, R. (2011). Writing in Foreign Lands: The Case of Postgraduate International Students and the Introductory Sections of a Project Paper. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences. 18(2011), 626-632.
Kuo, Y. H. (2011). Language challenges faced by international graduate students in the United States. Journal of International Students, 1(2).
Manjet, K.M.S (2016). An Emic Perspective on Academic Writing Difficulties among International Graduate Students in Malaysia. Journal of Language Studies Volume 16(3), October 2016.
Rass, R. A. (2015). Challenges Face Arab Students in Writing Well-Developed Paragraphs in English. English Language Teaching, 8(10), 49-59.
Ruggles, T.M., (2012). Masters Level Graduate Student Writing Groups: Exploring Academic Identity. Unpublished Dissertation Thesis, Arizona State University.
Shaheen, N. (2016). International students’ critical thinking-related problem areas: UK university teachers perspectives. Journal of Research in International Education. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1475240916635895
Wingate, U., Andon, N., & Cogo, A. (2011). Embedding academic writing instruction into subject teaching: A case study. Active Learning in Higher Education, 12(1), 69-81.
Wingate, U. (2012). Using academic literacies and genre-based models for academic writing instruction: A ‘literacy’ journey. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 11(1), 26-37.