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This study aims to advance global readers' understanding of the scholarly publishing (SP) activity system experienced by six English language teaching (ELT) Indonesian lecturers using the activity theory as a framework that focuses on its concepts of contradiction, boundary objects, and boundary crossing. Semi-structured interviews were used to understand the six participants' experiences and practices as researchers in producing scholarly material for international publication. Primary obstacles to their scientific publication came in the form of excessive workload, lack of funds, and lack of access to international journals. Nevertheless, the participants were able to surmount the arising challenges by treating them as bridging tools to connect their teaching, research, and community services. The findings raise important theoretical and practical issues dealing with the coping strategies for SP activity system as applied by the participants, which are: (1) crossing boundaries by conducting research-based teaching and community service; and (2) reconstructing the scientific publication activity system from individual to collaborative SP. One implication is the understanding of how participants manage crisis by connecting their multiple activity systems as objects to overcome obstacles occurring in their scholarly publishing activity system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bachelor's thesis can be characterized as a proof of basic research and a trajectory of academic writing. This study addresses students' ways of experiencing the writing process at the halfway stage, a stage that has been ignored in research. In a phenomenographic interview-study design, semi-structured interviews with 15 nursing students were carried out. A phenomenographic analysis of the data represents an outcome space with four categories of ways of experiencing writing: A. Structure, B. Comparison, C. Shift, and D. Relation. The categories of ways of experiencing the writing of a bachelor's thesis constitute a range of foci, from solitary writing and assurance of the textual structure to a shared understanding, discussion, and transformation. This study confirms that sharing the preparation of texts in groups at the halfway stage can promote academic and relational skills. Conclusions address the nature of academic writing at the halfway stage and discuss potential pedagogical implications of the transformation from writing for oneself to writing for others, across disciplines and beyond academic levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While early career researchers (ECRs) often read and produce articles for peer reviewed journals, they are of ten less familiar with peer review reports (PRRs). Most ECRs learn about the genre of PRRs by reading reports written about their authored manuscripts, and through hands-on experience crafting their own PRRs, albeit often with little guidance or exposure to exemplars. To demystify this 'hidden' academic genre, this article reports on a genre analysis of 62 'quality' PRRs, focusing on their communicative purposes, and the structural, content, and linguistic elements that serve to support those purposes. Findings show that the central role of the PRR is to elicit various actions on the part of manuscript authors. Other functions serve to circumvent manuscript authors' potential negative emotional response to PRRs, and this is also seen in limited use of high modality verbs and emotional language. PRRs follow a fairly uniform structure, and focus on all elements of the manuscript, with most attention given to the methods section. The article provides numerous examples that provide a practical guide to support writing pedagogies related to this important academic practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The doctorate and doctoral writing remain popular areas of inquiry and discussion, and yet very little research has empirically investigated the trends in dissertation types and how these trends might indicate broader changes in dissertation writing practices. This article builds on our recent work that investigated the macrostructures and research designs of 1,373 education-based PhD dissertations from five major Canadian research universities. In this current article, we more deeply explore the emergence in popularity of two 'alternative' or non-traditional dissertation macrostructures in education fields: the manuscript-style dissertation and the topic-based PhD dissertation. We highlight the popularity of these two dissertation types as evidence of shifting notions of what doctoral research and dissertations can (and do) look like in contemporary PhD programs. We focus specifically on these two dissertation macrostructures that were prevalent in our analysis, yet which are scarcely addressed in education-based dissertation resources. We provide a deeper reflection on the popularity of these dissertation models from our large-scale study, the ways these types of dissertations are organized at the global (macrostructural) level, and the chosen research designs, number of chapters, word counts, and authorship status (as either single-authored, partially co-authored, or mostly co-authored texts). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At postgraduate level, success often depends on the ability to produce quality academic writing. To develop a framework to support postgraduate research writing, we explored the writing experiences of twenty-four postgraduate students from non-native English-speaking backgrounds. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with these participants, who were enrolled in two institutions that have international branch campuses in Malaysia. Data were then analysed using an inductive thematic analysis approach. It was found that students' research experiences centre around three areas: academic writing; supervisory support; and institutional support services and tools. From these insights, we now propose a framework containing three dimensions and argue for pedagogically driven writing support; pedagogically informed supervisory support; and targeted and systematic peripheral support. As this framework is driven by the experiences and needs of postgraduate students, we believe it could lead to a more enriching learning experience and also greater student satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on academic temporalities to consider the rhythms, repetitions and discontinuities of academic work. Using a photo-serial methodology which generated an archive of images taken at the same time of day for a fortnight, we take up material and affective theories to rethink academic work as assemblages or micro-worlds that emerge through happenstance at particular moments. Our nonrepresentational, new materialist approach shifts away from discursive analyses of accounts of academic labour, and from assumptions of visual methods as 'documentary' representations of the world. We adopt an emergent, processual and experimental mode of inquiry that works against linearity, and an analytical approach that attends to the 'punctum' of images through glimpses, tangents and elusive details. The contributions of this paper lie in its mobilisation of images to think differently about the ubiquity and 'throwntogetherness' of academic labour, and its theoretical reframing of academic temporalities as composed of affective and material entanglements of events, relations, doings, objects, and spaces of all kinds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feedback plays a vital role in the process of mastering writing in many academic disciplines. Although peer feedback has been proven helpful to develop students' academic writing competency, the role of additional face-to-face peer dialogue in this context remains indistinct. Face-to-face peer dialogue on written peer feedback is expected to improve students' understanding; however, it is unclear under which conditions it might do so. The purpose of this exploratory study is to explore students' beliefs about peer feedback and to investigate both the instructiveness of face-to-face peer dialogue and the conditions for achieving improved understanding. Second-year university students (N = 84) participated in a mixed-method study that included questionnaires and focus groups. The intervention comprised face-to-face dialogue in small groups about the participants' written peer feedback on a draft report. Quantitative data showed students perceived peer feedback as meaningful, useful and a very important skill to possess. They felt confident about feedback quality, both provided and received. Overall, students perceived written feedback and face-to-face dialogue to be instructive, although no significant difference between the two forms was established. Qualitative findings revealed that face-to-face dialogue stimulates peers to elaborate on their written feedback, helps them deliver constructive comments and feel responsible for the feedback process. Important conditions appeared to be the quality of the written feedback, the non-anonymous character of the dialogue, and the opportunity to revise the report. It can be concluded that face-to-face peer dialogue is a useful variation within peer feedback, which enhances further elaboration and students' engagement with feedback. This study provides insight in important conditions to design and implement face-to-face dialogue peer interventions in higher education in the context of academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language proficiency is highlighted in the literature on the adjustment and security of international students. India is the second top source country for mobile students globally, but few studies have focused explicitly on students from India. The purpose of this study was to examine the English language experiences of Indian students at New Zealand universities. This mixed-method study utilised a questionnaire (n = 109) and interviews (n = 15). Collectively the participants had high levels of confidence and proficiency in English language and adjusted more rapidly than many international students to the new academic environment. Major differences experienced by the participants between India and New Zealand related to unfamiliar forms of academic writing and tasks, and on the role of learning support services. Formal high value assessment was for some the first indication of a problem with writing. While most students adjusted through error-based learning others struggled with argumentation and avoiding plagiarism. These findings have relevance for local and international students. We recommend the use of, and research on, early low-stakes assessment of writing and on effective support services for students transitioning into new academic contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how care and space shape doctoral becoming. We extend previous higher education research that has critically examined the spatial arrangements of postgraduate study to explore how doctoral students negotiate both study from home and care-work responsibilities. The article draws on collaborative autoethnographic texts created by the authors to understand the ways in which care shaped their decisions about study spaces. We identify both exclusions and disadvantage in these accounts, at the same time as we discern wilfulness in the ways the contradictory positions of postgraduate student and caregiver were negotiated. We conclude the article by arguing that educational spaces are involved in the maintenance of academic norms that position care-work as invisible and out-of-place/space. Despite this, the creation of productive home spaces that facilitate both care and doctoral work remain possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing groups have been implemented in higher education institutions in the US, UK and Australia as a means of supporting a writer's productivity (e.g., journal articles or book chapters) as well as developing their soft academic skills (e.g., collegiality). However, writing groups are seldom discussed in the Japanese context. Therefore, this study describes the development, facilitation and implications of writing groups at a Japanese university (i.e., graduate and faculty level groups who met on a weekly basis for eight to ten weeks). The ways in which the facilitator managed each group using structured and unstructured approaches are discussed focusing on a description of the social, theoretical and practical activities of each group. In order to analyze the efficacy of the writing groups, participant experiences were explored in terms of their initial assumptions, expectations and successes. Finally, the characteristics of the two writing groups are compared to previous research findings. The comparison demonstrates that both groups are similar to those in other contexts. Group members are faced with universal issues such as time pressures, motivation, and varying writing abilities. Overall, this study draws attention to the characteristics of two types of writing groups at this particular university, and begins the conversation regarding the development, facilitation and efficacy of these groups in the Japanese context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Where and when do academics write and what are the feelings associated with it? Is the pressure to write a fulfilling process of joyful exploration, or is it stressful and wracked with self-doubt? Inspired by Henri Lefebvre's Rhythmanalysis, this article explores the rhythmic dispositions and orientations of contemporary academic writing, exposing the perils of neoliberal quantification and fragmentation in relation to the practice and experience of writing. The critical examination of Helen Sword's guide to successful academic writing and a critique of the material and abstract spaces destined to contemporary academic writing inform the analysis, revealing problematic contractions and ruptures in the spatio-temporal continuum that organically connects reading, thinking and writing. The article makes, therefore, a case for the use of Rhythmanalysis as a diagnostic method capable of signalling - by detecting arrhythmias - the increasing disjunction between the institutional demands of accelerated production and the slower, irrational rhythms of craftsmanship. By politicizing the pathologies of contemporary academic writing, Rhythmanalysis discloses its potential as a progressive political resource: both as a radical call for appropriation and as a counter-discourse, it allows to restore a more harmonious relationship between thinking, reading and writing against dominant forms of productivist fragmentation, while shedding light on the non-places and dead times of our everyday writing habits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Western universities provide for focused attention on the development of second language writers’ academic writing in first-year courses, but there are generally fewer defined channels for such learning after their departure from these courses. This article uses the lens of writing as situated social practices to investigate opportunities for learning about writing and making gains as writers as students continued their study beyond the first semester. Through semi-structured interviews, and examination of the students’ assignment scripts and markers’ comments, it identifies opportunities for learning provided by various forms of interaction within their courses, as well as barriers to their uptake. It reveals a balance between attention to genre features and content, and to linguistic accuracy, which appears to have allowed the focal students to make gains in their writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum transformation is a central concern for higher education in response to rapidly expanding technologies, globalisation and the widening diversity of the student and staff body. This is particularly true for South Africa, which is still grappling with inequalities and pressure for social redress in its universities. Early responses to supporting students took the form of add-on, ‘deficit-model’ approaches which understood poor student retention and success rates as emerging from students’ lack of neutral literacy ‘skills’. Recent initiatives have begun to adopt more socio-cultural understandings of literacy that seek to challenge traditional power structures and cultivate horizontal peer-orientated spaces for learning with a focus on practice rather than on product. Writing groups, as spaces for academic writing development, embrace this orientation and are argued to provide a transformative framework that foregrounds proactive student learning and experience, while still accommodating disciplinary learning through peer engagement. Drawing on the successful implementation of such forms of support at a research-intensive university, this paper argues that writing groups can play a critical role in both personal (student) transformation and broader curriculum transformation. Data include anonymous questionnaires and surveys with participants and coordinators of the writing groups. An inductive, constant comparative analysis indicated that students feel empowered in this space to develop not only their writing practices but also their transforming identities as scholars. Writing groups were found to provide ‘safe spaces’ where academic practices can be made explicit and where they can be challenged. The paper therefore argues that writing groups can play a small but key role in broader transformation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to start a conversation about a common yet under-examined emotion experienced by academic writers worldwide: frustration. What is frustration, exactly? What are its causes and effects, its symptoms and its cures? Is frustration an impediment to writing or a motivational impetus? Can academic writers vanquish frustration, or must we merely learn to live with it? Mirroring rather than mastering the complexities of this multifaceted emotion, we have structured our inquiry as a multiple-entry maze where frustration unfolds beyond each threshold as uncharted terrain: a place of neurological explanations, playful etymological twists and metaphorical metamorphoses. The paper re-enacts our own collaborative journey through the maze, meditating on and modelling some of the frustration-easing strategies that we developed along the way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current research-focused climate, academics are facing increasing pressure to produce research outputs. This pressure can prove particularly daunting for early career (EC) academics, who are simultaneously attempting to master new teaching and administrative demands while establishing their own independent research trajectories. Previous reports suggest that academic writing retreats can be an effective way of increasing research outputs. Such retreats generally involve academics from a range of career stages and require expert facilitators. Through organising a series of structured writing events, this project aims to cultivate an enduring community of practice for academic writers. Reflecting on our EC retreat and subsequent writing days with academics from different career stages, we suggest that success hinged on three key factors: (1)A formal structurecomprising bounded periods of intense writing, flanked by group reviewing and goal-setting; (2)Co-located writingwith participants based in a shared space, away from their usual workstation and distractions; (3)Peer discussionsinvolving participants at a similar career stage. Specifically we found that writing amongst ‘equals’ increased productivity and confidence amongst EC academics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Academic writing groups aim to improve the quality and/or the rate of academic publications. In this article, the authors reflect on a writing group with academic and non-academic members that evolved over two years to uphold a deeper and arguably spiritual purpose. The group commenced with the aim of increasing its members' publication rates, but it developed to be a safe space for members to search for meaning as part of a fellowship of writers. This transition was based in the members’ shared commitment to social justice values and individual concerns to generate meaningful research and writing experiences. The group’s distinct processes, the shared values of its members and the site of the group meetings in a socially stigmatised community, all work to deepen its purpose beyond academic productivity. Though the group functions to strengthen individual and group norms that contribute to academic productivity, emergent norms and the fellowship of the writers foster a spiritual dimension in the group. This exploration of the spiritual dimension of a writing group adds to the long list of benefits of fellowship through academic writing groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Communication is widely recognised as an important capability for university graduates [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2013).OECD skills outlook 2013: First results from the survey of adult skills. Author. Retrieved fromhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264204256-en]. Yet, research suggests that it is often not adequately developed by Australian universities, remaining implicit in teaching and assessment. This is in part because Australian universities have historically conceptualised communication not as anoutcomeof disciplinary study, but as a generic, foundational competency or skill. It has therefore been managed outside the curriculum by establishing academic language and learning units that help students develop written and spoken communication through a range of student services. The services model of communication development is becoming untenable, however, given the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity of students and the recognised importance of communication as a graduate outcome. Whole-of-institution approaches are required to integrate communication into course curricula as a fundamental part of disciplinary learning, and develop the capacity of teaching staff to teach it. This paper explores Writing Across the Curriculum and Writing Inside the Disciplines, two complementary approaches used widely in the US for developing literacy in higher education. They emerged in the 1970s in response to the kind of student diversity now common in Australian universities, and offer institution-wide strategies for developing communication as an essential outcome of study in academic and professional disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Researchers interested in psychological factors affecting writers in higher-education institutions, or academic writers, are concerned with internal variables affecting writing productivity; however few empirical studies explore these factors with samples of students who are in the process of earning master’s or doctoral degrees (i.e., graduate students). In this study, we examined writing anxiety, self-efficacy and emotional intelligence (EI) in a sample of graduate students at a large, research-intensive university in the United States. Using a survey, we collected measures on these variables in addition to demographic information from the participants. We then used the measures to descriptively compare groups of students with similar characteristics and to run three regression models to identify which variables best predicted writing anxiety. Our findings indicate self-efficacy is a statistically significant and large predictor of writing anxiety while EI is not, though descriptive data showed moderate effects between EI and first language (i.e., whether or not a student reported English as a first language). In the presence of self-efficacy, gender remained a significant predictor of writing anxiety, while first language did not. We discuss implications for future research and practice focused on helping graduate student academic writers succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper attempts to demonstrate the differences in writing between International English Language Testing System (IELTS) bands 6.0, 6.5 and 7.0. An analysis of exemplars provided from the IELTS test makers reveals that IELTS 6.0, 6.5 and 7.0 writers can make a minimum of 206 errors, 96 errors and 35 errors per 1000 words. The following section explores the differences in error patterns between IELTS 6.0, 6.5 and 7.0 writers and a proposition is made that the IELTS 7.0 writer shows some convergence of error types found among native English writers. In regard to workload issues, the paper discusses the impact of errors as a distraction which affects reading time and gives an indication of the amount of extra workload that may be required to assess IELTS 6.0, 6.5 and 7.0 writing. The paper concludes with remarks about entrance requirements for tertiary study and suggests that it may be simpler to raise entry standards than attempt to remediate the writing of students with low IELTS scores. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With continuing pressure to publish or perish, interventions such as writing groups are increasingly part of the academic landscape. In this paper, we discuss our writing group's experiment with collaborative writing, which came unstuck as simmering concerns led to a mutiny within the group. The mutiny provided insights into tensions that are inevitably present in writing groups and collaborative writing exercises but are seldom written about. We explore these tensions via a collaborative autoethnography, drawing on published literature on writing groups and collaborative writing. The mutiny revealed three key dynamics. Experienced voices can have an important role to play but these voices need to be moderated so that other voices might be recognised and valued. Pleasure and productivity are two necessary components for sustaining writing groups and writing collaborations. Finally, hierarchies in the academic context are inescapable but they can be renegotiated so that more enabling power relations can be generated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although learning to write for publication is an important outcome of doctoral education, it has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. Within a socialization and supervisor pedagogy framework, this study uses narratives of faculty who regularly write with their doctoral students for publication to expose challenges students commonly encounter in the writing process. Common challenges include international students' ‘writing problem’, misconstruing the nature of disciplinary writing and not realizing that ‘public’ is part of publication. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Referencing skills contribute much to the emergence of voice in students' academic writing. Such skills have a bearing on the identity of learners as writers. In referring certain ideas to certain sources, the writer is able to distinguish voices of others and, in doing so, provide space for the hearing, or establishment, of their individual voice. However, an understanding of the rationale behind referencing and taking on the techniques required for its conventions often proves a complex, intimidating affair for students. Much fear is incited within learners by the convention of referencing, together with the scourge of plagiarism. Thus, rather than learners being ensconced within the academic environment through being able to relate to and engage with other voices, thereby acquiring agency in their writing, issues around referencing can actually serve to alienate them from the academic environment and deter them from their own agency. It may involve much practice and discussion before students see referencing as an asset in their writing. This process entails deconstructions, renegotiations and reconstructions of relationships with ideas and identities. This paper focuses on the relationship of agency and the issue of referencing in the development of an authorial identity for adult learners in the academic institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper makes a number of arguments about the research interview and maintains that, despite the near ubiquity of the method in higher education research, the interview remains under-theorised and mis-described. We argue that by virtue of being ‘insider’, higher education research involves a form of tacit ethnography where multiple sources of data impact on the interpretation of events. The ‘interview’ therefore needs to be understood in its rich contextual setting. The paper critiques the genre of journal writing and the tendency to under-describe methodology, with a reliance on a description solely of method. Papers that challenge this practice are discussed as offering alternative ways of writing research. Finally the paper analyses the role of reflexivity in interviews, both the researcher's and the researched. It points to the contradictions involved when the forms of reflexivity evoked are tied to the very policies and practices (for example, ‘employability’) we are attempting to critique. The paper concludes that we need a much richer understanding of our methodologies and of knowledge making. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As students move between universities on different continents, they are expected to adjust rapidly to the academic and cultural practices of their host university. Many of these students are higher educational professionals in their home country and on their return home they are faced with the challenge of how to fit back into - or whether to make changes in - their institution's established academic practices. I explored international PhD students' understanding of, and responses to, the perceived differences between academic cultures of host (UK) and home universities. Whereas some students regarded the changes made in how they conducted and wrote up educational research as temporary and strategic in order to pass the PhD course, others saw themselves as change agents. They were keen to transform academic practices once they returned home and were already actively working out politically and practically how to go about this. By reflecting on how educational research practices are changing and being influenced by the movement of academics between countries, I suggest how UK university departments can respond positively to the differing research practices in which international students engage in their home institutional contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative case study that explores how international students in different disciplines struggle to interpret their disciplinary requirements. The study shows the emergence of five main forms of unpacking academic expectations that individual students in the study employed. It will be argued that these international students appear to be active and capable of drawing on various strategies and problem-solving skills in order to take control of their academic life and enable them to participate in the academic practices of their discipline. The students' experiences also indicate that the interaction and dialogue they establish with their lecturers plays a significant role in their success in the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]