Dissertation Writing for NNES Students Regarding Writing Process, Difficulties, and Support

Wei-Li Hsu

Survey Project for SLS 674

University of Hawaii at Manoa

November 24, 2010

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SP/T/D Writing Course

Introduction

Being a graduate student means a continuous struggle with understanding disciplinary

content, contributing in academic discussions, and writing academic papers. One way the

outcome of learning as a graduate student presented is in the form of academic writing, such as a

scholarly paper (SP), a master thesis (T), or a doctoral dissertation (D). The writing process is

challenging for most graduate students, but even more demanding for non-native English

speakers (NNESs) (Paltridge, 2002). Swales (1990, p. 110) suggests that the research articles is

one of the number of EAP genres and further investigation is necessary in order to better

understand the complicated process, and how students undertake academic English and are

socialized into their disciplinary discourse communities. However, in the literature investigating

English for Academic Purpose (EAP), only a small number of studies focus on the SP/T/D

writing for NNESs. To provide a better picture of how international graduate students of UH

perceive their learning needs of the SP/T/D writing and what kinds of support they expect from

the English Language Institute (ELI), I conduct a survey and put the questionnaire on the Survey

Monkey. The research questions of this survey are:

1. What skills did previous students of ELI 83 learn from the instruction?

2. What kinds of learning needs of NNE graduate students have during their SP/T/D

writing, in terms of the difficulties in their SP/T/D writing?

3. What kinds of expectations NNE graduate students have about the support from a SP/T/D

writing course provided by the English Language Institute (ELI)?

The respondents were recruited from previous ELI graduate writing course (ELI 83) and

personal connections. The respondents should have written SP/T/D, or are planning to write the

SP/T/D next semester. After compiling the data, I calculated descriptive statistics of each Likert-
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scale item, conducted primary component analysis (PCA) with promax rotation, and looked into

some correlation coefficients between some items. Later, a summery of results, unexpected

outcome, and suggestions were included in discussion section.

What is EAP?

EAP, or English for Academic Purposes has gained popularity rapidly in the last twenty

years (Hyland, 2006). The area draws from various disciplines, such as applied linguistics,

linguistics, education, et. cetera., to investigate academic learning in tertiary education. These

investigations focus on students in undergraduate, graduate, or higher degree research levels

(Brick, in preparation), areas in which NNES learners comprise an increasing part of the picture

(Paltridge, 2002). For academic writing, communicative context in which academic writing, an

EAP genre, takes place is crucial to follow acceptable rules for the target audience (Hyland,

2006).

EAP is divided into two categories, and one of them is English for General Academic

Purposes (EGAP). EGAP focuses on study skills in general academic discourses which are

common to all disciplines, including listening to lectures, participating in class discussions and

seminars, reading research articles, and writing essays, dissertations and publications (Brick, in

preparation; Hyland, 2006).

One important but unresolved issue in EAP is the differences across different disciplines

may be greater than the similarities. Swales (2004, pp. 131-132) gives an example in his book.

Although both Agriculture Botany (AB) and Agriculture Economics (AE) are in one related

discipline, they have different standards for theses. The primary purpose of AB theses is

communicative, while the primary purpose of AE theses is to display through argumentation. In

considering how to prepare students for dissertation writing, writing courses would cover both
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academic general dissertation and disciplinary specific writing in the instructions, because most

students of writing courses are from different disciplines, but still share similar needs and

difficulties (Swales, 2004; Hyland, 2003).

Genres in EAP

Since the main focus of this paper is on SP/T/D writing, which is one genre of EGAP, it is

essential to understand the concept of “genre.” Most genre analysis is based on Swales’ (1990)

definition, in which a genre “comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which

share some set of communicative purposes” (p. 58). The concept of communicative purpose is

crucial; each genre has its unique content and style requirements in order to communicate with

the target audience (Kay & Dudley-Evans, 1998). Common academic genres include essays,

reports, textbooks, lectures, tutorials, research reports, laboratory reports, seminars, literature

reviews, and so on (Brick, in preparation). Swales (2004) specifically differentiates research

genres, such as PhD dissertations, PhD defenses, Research talks, and Research articles, from

others in order to discuss the nature, implications, and issues of each, and improve our

understanding of research communication. In other words, Swales (2004) recognized PhD

dissertation as an EAP genre and studying its discourse would enrich the written communications

in academia. In addition, I would mainly focus on dissertation writing in this paper, instead of

SP/T/D writing in general, because literature of dissertation writing is more than SP/T/D writing

in general.

Discourse Community

The display and rhetorical strategies of each genre are controlled by its discourse

community, or the members and users of a particular genre. Therefore, each academic genre

targets a certain community within its discipline (Paltridge, 2001, p. 60-62; Swales, 1990, pp. 21-
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29). In order to gain membership, novices should be familiar with the display and rhetorical

strategies of their disciplines, such as adopting agreed theories, ways of compiling, interpreting,

and presenting information (Paltridge, 2001, p. 60). However, some researchers (Swales, 2004,

p. 119; Shaw, 1991) argue that it is difficult for dissertation writers to relate themselves to a

particular audience and these writers struggle to balance knowledge-display and information

transmission. This is due to the fact that their real readers, such as advisors and committee

members, already know much more than the writers themselves do. Therefore, Paltridge (2001,

pp. 59-60) and Swales (1990) recommend fostering the students’ knowledge of the discourse

community by reading recent dissertations in one's discipline or related-disciplines.

SP/T/D Writing Process

Four structures of SP/T/D. While the structures of theses and dissertations differ depending on

discipline, school, and country, the basic type of dissertation is IMRD (introduction-methods-

results-discussion). Paltridge (2002) proposes four kinds of SP/T/D: (1) traditional: simple, (2)

traditional complex, (3) topic-based” and (4) compilations of research articles.” Each discipline

has its preference of one structure over the other one, and thus familiarity of commonly adopted

structure is essential for dissertation writer and writing course instructors should facilitate

students' awareness of the preferred structure in their disciplines.

Components in each part of SP/T/D. Although there are four structures of dissertation, the

traditional structure is the most basic structure and thus I introduce components of SP/T/D based

on the traditional structure. Swales (1990) concludes his founding that there are three moves in

the introduction, (1) establishing a territory, (2) establishing a niche, and (3) occupying the niche.

Move 1 focuses on introducing the importance of the study and relating it to previous literature.

In Move 2, authors situate the research questions by presenting counter arguments against
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previous research findings and the gap between previous research and the current research

question. Finally, authors formulate the research questions, articulate present research and

indicate the theoretical framework applied to this study.

In the sections of methods and results, it is common to see Past Passive because the main

focus of these parts are the materials, methodologies, compiled data, and interpreted information

(Swales, 1990, pp. 166-170). Another, while some disciplines require step-by-step description of

the methods, other disciplines, like physics, exempt background knowledge and explanations

about how certain procedures are chosen over the others. Furthermore, Swales (1990) also noted

it is also important to look at missing components in these sections. For example, many papers

merely mention that the name of the procedures they adopted without enough details to replicate

their studies. Concerned with replicability and examining adopted methodology, the lacking

components leads readers to doubting the validity of the papers. Thus, dissertation writers should

be aware if the missing components are acceptable in their disciplines. In the results section,

authors often simply report research findings without any mentioning of authors. The results

section begins with an overall description of all the findings, and followed by charts and tables in

an organized way to avoid confusing the readers. It is noteworthy that extensive interpretations

should be in the discussion section to avoid repeated reporting in both results and discussion

sections (Rudestam & Newton, 2001, p. 167). Again, variations across disciplines is common,

thus, the procedures mentioned here is only basics in the traditional structure.

The discussion section often starts with a general introduction and ends with a general

conclusion. In between the general introduction and conclusion, there are several elements

which should be mentioned in the discussion, such as background knowledge, a summary of the

results, unexpected outcomes, references to previous research, interpretations, implications,

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hypothesis, limitations, and future research recommendations (Swales, 1990, pp. 172-173;

Rudestam & Newton, 2001, pp. 167-168). However, it is also important to note that different

disciplines would have different required components for discussion sections.

Suggested procedures for SP/T/D writing. Before students begin writing, there are certain

things that should be understood beforehand, for example, understanding the meaning and

purpose of SP/T/D, the requirements of SP/T/D in their fields, detailed plans with time-lines, and

technical skills to implement the plans and research (Mauch & Birch, 1993). The better

understanding students have, the less chance they will encounter obstacles to completing their

SP/T/D. One way to get started is to make a list of ideas to organize. Listing ideas to organize

can be helpful for students to compare and contrast ideas, and put ideas into clusters (Rudestam

& Newton, 2001, pp. 204-205). Then, they can put ideas into clusters and draw lines between

clusters to illustrate relationships between each factor and come up with possible experimental

designs.

Considering the development of the research proposal, the most important element

would be choosing the research topic (Mauch & Birch, 1993, pp. 64-79; Rudestam & Newton,

2001, p. 56). Choosing a topic which is important or interesting for the student personally would

make the writing process go more smoothly. However, there are other criteria that should be

taken into consideration beyond personal interest. These criteria include the importance of the

topic, the feasibility and appropriateness of the topic, and the technical competence of the

student. For NNES, they will have another thing to consider: limited research resources related to

their chosen topics which are unique in their home countries (Mauch & Birch, 1993, p. 73). After

the topic is chosen, students could start the research proposal which has an introduction,

explanation, significance of, or need for the study, the theoretical framework for the proposed
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study, hypothesis and research questions, applications and limitations of the study, the literature

review, proposed research design, data collection, expected outcomes, and bibliography.

After the proposal being approved, Mauch and Birch (1993, pp. 85-128) and Rudestam

and Newton (2001, pp. 204-208) suggest some approaches to the first draft of SP/T/D. One is

studying other SP/T/Ds on related topics to have a general idea of the related literature,

procedures, and how findings could be summarized and critiqued in their own articles. When

composing the article, try to begin with a news story telling its reader “who?”, “what?”, “why?”,

“when?”, “where?”, and “how?” in the introduction part. Imagining writing a story or explaining

to a friend about the study are helpful to get started on the first draft. In this way, the writer can

order ideas, connect ideas, articulate thoughts in straightforward language, and provide

fundamental knowledge. In addition, this is another benefit to get peer feedback from outside of

the writer's discipline.

No matter how hard the writers have tried, it is normal to be advised to make

adjustments. In order to smooth the process of receiving feedback and be more productive,

Mauch and Birch (1993, pp. 236-240) recommend making the first draft comprehensible to

people both from and outside of the student's discipline before submitting to the committee.

Suggestions from people outside of that discipline would push the student to write in a more

explicit and comprehensible way. Adopting these suggestions even before appointments with the

advisor would save the advisor's time and would show how seriously the student treats SP/T/D.

Finally, many professors Mauch and Birch (1993, pp. 236-240) interviewed stated the need of

receiving the writer's manuscript earlier in order to make constructive advice.

During revision, the advisor's suggestions would play a crucial role because the student

may receive contradicting feedback from different committee members. The student would be
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able to reorganize the first draft, add missing components, weigh which feedback would better fit

into the theoretical framework after the advisor clarifies the value of each suggestion and the

relationships between suggested ideas and concepts in the first draft. Later, making corrections

and modifications suggested by the advisor and committee members, and asking others, such as

writing consultants, for further suggestions about composition would make the second draft more

accessible and polished (Mauch & Birch, 1993, pp. 240-243; Rudestam & Newton, 2001, pp.

216).

Establishing one's authorship can be achieved by going beyond presenting different

theories and research findings and proposing one's own conclusions based on integrating

observations, knowledge and insights (Elbow, 1998, pp. 281-303). In order to claim the

“ownership” of one's SP/T/D, establishing authorship and voice is essential and difficult at the

same time; because academic writing encourages the writers to remove their stance from the

article (Rudestam & Newton, 2001, pp. 210-214). In addition, writing with personal connections

with the topic, such as new thoughts, feelings, memories, is a way to establish one's authorship

and develop one's voice (Elbow, 1998, pp. 281-303). Although the standard of authorship and

voice differs from disciplines, novice writers should experiment on establishing authorship and

developing a personal voice in their SP/T/D. By doing so, it is easier for the students to

incorporate personal experience, insights and persuasive statement into their writing, and take

responsibility for their argument.

Difficulties in Dissertation Writing

Difficulties experienced during dissertation writing. A primary difficulty for dissertation

writing is related to the dissertation readers. First, the dissertation readers are advisors,

committee members, and peer reviewers. Thus, the writers struggle with how to approach both
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primary and secondary readers at the same time (Paltridge, 2001, p. 62). The primary readers are

peer readers who review and provide feedback to the writers. The secondary readers are advisor

and committee members who provide guidelines for research and writing. Although the

secondary readers are those from higher hierarchy, Paltridge (2001) suggests that the primary

readers are more important in terms of the quality of the dissertation considering the writers

would internalize the comments and feedbacks from the primary readers more often than the

secondary readers.

Difficulties particular to NNES writers. Several investigations (Cameron et. al., 2010; Wang

& Bakken, 2004; Atkinson, 1999; Flowerdew, 1999) show that NNES writers in tertiary

education encounter different problems from NES (native English speakers) writers do, namely,

having less facility of expression, taking longer time to write, having less rich vocabulary,

struggling to making claims with an adequate amount of force, having their first language (L1)

interfere in the writing process, and having troubles with writing. As for NNES students, Hyland

(2003, p. 50) suggests that not only do they experience troubles considering their audiences, but

also other difficulties related to language, strategy and culture barriers. For language barriers,

NNES writers show less fluent L2 usage, and produce less accurate and effective texts. For

strategy barriers, NNES writers often exhibit a lack of composing competence, in that their L1

writing strategies may or may not be transferred to their NNES writing (Flowerdew, 1999). They

tend to plan less than NESs, have more difficulty setting goals and generating texts, and rewrite

more but reflect less on their writing (Hyland, 2003, p. 32). Benesch (as cited in Flowerdew &

Peacock, 2001, p. 21) argues that part of strategy incompetence could be explained by the fact

that academic composing strategies and collaborative learning are rarely implemented in NNES

students' home countries.

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For culture barriers, Hyland (2003, p. 50) suggests that different cultures would have

different expectations, strategies and beliefs and NNES writers would approach academic writing

differently. Ramanathan and Atkinson (1999) investigated how western individualism influences

academic writing and compared NNES writers' attitudes to western academic writing. They

found prominent cross-cultural divergence of individual voice, peer reviewing, critical thinking,

and textual ownership in academic writings. Moreover, they argue that textual ownership closely

relates to how each culture views effective learning of certain knowledge. Although

individualism advocates the importance of individual expression and plagiarism is regarded as

stealing another author's property; collectivism, such as in Indian culture, emphasizes

memorizing texts and information as a means of internationalization of traditional values.

Therefore, writing course instructors should bear these cultural differences in mind and raise

students' awareness of this differences.

Writing Course Support in Academic Writing

In seeking guidance from their advisors, some NNES writers encounter obstacles of

getting advice because of narrower language competence. Because approaching their advisors

would be intimidating regarding their limited oral proficiency and weaker English identities,

Sung (as cited in Swales, 2004, pp. 131-135) noted that Taiwanese students tend to seek advice

from their co-national colleagues. This goal can be achieved by (1) providing structured

curriculum which enhance language and strategy competence, (2) facilitating writing clubs as a

source of social support and peer review, and (3) meeting language learning, writing, and cultural

needs of dissertation writers and their advisors (Ferris, 2001).

As mentioned above, NNES writers would encounter language, strategy and culture

difficulties in dissertation writing. Hyland (2003, p. 50) concludes several guidelines for writing
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courses in order to adapt to NNES writers' individual, cultural, language differences. These

guidelines for writing courses/instructors are summarized as follows:

• Individual differences influence NNES writers' response to instruction, learning styles

and improvements in writing.

• Their bilingual, bicultural, and biliterate experiences can facilitate and/or impede writing

in various ways.

• Their conceptions of knowledge, self, and texts which may conflict with the instructor's

and influence writing outcomes.

• Their preferences of learning styles may conflict with the instructor's preference, and this

conflict hinders learning to write.

• Effective instruction can raise NNES writers awareness of different conceptions of

writing, encourage consideration of audience and provide patterns of unfamiliar rhetorical styles.

Although drawing diverse NNES students to the writing course would have certain

drawbacks, such as including irrelevant reading materials and sharing different disciplinary

conventions, this kind of writing course can still provide valuable stimuli for its students. First,

students from various disciplines would have less competitive attitudes with each other. Second,

by being exposed to reading materials from other disciplines, students are forced to focus on

rhetorical mechanisms instead of the content. However, one limitation of this practice is

recruiting doctoral students in similar dissertation writing stages, but this is a matter more

administrative than pedagogic (Swales, 2004, p. 134).

Dissertation writing courses facilitate social support and writing consultation for doctoral

students (Hyland, 2003, p. 50). Writing courses usually provide opportunities for writing groups

or writing clubs. By meeting writing groups on a regular basis, doctoral students would be able
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to exchange ideas, comment on progress, review drafts, and practice oral defense (Swales, 2004,

pp. 131-138). Moreover, triangular team work would be another feature, which happens among

writing instructors who serve as writing consultants, students, and advisors who provide opinions

about disciplinary discourses and professional feedback from their disciplines. In order to reach

this triangulation, the writing instructors should have access to advisors' comments and opinions.

Lastly, Swales (2004, pp. 138-144) concludes that the ultimate goal of writing courses is to

improve writing competence in terms of independent writers. Thus, raising consciousness of

rhetorical mechanisms, facilitating language and strategy competence, and providing

opportunities for social support are more important than grammar checking and sentence

repairing for NNES writers.

Methods

Respondents

34 respondents logged in the online questionnaire. 33 of them are international graduate

students of the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UH), and the remaining one respondent already

has her/his PhD degree. 16 respondents were in master degree, 16 were in doctoral program, 2

were in graduate certificate degree. One respondent is both in doctoral and graduate certificate

degree programs. As for nationality, 7 were from Korea, 5 each from Japan and Taiwan, 3 each

from the USA and Vietnam, 2 from Iraq, 1 each from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brazil, Bulgaria,

China, India, Indonesia, Philippine, and Turkey. As for major, 15 were from Second Language

Studies, 2 each were from Linguistics and Educational Technology, and the remaining 15 were

one each from different majors such as Education, MBA, Sociology, Molecular Biology and

Geophysics. 14 respondents had taken at least one writing course other than ELI 83. These
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writing courses were from the ELI, other ESL institutes, or writing courses at undergraduate

level. Among 34 respondents, only one respondent didn't have any experience in writing class

assignments at graduate level, scholarly paper, or research paper for funding. It is important to

recognize that the respondents were those who were willing to participant this survey and can’t

represent the whole population of international graduate students at UH.

Materials

The questionnaire used in this survey was primary based on book chapters related to

dissertation writing (Elbow, 1993, Mauch & Birch, 1993; Rudestam & Newton, 2001). Later, I

revised the questionnaire after discussing with two senior SLS- PhD students and the course

instructor. Then, the questionnaire was pre-tested by a SLS master's student to review inadequate

and ambiguous wording from a respondent’s perspective. Then, the questionnaire was reviewed

by an ELI 73 online course instructor and the director of the ELI.

The current study was administered as a Survey Monkey questionnaire on the Internet.

The questionnaire can be divided into three parts: (1) background data, (2) importance of themes

of SP/T/D writing, and (3) expected support from the ELI regarding the SP/T/D writing course.

The actual questionnaire is attached as Appendix A. 18 items are in five-point (1-5) Likert scale

with open-ended section for additional opinions.

Procedures

The survey was put up on a Survey Monkey URL

(http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V5LM2JT) from November 20 to December 6, 2010. The first

wave of emails was sent to the previous students of ELI 83. The second wave of emails was sent

via Taiwanese Students Association of UH. The third wave of emails was sent through personal

connections. Cover letters were sent with the emails. In the cover letters, I asked recipients to
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visit the Survey Monkey URL and respond to the questionnaire if they had written SP or thesis,

or will write SP, thesis or dissertation next semester. A total of 34 respondents answered the

questionnaire, but 15 respondents major in Second Language Studies. This is possibly due to a

snowballing effect.

Results

The results of this study will be presented in four parts: (1) descriptive statistics of Likert-

scale of the second and the third parts, (2) PCA with promax rotation of learning needs and

expected support from the writing course, (3) correlation coefficients between some items and

(4) open-ended responses.

Descriptive Statistics of Likert-scale Items

The data will be described in terms of information about the importance of themes of

SP/T/D writing process, the importance of categories of expected support from the ELI writing

course regarding SP/T/D writing, the possibility of registering for the course, and the importance

of this course.

Themes of SP/T/D writing process. As shown in Table 1, revising, developing the proposal and

writing the sections of introduction and conclusion had the highest means. In contrast,

approaches to the first draft had the lowest means, but it is noteworthy that the rating is higher

than 3, moderate importance.

Categories of expected support from the ELI writing course. As shown in Table 2, revising

suggestions/consultation, writing style and author’s opinions, and steps of thesis/dissertation had

the highest means. On the contrary, peer feedback is the only category for which the mean is

lower than 4.
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The possibility of registering for the course. 11 respondents chose “No”, 14 chose “maybe”,

and 7 chose “yes.” When being asked for suggestions for the writing course, there were 23

responses and these responses were reported in the later part of open-ended responses.

The importance of this course. The average rating is 3.55 and the mean is lower compared with

the means of writing process and expected support. The standard deviation is 1.03, which shows

higher variance than most items in writing process and expected support.

PCA of Learning Needs and Expected Support

Table 3 shows the loadings of a PCA with promax rotation, using the Openstat software.

The loadings are presented after promax rotation, because I assume that overarching components

would interrelate with each other. There were two respondents who didn't complete the

questionnaire, and the missing responses were replaced by means. Two components had Eigen

values over 1.00. Examination of the scree plot (please see Appendix B) confirmed that a two-

component solution was acceptable. These two components accounted for 72% of the variance.

Five themes loaded heavily on component 1 which accounted for 43% of variance. These

themes are developing proposal, approaches to the first draft, reviewing, academic language

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for Learning Needs Themes

Questions Mean Median SD N
Developing proposal 4.41 5 0.92 34
SP/T/D format 4.24 5 1.16 34
Approaches to the first draft 3.97 4 1.17 34
Reviewing 4.15 4 1.08 34
Revising 4.50 5 0.79 34
Writing style and author's opinions 4.09 4.5 1.14 34
Academic language usage 4.24 5 0.96 34
The sections of introduction and conclusion 4.38 5 1.01 32
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heavily on component 2, which accounted for 29% of variance. The three themes are SP/T/D

format, revising, and writing style and author's opinions.

Table 4 shows the loadings of a PCA of expected support. Two components had Eigen

value over 1.00. Examination of the scree plot (please see Appendix C) also confirmed that a

two-component solution is acceptable. Five of the eight categories load most heavily on

component 1 which accounts for 36% of the variance. These five categories are T/D format, each

Table 2 Descriptive Statistics for Expected Support Categories

Questions Mean Median SD N
Proofreading 4.33 5 0.89 33
Grammar checking 4.09 5 1.10 33
T/D format 4.18 4 0.85 33
Each section of T/D 4.12 4 0.89 33
Steps of T/D 4.24 4 0.87 33
Peer feedback 3.91 4 0.98 33
Revising suggestions and consultation 4.55 5 0.71 33
Writing style and author's opinions 4.28 5 0.89 32

Table 3 PCA (with Promax Rotation) Loadings of Learning Needs Themes

Questions Component 1 Component 2 h2
Developing proposal 0.62 0.29 0.46
SP/T/D format 0.45 0.71 0.70
Approaches to the first draft 0.81 0.42 0.83
Reviewing 0.89 0.16 0.81
Revising 0.09 0.85 0.73
Writing style and author's opinions 0.15 0.88 0.80
Academic language usage 0.86 0.07 0.74
The sections of introduction and conclusion 0.83 0.13 0.71
Proportion of Variance 0.43 0.29 0.72

section of T/D, steps of T/D, peer feedback, and writing style and author's opinions.
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Correlation Coefficients

To know which factors are highly related to the possibility of registering for the writing

course, I conducted Pearson correlation on some items. The correlation coefficient between

learning needs and expected support is 0.72, which means the data between these two only share

about half of the variance. The correlation coefficient between the possibility to take the course

and the importance of the course is 0.37, which suggests that the high importance of the writing

course isn’t highly related to the possibility of registering. The correlation coefficient between

revising in the part of learning needs and revising suggestions/consultation in the part of

expected support is 0.42. Although both revising-related items scored relatively high, the

relationship between each two is lower than expected.

Open-Ended Responses

The whole open-ended responses are in Appendix D. When being asked about what skills

the respondents learned from ELI 83, 23 respondents answered this open-ended question. Among

Table 4 PCA (with Promax Rotation) Loadings of Expected Support Categories

Variables Component 1 Component 2 h2
Proofreading 0.34 0.83 0.80
Grammar checking 0.15 0.88 0.80
T/D format 0.82 0.26 0.74
Each section of T/D 0.74 0.35 0.66
Steps of T/D 0.88 0.10 0.79
Peer feedback 0.60 0.28 0.44
Revising suggestions and consultation 0.31 0.86 0.84
Writing style and author's opinions 0.58 0.54 0.63
Proportion of Variance 0.36 0.35 0.71
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22 respondents, 15 mentioned skills related to academic writing or research article writing.

Interestingly, four respondents reported learned skills related to grammar, such as “learn[ing]

how to improve my grammar” and “help[ing] frame coherent and grammatically correct

sentences.” One respondent mentioned the learning need of developing research questions and

hypothesis.

In the question asking respondents to write down suggestions for this writing course, nine

respondents answered this open-ended question. Three respondents mentioned that ELI 83

should be able to equip the students with SP/T/D writing ability, and ELI 73, intermediate

writing, could focus on writing less demanding materials, such as course assignments. Three

respondents suggested that instructors should have deep knowledge of writing in their related

discipline. One respondent wrote that this course should be offered to all graduate students, not

only to international students. One respondent said that few graduate students would take the

course due to the demanding course load. Another interesting suggestion is to have a specific

SLS student, Gavin, as the instructor. I think the ELI and Gavin must be happy to know that

Gavin's instruction did meet learners' needs.

Discussion

Hyland (2003) divides difficulties particular into NNESs to three groups:

linguistic, strategic, and cultural barriers. The linguistic barriers include less vocabulary, less

rhetorical facility, L1 interferences, and less clarity in writing. The strategic barriers are related to

less planning before writing, less reflecting during revision, and longer time to generate text. The

cultural barriers could be different expectations about academic writing, unfamiliar research

areas for American advisors, and different perspectives of plagiarism, authorship and voice. The
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other challenge considering SP/T/D writing for all writers is about how to approach the readers

who are more knowledgeable than the writers. Swales (2004) and Hyland (2003) suggest that

writing course should meet both general academic and discipline specific needs.

Swales (1999) suggests that the ultimate goal of writing courses is to help students be

independent writers. Therefore, raising rhetorical awareness, language and strategy competence

are the main purposes of writing courses. In addition, writing course instructors can provide

feedback and consultation, while writing course peer group can provide writing suggestions,

social support, and better sense of audience. On the contrary, proofreading and grammar

checking should be in less of a consideration in writing courses.

Mauch and Birch (1993) and Rudestam and Newton (2001) suggest some steps to finish

SP/T/D, including writing the first draft, getting feedback for reviewing, and revision. When

writing first draft, the most important step is choosing the research topic. During reviewing, it is

helpful to get feedback from peers inside and outside of the writer's discipline, and to read the

first draft some time after the completion. These two strategies would help the writers work on

the first draft from different perspectives. In revision, it is important to incorporate different

suggestions from committee members to make the SP/T/Ds more coherent and complete.

However, when suggestions contradict with one another, writers have to decide which suggestion

fits the theoretical framework better and could seek advice from the committee chair.

Learning Outcomes of Previous ELI 83

When answering questions related to the skills learned from their previous ELI 83 course,

most of the respondents included skills related to academic or research writing. This can be

explained by Swales' (1990) proposal that novices gain membership of certain discourse

community through meeting the content and style requirements. By learning APA style,
 20
SP/T/D Writing Course

organization of academic paper, and academic writing skills, the students communicate with

EAP community more efficiently. Therefore, the ELI 83 instruction fulfilled its goal, to prepare

the students for academic written discourse. Although it may be surprising that some students

mentioned their learning outcome in terms of grammatical competence, this can be reflection of

the linguistic barrier the students encounter. Therefore, the learning outcomes focus more on

linguistic barriers such as academic vocabulary, rhetorical facility, clarity in writing, but less on

strategic barriers, such as planning, developing the first draft, and revising. The survey didn't

look into specific barriers the students overcame, but how writing courses help the students

overcome these three barriers could be a future research topic.

Learning Needs Regarding the SP/T/D Writing Course

I am aware of that the sample size is small, and the sample doesn't represent the whole

international graduate students’ population of UH. Therefore, when applying the results of this

survey, I suggest the readers should note the limited generalizability. Furthermore, a more

carefully-wording design and more respondents should be included in the future research in

order to investigate NNESs’ learning needs and help them become independent academic writers.

Among eight themes regarding learning needs, all themes were rated pretty high.

Although approaches to the first draft had the lowest mean, the mean was 3.97 which is still

higher than moderate importance of which scores three in the questionnaire. There are two

components came out from PCA. Component 1 is related to developing proposal, approaches to

the first draft, reviewing, academic language usage, and the sections of introduction and

conclusion; component 2 is related to SP/T/D format, revising, and writing style and author's

opinions. It is difficult to conclude what component 1 and 2 mean, and a future questionnaire

which covers items of linguistic, strategic, and cultural barriers could be better to detect NNESs’
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learning needs, and/or factor analysis could be applied to test the validity.

There were two unexpected outcomes from this analysis. One is that reviewing and

revising are not related to the same component. The correlation coefficient, 0.25, shows that the

respondents had different attitudes toward these two. However, it is difficult to offer further

explanation based on the data, and thus this could be another future research topic. Another

interesting outcome is that writing style and author's opinions and academic language usage

belong to different components. Based on literature, academic language usage tends to have

more impersonal expression and the absence of the author is common (Hyland, 2003). Therefore,

the low correlation shows that the respondents have the same attitude as the literature.

Expected Support from the SP/T/D Writing Course

In eight categories of expected support from the SP/T/D writing course, seven categories

had means higher than four while the remaining category, which is peer feedback, had mean of

3.91. In order to explain the inconsistency between the lower than expect mean of peer feedback

with the importance of peer feedback in the works of Swales (1990) and Hyland (2008), I

interviewed one respondent. The respondent said that he/she thinks that writing course has little

to do with peer-feedback and didn't like to discuss with peers outside of the discipline. The

reasons are similar with what was mentioned in Sung's (as cited in Swales, 2004, pp. 131-135)

dissertation. After the interview, I asked another fourth-year SLS PhD student if he would

register for this course. The answer was “not possible” and the reason was that he/she prefers

works alone on the dissertation. Swales (1990) discussed those similar concerns regarding that

students tend to work alone and discuss with peers in the same discipline. The suggestions he

propose in his book (Swales, 1990, p. 134) are that a dissertation writing course which is

comprised of students from different disciplines are less competitive attitudes, more focused on
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rhetorical mechanisms, and more diverse feedback and comments the students would receive in

the SP/T/D writing course (Swales, 2004, pp. 131-138; Hyland, 2003, p. 50).

Hyland (2003, p. 50) suggests that one function writing courses serve is providing

feedback from the instructor. As Table 2 shows, the mean of revising suggestions and

consultation is the highest one, and thus the respondents showed consistent attitude towards

instructors’ feedback with Hyland's statement. However, this current study didn't probe the other

functions Hyland (2003, p. 50) suggests, such as providing social support, writing groups, and

triangular team work. Therefore, a need analysis could investigate these aspect for developing a

SP/T/D writing course in the ELI.

The mean of proofreading is the second highest, which is higher than expected. Looking

at the intercorrelations of expected support (please see Appendix C), correlation coefficients of

proofreading and revising suggestions and consultation, and grammar checking and revising

suggestions and consultation are higher than 0.7, 0.74 and 0.73 respectively. Also, the PCA

shows that proofreading, grammar checking, and revising suggestions and consultation are

related to component 2. Interview with the respondent provided a possible explanation about

proofreading's high mean and component 2. The respondent explained that L1 interference on

writing is too pervasive and subtle to be detected, and cause confusion to the readers. Thus, I

interpret the phenomena as the need to communicate with the audience more efficiently, which

would reflect the need of gaining membership of the target discourse community (Swales, 1990)

and three barriers suggested by Flowerdew (1999). Hence my suggestion for the writing courses

is that it should focus more on raising awareness of language usage and providing facility of

writing clarity and rhetorical strategies, and less emphasize on T/D format and each section of

T/D. Another possible explanation of the mean of proofreading is the unclear wording. One way
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to resolve this flaw is by providing examples underneath each items. By doing this, the

respondents could have clearer idea about what I meant.

Possibility of Registering for the SP/T/D Writing Course

The possibility to register for this writing course for master students has no significant

difference from that for doctoral students. Therefore, the experience of finishing any SP/T or

research proposal for funding was not the main concern in registering for the course. On the

other hand, after interviewing a respondent and another fourth-year PhD student, their main

concern is about the heavy course load and demanding time constraints of writing dissertation. In

other words, the course description should make the connection between the course and SP/T/D

clear, in order to better meet students' needs.

Intercorrelations

The items related to revising in the learning needs and expected support parts had the

highest means. However, the correlation between these revision-related items is only 0.42, which

could be explained by the fact that some respondents may think that revising in learning needs

part comes from peers or writing tutors, while revising suggestions and consultation in expected

support part come from the instructors. Therefore, the lower correlation could reflect that writers

need various sources of advice.

Limitation of this survey is very obvious, such as unclear wording and too few question

items. Although the questionnaire was revised from different perspectives, it still has a lot of

flaws. The most important lesson I've learned from this course is how to design a survey better

because survey questions are the foundation of the research. The author should have a sound

understanding about the research topic to design a questionnaire that makes sense and relevant.

This is the reason of the drawbacks in this survey. In addition, I learn a lot about how to process
 24
SP/T/D Writing Course

this data and have fun playing with it. Another, I feel the need to learn more about ANOVA

because it can explain many things I would like to look into, such as if SLS's respondents differ

significantly from the other respondents. However, since the sample size in this survey is too

small, I didn't apply ANOVA in this survey. In terms of suggestions for future research, an

interesting topic would be the students' perception about proofreading in advanced EAP writing

courses, considering the high rating in this survey.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank many people who help me complete this survey and this paper. And

I want to thank you, JD. Although you spend a lot of time telling stories in class, I learned a lot

from those stories because I feel like it is so amazing that you can blend the theories into stories.

However, I feel like the most important lesson you try to teach us is not about theories, but

professional ethics and honesty as a researcher. I really enjoy the course VERY MUCH. Thank

you!
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References

Allison, D., Cooley, L., Lewkowicz, J., & Nunan, D. (1998). Dissertation writing in action: The

development of a dissertation writing support program for ESL graduate research students.

English for Specific Purposes, 17(2), 199-217.

Benesch, S. (2001). Critical English for academic purposes. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence

Erlbaum Associates.

Brick, J. (in preparation). Teaching eap. In J. C. Richards, & A. Burns (Ed.), The Cambridge

guide to pedagogy and practice in second language teaching (pp. 1-14). Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Cameron, C., Chang, S., & Pagel, W. (2010). Scientific English: A program for addressing

linguistic barriers of international trainees in the united states. Springer, doi:

10.1007/s13187-010-0143-5

Cameron, J., Nairn, K., & Higgins, J. (2009). Demystifying academic writing: Reflections on

emotions, know-how and academic identity. Journal of Geography in Higher Education,

33(2), 269-284.

Cuthbert, D., Spark, C., & Burke, E. (2009). Disciplining writing: The case for multi-disciplinary

writing groups to support writing for publication by higher degree by research candidates

in the humanities, arts and social sciences. Higher Education Research & Development,

28:2, 137-149.

Elbow, P. (1993). Writing with power: Techniques for mastering the writing process. New York,

New York: Oxford University Press.

Ferris, D. (2001). Teaching writing for academic purposes. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Research

perspectives on English for academic purposes (pp. 298-314). Cambridge: Cambridge

 26
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University Press.

Flowerdew, J. (1999). Problems in writing for scholarly publication in English: The case of Hong

Kong. Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(3), 243-264.

Flowerdew, J., & Peacock, M. (2001). Introduction. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Research

perspectives on English for academic purposes (pp. 3-7). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Hyland, K. (2003). Second language writing. New York, New York: Cambridge Language

Education.

Hyland, K. (2006). English for academic purposes: An advanced resource book. New York, NY:

Routledge.

Johns, A., & Dudley-Evans, T. (1991). English for specific purposes: International in scope,

specific in purpose. TESOL Quarterly, 25(2), 297-314.

Kay, H., & Dudley-Evans, T. (1998). Genre: What teachers think. ELT journal, 52(4), 308-314.

Mauch, J., & Birch, J. (1993). Guide to the successful thesis and dissertation: A handbook for

students and faculty. New York, New York: Marcel Dekker.

Morss, K., & Murray, R. (2001). Researching academic writing within a structured programme:

insights and outcomes. Studies in higher education, 26:1, 35-52.

Paltridge, B. (1997). Thesis and dissertation writing: preparing ESL students for research.

English for Specific Purposes, 16(1), 61-70.

Paltridge, B. (2001). Linguistic research and EAP pedagogy. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Research

perspectives on English for academic purposes (pp. 55-70). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Paltridge, B. (2002). Thesis and dissertation writing: An examination of published advice and
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actual practice. English for Specific Purposes, 21, 125-143.

Paltridge, B. (2004). Academic writing. Language Testing, 37, 87-105.

Ramanathan, V., & Atkinson, V. (1999). Individualism, academic writing, and ESL writers.

Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(1), 45-75.

Rudestam, K., & Newton, R. (2001). Surviving your dissertation: A comprehensive guide to

content and process. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

Shaw, P. (1991). Science research students' composing processes. English for specific purposes,

10, 189-206.

Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Swales, J. (2004). Research genres: Exploration and applications. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Wang, M., & Bakken, L. L. (2004). An academic writing needs assessment of English-as-

Second-Language clinical Investigators. The Journal of Continuing Education in the

Health Professions, 24, 181-189.

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Appendix A
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 30
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 31
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Appendix B
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Appendix B

SCATTERPLOT - Scree Plot

Values
. | |- 4.58
| |- 4.36
| |- 4.15
| |- 3.93
| |- 3.71
| |- 3.49
| |- 3.27
| |- 3.05
| |- 2.84
| |- 2.62
------------------------------------------------------------|- 2.40
| |- 2.18
| |- 1.96
. | |- 1.75
| |- 1.53
| |- 1.31
. | |- 1.09
. | |- 0.87
| . . . |- 0.65
| .|- 0.44
_______________________________________________________________
| | | | | | | | | |
Sequence Number of Eigenvalues
1.00 1.78 2.56 3.33 4.11 4.89 5.67 6.44 7.22 8.00
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Appendix C
 34
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Appendix C

SCATTERPLOT - Scree Plot

Values
. | |- 4.80
| |- 4.57
| |- 4.34
| |- 4.12
| |- 3.89
| |- 3.66
| |- 3.43
| |- 3.20
| |- 2.97
| |- 2.74
------------------------------------------------------------|- 2.52
| |- 2.29
| |- 2.06
| |- 1.83
| |- 1.60
. | |- 1.37
. | |- 1.14
. | |- 0.91
| . . |- 0.69
_______________________________________________________________
| | | | | | | | | |
Sequence Number of Eigenvalues
1.00 1.78 2.56 3.33 4.11 4.89 5.67 6.44 7.22 8.00
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Appendix D

Question: What skills did you hope to learn or gain from taking ELI 83?

Responses:

• a research paper; a format (APA)

• framework, writing styles, and good writing samples
• APA style, paraphrasing exercise, organization of academic paper, writing a research
proposal and abstract.
• How to write an academic paper, esp. a research paper
• My aim was to revise and deepen my academic writing skills.
• I have developed my approach of writing article generally and for publishing specially -
How to write critique in perfect way
• how to write a paper
• As the name of the course says, so I wanted to have better understanding of the do's and
don'ts in technical writing and overall improve my writing abilities. This course is
something like a refresher to me for technical writing. It really helped.
• From basic grammar and complicated grammar
• Writing a good organized scholarly paper; improving writing style; learning how to
improve my grammar
• writing and reading skills
• Writing at graduate level
• It helps in framing coherent and grammatically correct sentences
• First of all I lost my fear of writing in English.
• Writing style Editing for clarity, grammar conventions, and correctness on writing
• Reference Citation, Plagiarism knowledge, Brain storm, Essay writing.
• I want to have more chances to actually write some things ( essays, proposals, and other
scholarly papers) and learn what kinds of habitual mistakes I make.
• How to write academically.
• Popular phrases for writing reports Popular mistakes foreigners make
• Format of scholarly paper; How to address different parts of a paper like introduction,
methodology, findings, etc;
• Developing academic vocabulary and expressions. And the ways of summarizing and
paraphrasing.
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Appendix D

Questions: Suggestions for the SP/T/D writing course

Responses:

• I think this course would be really helpful for students but as you said in the below, ELI
instructors do not have much information about the other departments. It is an important
problem which needs to be solved before planning this course. Maybe the necessary
information about different fields can be taught to them from different departments such
as instructor A can be expertise or at least have knowledge about writing
thesis/dissertations about science while instructor B can expertise in literature. Just an
idea:)
• ELI 83 I attended focused on writing research papers.
• The course should not be a requirement just for international students. From my
experience, American students also need this kind of course.
• Please have Gavin as the teacher.
• No need to make something new, each program already has their research courses and
seminar in research proposal. These are the place for graduate students to go when they
need to have advance understanding about how to write a good thesis/dissertation.
• you can put 83 program instead of 73, and dissertation writing instead of 83, that will be
a great idea.
• First of all, class title of ELI course always make me confusing. For example, last time I
took the class of writing for graduate students. I was very disappointed because instructor
taught very basic skill about English writings in general. I don't think ELI provide
something useful if they don't narrow down the target. I mean, if they want to offer actual
help for thesis writing, they should give more various class targeting specific fields such
as thesis writing for social science/ natural science, and others.
• Unless it is mandatory, it would be hard for the graduate students to take the class due to
the time constraint.
• Academic writing sounds difficult but necessary. The instructor also needs high skill and
knowledge of writing.