Academic Writing

Status
Not open for further replies.

sabrowi

New member
Joined
Oct 9, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
Indonesian
Home Country
Indonesia
Current Location
Indonesia
Hallo guys, I am sabrowi, an English Teacher but I am still in processing to finish my bachelor.
I am interested in Academic writing and I plan to make a research about the difficulties in academic writing. I want to do my research in the university where I am studying.
I want to ask about it, what are the difficulties you faced or your students faced (if you are a teacher) in academic writing? what are the common difficulties?

from your answers, I hope we can make it as our evaluation for our teaching learning method.
thanks,
 

eldaryandini

New member
Joined
Oct 9, 2014
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Indonesian
Home Country
Indonesia
Current Location
Indonesia
the word "Academic" must sound very formal in our head. It means that we cannot do everything relates to it randomly. Academic writing must be something relates to education or knowledge. We must be serious in planning it, doing the process to get the best result. As you stated, it must involve the research of a topic we choose to get the real thing with the trusted result. All students of University must do that to get their Bachelor Degree.
 

Tdol

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Staff member
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
Japan
Referencing can be difficult- many students come from backgrounds where referencing is not carried out as rigorously as it is in English-speaking universities and struggle with it.
 
Joined
Oct 9, 2014
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Indonesian
Home Country
Indonesia
Current Location
Indonesia
Hallo guys, I am sabrowi, an English Teacher but I am still in processing to finish my bachelor.
I am interested in Academic writing and I plan to make a research about the difficulties in academic writing. I want to do my research in the university where I am studying.
I want to ask about it, what are the difficulties you faced or your students faced (if you are a teacher) in academic writing? what are the common difficulties?

from your answers, I hope we can make it as our evaluation for our teaching learning method.
thanks,



Well, as my experience in academic writing the first difficulties that I face is choosing the topic sentence. The topic sentence will be good if it is informative & interesting. Besides, I have difficulty in making outline. The outline must provides structures (introduction, body, and conclusion). Moreover, the outline should include main ideas and supporting details.
 

Louiesaha

Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2014
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
Chinese
Home Country
Malaysia
Current Location
Switzerland
The most difficult task in academic writing, I would say, is the proper citation! Must have proper capital letter, full stop, comma, parentheses, no typo, different in fonts.... As the education levels are higher, the professors' requirements of the proper citations are stricter! I had come across a 8 points deduction over a 30 points assignment, just because of an extra space, a misalignment.... No kidding. I spent huge amount of time in front of th Word just to make sure the citations were correct! Gosh!
Not a teacher
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 9, 2014
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Indonesian
Home Country
Indonesia
Current Location
Indonesia
I do agree with you Louiesaha. The proper citation is the difficulty that often faced by the students. We can say as punctuation problems. In academic writing we have to pay attention more about the punctuation. That's like simple problem but it's very important for us. It can influence the result of our academic writing.
 

Tdol

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Staff member
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
Japan
Another problem is trying too hard- learners sometimes add too many words they have studied in writing classes, so that every sentence groans under the weight of the moreover/furthermore/in brief/therefore/in other words and other such terms.
 

Raymott

VIP Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Australia
Current Location
Australia
I've found that for many, if not most, students, the most difficult thing is to avoid plagiarism.
 

sabrowi

New member
Joined
Oct 9, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
Indonesian
Home Country
Indonesia
Current Location
Indonesia
yeah, students usually don't understand well the references, so they do plagiarism
 

lifbali

New member
Joined
Oct 22, 2014
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Arabic
Home Country
Morocco
Current Location
United States
Most common problem is Failure to acknowledge the source of all ideas is a serious matter. Copying directly from another text without acknowledgement is even more serious.
 

Megan04

New member
Joined
Oct 18, 2014
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
American English
Home Country
Canada
Current Location
Canada
Well, from a student's point of view, I would say getting the grammar and the formats and things like that correct. But along with that, I think wordiness is a hindrance to proper academic writing. Students, in order to impress their teacher, indulge in too much of that and that hampers smooth flow of writing.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top