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Contents

knowledge education undergraduate higher

Introduction

1. Key Definitions

2. Determining Academic Writing Knowledge and Skills

2.1 Pre-Writing Stage

2.2 Writing stage

2.3 Post-writing

3. Possible Approaches to Using the Classification

3.1 Target Audience

3.2 Types of Academic Writing Courses

Conclusion

References

Appendix

Introduction

Academic writing has been an actively discussed topic in the scholarly community for many decades. There has been a heated debate regarding various aspects of academic writing: the best ways to teach it, the skills that are necessary to produce high-quality writing, the people who should teach it, and the target audience of a course in academic writing.

Universities all over the world have created a multitude of various courses that aim to improve their students writing skills. For Russia, the idea of teaching academic writing is relatively new. Although Russian students have always been asked to produce many academic texts, writing them was usually not explicitly taught. Instead, students would rely on advice from their research supervisors, trial and error, and tacit knowledge.

Though it can be argued that this system of teaching academic writing is not effective, upon getting their bachelor's degree most students have a basic understanding of how to write academic papers Russian; the same cannot be said about academic writing in English. Writing academic papers in English requires specific skills that are not covered in general English courses. The Anglo-American system of writing has its own principles and restrictions that most Russian graduate students and many Russian researchers are not aware of. Therefore, although academic research is becoming increasingly dependent on networking and international cooperation, many of our talented scholars are incapable of becoming part of the international research community. Papers by Russian scholars cannot reach wider audiences which affects both their individual research and Russia's global academic competitiveness. This is especially true in humanities and social sciences where ideas and the way they are conveyed are often the most important part of a paper.

Today, universities in Russia have begun to understand that there is a need to explicitly teach academic writing in English. Some colleges have already implemented specialized courses in the curriculum, some are currently developing such courses. It is true that colleges in America and The UK have multiple academic writing courses that Russian universities can use as frameworks to designing their own course. However, there are various issues that arise in copying academic writing courses from other countries. First, the courses are not adapted to international students, for whom English is not a first language. Perhaps even more importantly, academic writing instruction is currently in transition from the generic composition courses of old to more discipline-specific methods of writing instruction. Duplicating the current system could mean borrowing ineffective practices that will have to be changed again very soon.

While students usually produce their most significant academic papers after they have received their bachelor's degree, it is important to create a solid foundation of academic writing skills at the first level of tertiary education. Determining the core skills and knowledge needed to produce high-quality academic texts stands at the root of developing a modern course in academic writing. This work presents a classification of the skills and knowledge on the basis of which a program can be created. The methods used in this study consist of examining the literature on the subject and the courses that are already being used in the world's top universities. The hypothesis of this work is that the current courses in academic writing do not pay enough attention to the core skills and knowledge required at the bachelor level.

The aim of this paper is to:

Create a classification of skills and knowledge that are to be taught during a course in academic writing at the bachelor level of education.

In order to reach this aim, there are specific objectives:

Analyze the existing literature on skills and knowledge needed in academic writing;

Compare the theoretical classification to current real-life writing courses;

On the basis of the objectives, the paper is divided into three major parts after the introduction. Part one focuses on reviewing the literature on the subject to create a classification of skills and knowledge that should be taught at the bachelor level of higher education. It also provides comments on which of these aspects of academic writing require more attention in class and how they can be taught. Part two examines the possible ways the classification can be implemented in the design of a course in academic writing. It examines how the classification can be adapted to the length of an academic writing course, describes target audience of an academic writing course, and presents two major approaches that can be used. Part three is the conclusion of this paper.

1. Key Definitions

This paper examines academic writing and the skills and knowledge required to produce it. The term 'academic writing' can have different meanings depending on its context. In its broadest sense the term refers to, first, everything written by scholars in their academic work (e.g. drafts, abstracts, conference proposals, articles), second - all written works required of students at the tertiary level (from short test responses to essays and dissertations); such an approach is popular in works on general English (e.g. Brown, 2004). In more specialized works, academic writing can refer to papers written by academics for publication (e.g. Murray et al., 2008; Eubanks & Schaeffer, 2008), or a certain type of writing within a curriculum along with professional and informal writing (Blair & Mader, 2013).

Because the term is vague, in order to examine skills in academic writing, it is first necessary to determine what is meant by academic writing in the context of this study. This paper will focus on the skills required from Bachelor students to write papers in English within the context of their disciplines. The paper only examine the skills directly connected to the process of writing and collecting research materials; to make this paper more applicable for an actual academic writing course, study skills such as time management and networking will not be studied.

The main two types of texts that Bachelor students are expected to write are essays and research papers. In humanities and social sciences, most academic writing at the bachelor level is limited to writing essays; students are, however, required to submit at least one research paper (the bachelor's thesis) during their degree.

Essays are, perhaps, the most important type of text for a Bachelor student to master. An essay can be defined as "a short piece of writing about a particular subject, especially as part of a course of study" (Longman, 2008, p. 341). Bachelor students write essays at the conclusion of or during almost every course and can be considered the most common type of academic writing task at this level.

A research paper is a work that presents a scholar's research to the public. Research can be defined as a "study of a subject that is intended to discover new facts about it" (Longman, 2008, p. 862). In many cases, the Bachelor thesis may not constitute a true research paper since not every Bachelor student is capable of discovering new facts. However, even if the student does not create new knowledge with his work, his study serves as a mock research paper that proves the student has understood the structure and principles of modern-day research.

1.1 Differentiating between knowledge & skills

The purpose of this study is to create a classification of knowledge and skills that should be taught during a course in academic writing in English. The term 'knowledge' refers to "the information and understanding that you have gained through learning or experience" (Longman, 2008, p. 567). Thus, in our classification, everything a student/scholar needs to know and understand on the subject of academic writing will be listed as 'knowledge'. By 'skill' we understand "an ability to do something well, especially because you have learned and practiced it" (Longman, 2008, p. 951). This will refer to the actions that one needs to be able to perform in order to be successful as an academic writer.

There is a number of ways to classify language skills; one of the most basic and widely-used classifications is the division into receptive and productive skills (e.g. in works of Webb, S., & Kagimoto, E. (2009); Herschensohn, J. (1994); Brown (2004). The terms are self-explanatory: receptive skills are those that deal with "receiving" language, and productive - those that "produce" it. In teaching and linguistics there are just 4 main language skills, the receptive skills are reading and listening, while the productive skills - speaking and writing. This paper studies skills needed in academic writing and will not examine oral skills (listening and speaking) although they are vital in presenting academic research. Thus, within the framework of this work receptive skills will be limited and equivalent to reading, while productive skills - to writing.

1.2 Micro and macro skills

Every general language skill (reading, listening, writing and speaking) can be further split up into macro and micro skills. While many works on teaching and assessing English use the concepts micro and macro skills (Richards, 1983; Bonnano & Jones, 2007; Horne & Peake, 2011), few have offered specific definitions. Brown (2004, p. 121) describes micro skills as those "attending to the smaller bits and chunks of language, in more of a bottom-up process" and macro skills as "focusing on the larger elements involved in a top-down approach". In other words, micro skills deal with specific aspects of language (e.g. vocabulary, grammatical patterns, cohesive devices) that are needed to accomplish broader tasks, what Brown (2004) calls "a bottom-up process". Macro skills, on the other hand, focus on what needs to be accomplished (e.g. convey connections between events, convey context) rather than how it is done ("a top-down approach"). As Brown (2004) says himself, the given classification aims to assist teachers and scholars in creating their own lists of skills, which is what this study aims to do.

Illustrating his understanding of the concepts, the writer offers his own classification of micro and macro skills for writing in general (Brown, 2004, pp. 121-122):

This classification will be used as the basis of our own classification of micro- and macro skills in relation to academic writing. While Brown (2004) views the skills in two separate groups, this paper will use them in a connected system where each macro skill will be followed by the micro skills used to accomplish the said task. Over the course of this paper, I will not only examine knowledge and skills that are required for academic writing, but will also address the way they can be taught in an actual course. The course in question is intended for students at the B2 level and above who have already received general English writing instruction in school and in general English classes in university.

2. Determining Academic Writing Knowledge and Skills

In this study, the analysis of academic writing will be divided into three blocks: pre-writing, writing, and post-writing. The stages do not occur strictly consecutively because while composing a paper, a writer continuously alternates between the three types of activities. Thus, a writer does not move to post-writing only when the text is finished, and pre-writing does not stop when you start writing. The division is used to simplify the skills and knowledge required to produce a paper, not to show their chronological order. Pre-writing deals with all the research and planning that is required for a paper, writing focuses on the process of composing a paper, and post-writing examines everything that a writer does with the text he has produced. This paper only studies the elements of the writing process that are directly connected to English text and should be addressed during a course in academic writing, so non-text aspects (e.g. discussions, networking), as well as general English skills that are the focus of courses of general English classes (e.g. basic grammar and vocabulary), will not be examined.

In this part of the paper, the topics will be divided into core topics, which are specific to academic writing in English and are unlikely to be covered in other courses, and supplementary topics, which deserve attention within a course in English academic writing because of the specifics of the Anglo-American academic tradition or because their overall importance makes it viable to go over them once more even if they have already been discussed during other subjects.

2.1 Pre-Writing Stage

As has been said, the pre-writing stage includes all the steps that one needs to take before beginning the actual process of writing a paper. This does not mean the stage is over once the writing starts, some aspects of pre-writing will occur right until the paper is finished; however, all writing always requires some thought, research and preparation, which is exactly what this stage deals with.

In its narrower sense (that does not include non-text activities such as networking and discussions) pre-writing can be limited to several aspects of information literacy-“an awareness of how to gather, use, manage, synthesize and create information and data in an ethical manner and the information skills to do so effectively" (Bent &Stubbings, 2011, p. 3)-namely, gathering and evaluating information. In modern research this means searching through a multitude of papers and articles in university libraries and on the internet, judging a source's reliability and analyzing arguments within a text. Using data ethically and creating information are components of the writing stage and will be discussed later.

In many universities in Russia and all over the world (e.g. Higher School of Economics), the question of gathering and analyzing information is addressed during specialized courses or research seminars. Thus, it should not be the primary focus of a course in Academic Writing in English. However, this is one of the most important parts of a student's education so having multiple courses teach the fundamentals of the research process can be considered viable. An academic writing teacher can guide his students through the process of filtering through English-language sources and explain the special characteristics of data use in the Anglo-American academic tradition.

Gathering reliable information

Ever since the internet became widely acknowledged by the scholarly community as a legitimate tool for academic research (e.g. Arazy and Kopak, 2011; Stapleton, 2005, Mackey & Jacobsen, 2005), locating reliable sources has posed a challenge for academics. Proficiency in English grants scholars access to even more papers from various academic cultures. Thus, many academics have addressed the need to explicitly teach students how to find sources and judge their reliability (Harmon, 2007; Stern, 2005). Adding to the problem, students are not always aware of the challenges of gathering academic data: a survey at an American university showed that almost 87% of in-coming freshmen believe that their skills in using the internet for research are intermediate or higher (Stern, 2005), when in reality most of them will struggle to choose reliable sources in their first years at university.

The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) describes 3 stages or `pillars' of locating reliable information: scope, plan, and gather (Bent & Stubbings, 2011):

Scope

This stage deals with understanding what information is needed, what tools are available, and how these tools can be used. To determine what information to look for, a scholar or student first needs to identify the research gap that his work can fill ? an area of scientific knowledge that has not yet been well-researched. Identifying a research gap requires a lot of background reading to gain an understanding of the existing research on the problem in question; therefore, because bachelor students often lack the necessary knowledge on the subject, the teacher often assists his students in identifying the research gap for their academic papers.

In addition to knowing how to identify the research gap, one needs to be aware of the available search tools and be able to use them. The topics that can be discussed on this problem during a course in academic writing include: the advantages, disadvantages, and limitations of digital and paper resources; the available internet search engines and their features; using the university library. In addition, a understanding search strategies can be key to effective search. Search strategies can narrow down search results and help find information that would otherwise be hidden behind arrays of superfluous data. The strategies may include:

determining the key terms - focusing on unique specific terms that narrow the search results);

customized search statements on the internet - most search engines allow the use of various operators to narrow or widen your search: e.g. using the minus operator (-) to remove redundant results, using the wildcard operator (*) to find data when you do not know one of the key words, using (AND) and (OR) to show that you need either both pieces of data or only one of the two;

advanced search features - customizing the geographical location, type of document, language or date;

determining which exact quotations can help find the necessary data;

proximity searching - some databases allow you to choose if the elements of the search should appear in one sentence, in one paragraph or anywhere within one text.

Scope concerns a part of pre-writing that will most likely be covered in other courses, so this paper does not go into detail on the topic. It is, however, viable to mention some aspects of pre-writing and assist students' work with English search tools they may not have used before the course.

Plan & Gather

This is where we move from theory to practice. First, one needs to decide which of the available resources are to be used, then which strategies should be implemented. The choice depends on the task and on the knowledge of the subject: if a student or scholar has a complete understanding of the scope of his search, planning will not pose a problem. It must be said that most students and some scholars get by without planning their search beforehand, doing so, however, can save a lot of time and help find information that would otherwise be missed.

Next, the active gathering of information commences. In some cases, this may mean going to the library and looking through all the available books and papers, in others - opening your browser or, of course, doing both. Even with a perfect search strategy, one will inevitably come across many papers/books/articles that are not helpful for his research. Determining which sources to choose involves checking if the information is both relevant to the research and reliable. One can usually judge the relevance of a given text by reading the abstract and table of contents. If those do not provide sufficient information, one may also scan the text for information that can be deemed important.

While the way of determining if information is relevant depends on the research one is conducting and may not require specific attention (at least within the course in question), information reliability is a more complex issue with established concepts, exploring which may be viable. Many scholars have tackled the issue of reliability (Arazy and Kopak, 2011; Stapleton, 2005, Mackey & Jacobsen, 2005; Harmon, 2007; Stern, 2005) and created theories and methods that seek to help researchers. Colepicolo (2015) outlines three main processes that are used to obtain reliable information: using bibliometric indicators, evaluating information sources, and analyzing the contents of the publication.

Bibliometric indicators are specifically designed to make judging sources' reliability simpler and less time consuming. There are four types of indicators (Colepicolo, 2015; Costa et al., 2012): of scientific quality (e.g. peer review), scientific activity (e.g. citation index), scientific impact (e.g. impact factor), and, less frequently used, thematic development (studies conducted by specific publications: e.g. Journal of Infometrics and Scientometrics). The first three types of indicators are actively used and provided by most databases, libraries, journals, and search engines (e.g. Google Scholar, JStor, Web of Science). Students should be taught to understand what each indicator means and where and how they are provided.

Evaluating the source of the information that will potentially be used for your research is also an important aspect of determining the reliability of the material. The sources that are considered the most reliable are: university libraries, papers published by respected research institutes, and acknowledged scientific portals and databases. If a scholar must use a source other than those listed above, Callision (2008) suggests using a source's reputation as the main indicator of reliability. In addition, one may check the information on the source's funding and publishing, as well as on the author of the paper itself.

Finally, one can read the abstract and, sometimes, scan the text to check what data the research uses and whether the author provides the references to his statements. Even the most-respected publications and authors may publish unreliable and biased information. It is always better to check what data the research uses, since using unreliable information damages both your reputation and the scientific community in general. When a respected scholar publishes a paper, he takes responsibility for everything in his work to be reliable and true. Using fake or unevenly presented data may lead to it spreading into the papers of researchers who do not double-check their sources and believe a scholar's reputation to be a sufficient guarantee of reliability.

To sum up, gathering reliable information is a complex process that involves diverse types of activity. It is likely, that this topic will be discussed in other courses, so a course in academic writing in English should target those aspects that are not sufficiently covered elsewhere, as well as those that are specific to the Anglo-American tradition.

Academic reading

At the tertiary level of education, students do not always have to find the information themselves since it is often provided by their instructors. They do, however, constantly have to analyze a wide range of texts ? this is one of the most important parts of a student's education as well as a scholar's research. Reading comprehension is a skill that students are expected to have mastered before enrolling at university ? from the very first day students are provided with extensive reading lists and are asked to analyze academic texts. However, it has been found that many students struggle with all aspects of academic reading: the reading load (Van Schalkwyk 2008; Bharuthram 2006; 2012; Falk-Ross 2002), understanding the meaning of the text (ICAS, 2002; Lesgold & Ross-Welch, 2012) and using proper reading strategies (Perin, 2013; Caverly, Orlando, and Mullen, 2000). According to a study at the California State University, 83% of the CSU Faculty reported that students' inability to read and analyze texts effectively played an important role in why they were not successful during courses (ICAS, 2002). Another study, conducted by the College Board (2013), showed students who met the SAT reading college-readiness benchmarks were twice more likely to graduate. Analyzing texts in a foreign language would pose even more of a challenge, which is why it is reasonable to teach academic reading during a course in English academic writing.

In this study, academic reading will be defined as reading comprehension of discipline-specific texts during the process of education or research. Reading comprehension will, in turn, be defined as "the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language" (Snow, 2002, 11). According to the Reading Study Group (2002), reading comprehension consists of three main types of capacities: cognitive (e.g. short- and long-term memory, decoding information, understanding implicit meanings), motivation (purpose and interest) and various types of knowledge (vocabulary, knowledge on the subject, specific reading strategies); this makes reading comprehension a complex process that can be approached from different perspectives. This study will focus on the 'knowledge' capacity because, first, at this level of education students are expected to be able to motivate themselves; second, rather than directly develop students' cognitive abilities, teachers can provide students with metacognitive strategies that can make their thought process more effective and provide access to all the information that students need to stimulate their thinking.

In the Russian system of tertiary education, academic reading is rarely addressed explicitly ? students are given large numbers of texts and are expected to analyze them without instruction. In the Anglo-American system, students are sometimes instructed on reading strategies and the critical analysis of arguments, which is what I will examine in this part of my paper.

Reading strategies

While all students inevitably use a range of reading strategies (otherwise they would be unable to get through any even slightly challenging text), many are often not aware of the strategies they use and what other possible strategies may be helpful to them. Scholars have found that increasing metacognitive awareness of reading strategies can have a positive effect students' reading (Livingston et al., 2015; Gorzycki et al., 2016). Metacognitive awareness refers to thinking about the way you think; in regards to reading this means contemplating the way you approach your reading.

One of the most widely used classifications of reading strategies for L2 English students is the Survey of Reading Strategies (Mokhatri & Sheorey, 2002); it has been used to measure the effect of metacognitive reading strategy instruction in different countries by many scholars (e.g. Pammu et al. 2013; Iwai, 2011; Saengpakdeejit & Intaraprasert, 2014). It is an adapted version of the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (Mochtari & Reichard, 2002) made to suit the reading strategies of students for whom English is not a first language. The classification includes 30 different strategies that are separated into 3 groups:

Global reading strategies involve thinking about the text as a whole. Most importantly these are pre-reading strategies that involve deciding on your purpose for reading the text, activating prior knowledge to make the understanding of the text easier, and looking at the texts' length and structure. In addition, global strategies include ways of working with text such as deciding what to focus on and what to ignore, and using context clues to ease understanding.

Problem solving strategies are used if any problems in understanding text arise during reading; the techniques include re-reading difficult extracts, adjusting reading speed, and occasionally stopping and thinking about what has been read.

Support reading strategies are mechanisms that make understanding the text easier. These are not necessarily used because there is a problem, but to increase the overall effectiveness of dealing with the information within the text. Some examples are: taking notes while reading, highlighting information, and paraphrasing ideas in your own words. Support strategies are different from global strategies in that they focus on elements of the text while global strategies deal with the text as a whole.

The obvious questions is which strategies students should be instructed on as part of a course in academic writing. Several studies have found that students most often use problem solving strategies and least often - support strategies (Iwai, 2011; Yьksel & Yьksel, 2012). Within global strategies 'previewing text before reading', 'using prior knowledge', and 'determining what to read' were widely used, while 'setting purpose for reading', and 'checking how content fits purpose' were not as common. Since all students are different, it may be most effective to use the SORS survey to check what students do and do not already do. Just the fact that the students will start thinking about the way they read and review the possible ways of working with the text can itself improve their academic reading; moreover this will help a teacher understand what needs to be the focus of in-class instruction.

In my opinion, it would not be viable to devote significant classroom time to reading strategies at the tertiary level. Still, giving out the SORS survey, giving some off the less common items as reading tips, and explaining how to use some of the more challenging strategies can prove effective according to aforementioned research.

Analyzing arguments

One of the main objectives of a course in academic writing (and tertiary education as a whole) is to develop students' ability to think critically and be able to write their thoughts in an academically-appropriate manner. Developing critical thinking can and, perhaps, should be part of every class in every course, but it is especially vital for academic writing. While a course in academic writing, regardless of how long it is, cannot make its objective to develop students' cognitive abilities (this objective is too ambitious and cannot be sufficiently measured), it can teach students the basic conventions of a written argument. Such skills as distinguishing between arguments and non-arguments, and analyzing arguments for flaws, fallacies, and proof are essential for all types of scholarly activity. Thus, regardless of whether this topic is touched upon in other courses, it is viable to discuss argumentation within a course in academic writing. If the course focuses on academic writing in English, students can also be informed of the special features of arguments in the Anglo-American academic system.

Cottrell (2011) highlights several key skills in analyzing arguments: indentifying arguments, differentiating between arguments and non-arguments, judging an argument's logical consistency, finding flaws in the argument, recognizing assumptions and evaluating evidence.

To identify an argument one needs to know the key components of an argument. Cottrell (2011) establishes three main features of an argument: the authors position, a line of reasoning (logically presented contributing arguments), and a conclusion. A student needs to be able to find these features and decide whether or not the text presents an argument. In addition, a student should distinguish between arguments and non-arguments (disagreements, explanations, and summaries).

Once an argument has been identified, a student can judge its logical consistency: if the whole line of reasoning contributes to the conclusion, and if there is an obvious connection between joint reasons. A student can also be taught to distinguish between summative (those that sum up previously mentioned information) and logical (an end of a line of deduction) conclusions. In addition to judging the logical consistency of an argument, a student should also know the possible flaws in the logic itself, these include: assuming false correlations; not meeting necessary conditions; using false analogies, deflections, and complicity; and others. Cottrell (2011) also suggests teaching students to identify assumptions and implicit arguments as the more challenging aspects of judging an argument. An assumption "refers to anything that is taken for granted in the presentation of an argument" (Cottrell, 2011, p. 86), if a student lacks the necessary background knowledge, recognizing assumptions can pose a problem. It is recommended to analyze short texts and highlight the assumptions within it to help a student understand how this feature of academic writing is used. An implicit argument is one that lacks certain characteristics of an argument (e.g. a line of reasoning or an obvious conclusion) but still attempts to persuade the reader of something.

The final suggested feature to analyze in an argument is the evidence. This feature is closely connected to judging reliability that has been discussed in the 'plan and gather' part of this paper, but here, instead of talking about the reliability of a text as a whole, students examine the reliability of its particular parts. Students should understand such features of a quality argument as authenticity, validity, currency, reliability, and relevance in order to construct their own arguments and judge the quality of others' lines of reasoning. Knowledge on the topic of information reliability (which we have already discussed) will help students determine if the sources used to back the argument are suitable.

Although argumentation is a complex topic that deserves special attention in students' education, it is likely that it could prove impossible to explore the topic in depth within a course in academic writing because of the number of other aspects of writing that need to be covered. However, since the Anglo-American academic tradition is has stricter standards of argumentation than those in most other countries, students may be unfamiliar with the logic that English academic writing requires. Thus, even within a more specialized course that focuses on the writing process, it would be beneficial to touch upon some of the basic features of argumentation mentioned in this part.

Pre-writing stage knowledge and skills

We have examined the pre-writing stage, showing what it consists of and why it is important for the success of an academic paper. In this study the pre-writing stage was divided into two major processes: gathering reliable information and academic reading. Following is a table developed specifically for this paper that shows the pre-writing skills and knowledge that can be taught during a course in academic writing:

All these aspects of academic writing can be considered supplementary as they mostly deal with general research skills and knowledge. The detail with which these topics are discussed should depend on the length of the academic writing course and the extent to which these skills are practiced in other courses. One of the tasks of a course in English academic writing is to explain the special features of the Anglo-American writing tradition that may differ from the students' national academic culture. As the pre-writing stage is not the main focus of a course in academic writing, this paper does not go into much detail on the subject.

2.2 Writing stage

Unlike pre-writing, the writing stage includes skills and knowledge that are specific to English academic writing and are unlikely to be covered in other courses. Students are usually taught general writing during their English classes, so the academic writing course should take the general English course into account (and, ideally, cooperate with the teachers of general English) to avoid repetitions or compensate for aspects that may be lacking in students' education.

Some parts presented in this stage build on and continue the research conducted in my previous work (Morzhakov, 2016), namely the material on plagiarism, academic style, and the structure of academic papers.

Writing genres in Academic Writing

At its core, all writing comes down to using one or several of four existing writing genres: narrative, argumentative, descriptive, and expository (Lam, Dillon, Chang, 2011). A writer uses one of these genres depending on what his purpose he is trying to achieve. Mastering all four types of writing is what makes a person a proficient all-around writer. In this part we will examine each genre, and show which types of writing are most important for an academic paper.

Since the main purpose of academic writing is to clearly and logically give the reader information on a particular topic, the expository genre stands at the core of all academic writing. When using the expository genre, a writer seeks to present facts and explanations as clearly as possible. Therefore, the main features of expository writing are its clarity, brevity, and strict logical structure. To rid the text of ambiguity, writers usually avoid using expressive means or words that can be understood in more than one way.

While presenting facts is most important in a scholar's paper, in the current academic culture it is not enough. With the amount of papers published every year, a writer has the challenging task of proving to the reader that the problem his paper tackles is significant, and that his research deserves the attention of scholars across the world. In addition, a writer needs to justify his conclusions and offer his own solutions to the problem. For this, a writer uses the argumentative or persuasive genre which seeks to prove a point or to convince the reader of something. This mostly done through logical argumentation, but sometimes experienced writers (usually in less formal publications) supplement their argumentation with stylistic devices to grip the attention of the reader and make the points of the paper more vivid. During a bachelor's education, the persuasive essay is an example of purely argumentative writing.

The two remaining genres are less common for academic writing. The narrative genre tells a story or its part. It uses vivid verbs that explain the plot in detail and numerous names and personal pronouns. In academic writing the narrative genre may be used when a writer needs to describe an important event or explain a phenomenon through an analogy that requires narration.

The descriptive genre presents a vivid image of something through descriptive and figurative language. Since, as has been said, one of the primary objectives of academic writing is to convey ideas as clearly as possible, scholars usually refrain from using figurative language ? there is a chance the reader will not interpret it the way that you expected him to. As Pinker (2014) notes, the skillful use of descriptive language in academic prose is often viable as it can not only make the text more colorful and interesting to read, but also assist understanding. One of the problems of modern academic writing is that scholars do not pay attention to how easy their text is to grasp which results in academic texts that overflow with academese, unnecessary passives, and zombie nouns making it difficult for even the most experienced readers to understand what the author is trying to say.

a characteristic of academic writing that is often ignored by scholars resulting in hard-to-read papers overflowing with (Pinker, 2014).

Overall, while an academic writer should be proficient in all four genres, a course in academic writing must focus on expository and argumentative writing. The narrative genre is usually sufficiently covered in general English courses, while teaching descriptive writing would be more effective in a course on English literature. The students of an academic writing course do not necessarily need to be taught about the existing writing genres, however, understanding which genres of writing the course focuses on can help the teacher choose the literature to work with and can help better structure the knowledge that is presented within a course. For example, the parts of a course on clarity deal with expository writing and may be better presented with other aspects of expository writing instead of being mixed up with other genres.

Principles of academic writing

As Graff & Birkenstein (2010) explain, a writer's paper can be viewed as a researcher's statement in an ongoing worldwide scholarly polylogue. They argue that every paper builds on prior work (prior statements) and offers other scholars findings and ideas that can help make advances in a particular field. This academic discussion is only possible because scholars agree to a certain set of rules which is referred to as academic principles.

It can be argued that principles of academic writing do not belong to a certain stage of writing because they govern academic writing as a whole. In a more pragmatic view, however, one must admit that this is the one stage where a writer can truly apply or go against academic principles as they apply to a written work itself and not to what was done before or after it was composed. For example, if a scholar does not check the reliability of the source, this only becomes a problem if he actually uses it in his paper.

Objective and Writer-responsible writing

In writing his paper a scholar has an obligation to present the objective truth. This means a writer must never present statements as facts without offering sufficient proof or giving a reference to a respected scholar who has done so in his works. In addition, when presenting information, a writer must give the reader the full picture and not a version that is skewed to affect the readers' opinion or prove the writers' point. Even if the purpose of an academic paper is to persuade the reader of something or prove a point, this must be done presenting both the arguments and counter-arguments with necessary detail, and then explaining why his point is valid. Thus, for example, if a scholar presents a study that provides information that both supports and counters his theory, he cannot omit anything and must present all the points that are relevant to his topic. Moreover, a writer has to make a clear distinction between objective facts and his or someone else's opinions.

Another important aspect of academic writing in the Anglo-American tradition is that it is writer-responsible. According to Reid (2014, p. 17) this means that "the writer has to do all the work, so that the reader is essentially spoon-fed the information". In other words, if the writer's target audience finds it difficult to grasp the meaning of a text or understands the text in a way that was not intended, the fault is entirely on the author. In other words, in a writer-responsible language, an author has the obligation to write clearly, unambiguously, and concisely. It is vital for international writers to grasp this concept because in many countries the language is less writer-responsible, for example, in Asian academic culture, papers are reader-responsible and are often written with little structure and overwhelming academese that is difficult to understand. If students that read these works associate them with academic writing and try to copy this style, they will be unable to compose papers that will be accepted for publication in high-class international journals.

One of the things a writer needs to do in order to aid a reader's understanding is frame all the information that he is presenting. Framing is "the art of introducing and contextualizing everything you write" (Reid, 2010, p.188). In other words, no information can be given in a vacuum, a reader must always understand not only what he is being told, but also why and how it relates to the problem at large.

English academic writing being objective and writer-responsible shapes the way academic papers are composed, so it is a teacher's duty to make sure that every student in the class understands what this means and why it is important. While these principles themselves cannot be practiced in the classroom explicitly, they serve as a basis for the specific skills that will be discussed ahead.

Plagiarism

My previous paper (Morzhakov, 2016) discussed plagiarism, noting its 4 major types; this paper offers a more in-depth updated study of the issue on the basis of more recent literature.

Apart from guaranteeing that his writing is objective, the author of an academic paper also assures the reader that all the ideas and text that are not entirely original are presented as the product of another author's work in a manner that is deemed acceptable in the paper's field (Roig, 2015). Using someone else's ideas without citation is one of the most serious offences a scholar can commit; if a plagiarist is found out, he may be completely discredited as an academic and never again have a chance to be published by a respected journal or to cooperate with another scholar (Coleman, 2014). According to Roig (2015), four major types of plagiarism can be distinguished: the plagiarism of ideas, the plagiarism of text, inappropriate paraphrasing, and self-plagiarism.

Plagiarism of ideas refers to using another scholar's ideas, facts or findings without giving proper reference. Roig (2010) argues that this is the most unethical type of plagiarism because it involves a scholar taking credit for someone else's work. Roig (2006) also notes the possibility of inadvertent plagiarism of ideas, where scholars genuinely believe the idea to be their own. It is, however, difficult to prove that the appropriation of someone's findings was done without malintent, so every researcher must be careful to double- and triple-check his writing. Plagiarism of ideas is hard to detect via computer software because it does not necessarily use any of the words that the original scholar wrote, but it is considered one of the highest possible offences a scholar can commit.

The plagiarism of text refers to copying chunks of text from other publications while not giving credit to the author. This also includes 'patchwriting' ? “copying from a source text and then deleting some words, altering grammatical structures, or plugging in one-for-one synonym-substitutes” (Howard, 1993, p. 233). Plagiarism of text is most common among college students and was even more widespread before anti-plagiarism software was introduced. The most blatant form of plagiarism of text occurs when a writer copies another author's text while making it seem that the ideas expressed within it are his own. In this instance, a writer is plagiarizing both text and ideas.

Inappropriate paraphrasing occurs when an author states the source of the idea, but then retells the information in a way that is too similar to the original source. This is the most widespread type of plagiarism that is most often done as a result of a writer's incompetence, for example, by college students who are not proficient in paraphrasing, or by those who struggle writing in English. While not as unethical as stealing ideas, inappropriate paraphrasing is often severely punished in universities (e.g. in the Moscow Higher School of Economics, if anti-plagiarism software detects inappropriate paraphrasing in a paper, the work is immediately rejected, and its author risks being expelled). Unfortunately, there currently is no universally-accepted standard of what constitutes appropriate paraphrasing (Roig, 2015; Sun & Yang, 2015). It is generally agreed that a writer should use his own words and sentence structures when relaying an idea (Roig, 2006), some criteria have been suggested, for example, 2 or less borrowed words in a row (Shi, 2004) or the repetition of nothing but general words (Keck, 2006).