Foreign languages

The main advantage of general composition courses is their convenience. Having generic courses for students of all disciplines means a group of English professors can teach the entire student body while staying in their comfort zone of literature and philosophy. In addition, in this model the English staff is self-sufficient and does not need to cooperate with specialists in other fields. General composition courses also focus on metacognitive processes in writing ? an aspect which some scholars find central to students grasping academic writing (Bangert et al., 2004)

General composition courses have existed in the USA since the 19th century, and one can argue that all these years America has fared really well on the international academic arena. However, the generic teaching of writing skills separate from the students' disciplines has been widely criticized for many years (Lindemann, 1993; Wardle, 2007; Beaufort, 2007; Sommers, 2008). Scholars suggest that academic writing does not exist in a vacuum, and that content, genre, context, and the intended audience are central to academic writing in every discipline. Beaufort (2007) claims that subject matter and intellectual substance are most important to academic writing and that teaching writing as a generic skill is ineffective. Wardle's (2007) study showed that after students take a general composition course they struggle to begin writing discipline-specific texts and almost have to learn academic writing in their discipline from scratch. Donahue (2011) found that most students report first-year writing courses as useless and cite the overall writing load or their pre-university writing experience as more important for their success in writing. In essence, these findings suggest that in universities that have generic writing courses students still have to learn to write academic texts in their own disciplines through trial and error (like in Russia), which, though imperfect, is a viable system. However, in addition to the fact that students are not being explicitly instructed how to write in their discipline, time of staff and the students, along with university funds, are being spent with little payoff.

Writing in the disciplines is an approach which stems from the belief that academic writing should be taught in the context of a discipline as a means to achieve specific goals. In this model, writing instructors work alongside discipline specialists to teach students the standards of writing in a particular discipline.

Various models of writing in the discipline can exist. Donahue (2011) describes partly-integrated and fully-integrated models. In the partly-integrated model a composition course taught by writing experts coexists with a writing-based seminar taught by staff from the selected discipline. As an example of this model, Donahue (2011) presents courses at Dartmouth College. According to Donahue (2011), the transfer of knowledge between the composition courses and writing seminars occurs if the specialists work together and present writing as a means for the students to achieve specific goals within the their own discipline.

In the fully-integrated system composition experts work with faculty staff to create a composition course based on the materials of a selected discipline. The discipline becomes central in the process of writing, and all generic writing skills are viewed through the prism of a specific field of study. In this model, there is no step between composition courses and discipline-specific writing, students learn to produce discipline specific texts straight away, as they get accustomed to using their discipline's subject matter and intellectual substance.

Wingate (2011) divides writing in the disciplines academic writing courses into additional and embedded. In the additional model, writing instructors teach academic writing while subject teachers help them make the course more discipline-specific. Subject teachers can provide subject-specific texts, take part in planning and designing the course, and even sometimes appear in class to help the subject teacher and give advice to the students. For a reason Wingate (2011) does not explain, a key characteristic of additional courses is that they are voluntary.

In the embedded model, academic writing is a compulsory subject taught solely by subject teachers with experience of getting published in their discipline. Wingate (2011) mentions that many subject teachers are reluctant to teach academic writing because their understanding of writing is often more tacit than explicit, and they find it difficult to articulate how it should be done to students. In addition, few subject teachers welcome the increased workload. Since Wingate (2011) states that compulsory courses that are taught by writing instructors and subject teachers do not constitute the embedded approach, the fully-integrated model suggested by Donahue (2011) can be considered partly-embedded in this classification.

Wingate (2011) presents cases of implementing the additional and embedded model at King's college. The additional courses were not successful and proved that non-compulsory ungraded writing courses do not have high success rates because of low uptake. The embedded approach case showed its potential for effectiveness: after just 11 weekly meeting, 29% of the students showed 10% increase in grade range and 56% had their writing grades improve over 5% (Wingate, 2011). During the course taught by 3 lecturers in applied linguistics, students studied journal articles in their discipline, submitted written works, discussed writing in class, and were explicitly taught about the features of academic writing, referencing, plagiarism, argumentation, and discourse features. Interestingly, while only 28.6% of the students described the presentations on argumentation as useful, over 88% of respondents noted that analyzing their own and other students' arguments helped them with their writing. This suggests that a course in academic writing may focus less attention on explicitly teaching argumentation and more on formative feedback on students' arguments.

Wingate's (2011) cases and the courses at Dartmouth university show that courses that implement the principles of writing in the disciplines can exist; however, while writing experts (Lindemann, 1993; Wardle, 2007; Beaufort, 2007; Sommers, 2008; Donahue, 2011; Wingate, 2011) claim that such models of teaching writing are more effective than general composition courses, most colleges still have not made writing in the disciplines part of their academic writing curriculum, although they sometimes do appear as exceptions to the overall rule (e.g. Business and Science writing courses at Harvard). The fact that universities are not ready to change the system of academic writing can be attributed to the long-standing tradition of generic composition courses in the Anglo-American tradition of education. As has been said, it is a convenient system that is easier to implement and does not require cooperation between professors of different disciplines.

Countries like Russia, where the system of teaching academic writing is in its fledgling state, have a unique opportunity of building a system that integrates disciplines into writing instruction and follows the findings of writing experts of the past several decades. Data and research suggest that copying the Anglo-American approach and implementing it for universities all across the country would not have as much positive effect as involving subject experts to design courses intended for specific disciplines.

Within both types of academic writing courses the teaching possibilities are endless. Writing in the disciplines approach implies a situational approach in which a course is designed to best fit a selected discipline. A generic composition course, however, can also come in different forms: it can use an inductive logic where students study writing and then try to determine key concepts themselves, can be presented explicitly with the tutor explaining every aspect of writing separately, or use a mix of those methods.

The classification presented in this paper is applicable for both types of academic writing courses. Regardless of whether a course focuses on writing in general or writing that is specific to a discipline, the knowledge and skills listed in the classification have to be examined. A generic writing course can be built based on the classification by simply choosing the teaching methods and texts best suited for training the listed skills and presenting the given knowledge. A course that follows the principles of writing in the disciplines will have to adapt each aspect to the specific characteristics and to the subject matter. Thus, for example, a course that focuses on writing in applied physics will not examine writing abstracts in general, but will examine how the abstract-building models are used by scholars in journals in the field of physics.

Conclusion

A multitude of opinions, approaches, and teaching methods exist on the subject of teaching academic writing. In addition, the writing itself may differ greatly depending on the discipline, type of paper, and intended audience. Still, a set of knowledge and skills that governs academic writing across all disciplines can be determined, which is exactly what this paper has attempted to do. The created classification is not a list of generic skills that must be learned separately from context, but rather general processes and information that can be adapted to the specific context of a discipline. The macro skills describe the tasks that any scholar needs to accomplish in order to write an academic paper, while the micro skills examine the steps that a writer needs to take to accomplish these tasks. The classification also shows what a bachelor student needs to know to master the skills and be able to successfully produce academic papers. All the knowledge and skills have been separated into two groups: a core group (see Appendix 2) that deals with elements that are specific to academic writing in English, and a supplementary group of elements that should be addressed in a broader and longer course.

As many Russian universities are currently in the process of designing their courses in academic writing, the created classification can be helpful for determining how the course can be structured. The paper supplements the classification by going into detail on what can be examined within each aspect of academic writing, which aspects require more attention, and how they can be approached in class.

The classification and supporting writing is intended for Bachelor students who have reached or surpassed the B2 level of English proficiency. According to existing research, for a course in academic writing to have maximum impact, it has to be mandatory so a university will need to create a system in which by the second or third year all or select groups of bachelors will have mastered writing in English at the B2 level. Moreover, a course in academic writing should take the students' main academic discipline into account. Ideally, this can be achieved by writing instructors cooperating with subject professors to create a course in academic writing that is fully integrated into the subject matter of the students' discipline. Since Russia does not have a rich history of academic writing instruction, it is possible to create courses that are integrated in students' disciplines without the obstacles that Anglo-American universities are currently facing. In addition, universities should be careful when creating academic writing programs that disregard the discipline that its target audience is studying. While this system is viable and has existed for many years, according to current research implementing it has shown mixed results and more effective alternatives exist. If a university was to create generic academic writing courses, they would need to be supplemented with writing seminars that focus on English writing in the discipline.

The paper offers ample opportunity for further work. Future research on the topic can focus on either on perfecting the classification that has been created in this study, or on designing courses in academic English using the current classification. In terms of perfecting the classification, it is possible to:

Create a broader version that takes other aspects of research (such as networking, discussion, and time management) into account;

Work on creating narrower more detailed classifications applicable to short academic writing courses that focus on particular aspects of writing;

Develop classifications for the Masters and Post-graduate levels to compare academic writing instruction at different levels of higher education.

As for using the classification to create a program of a course, it is possible to:

Design a generic academic writing course that can be used in all disciplines and applied all over Russia;

Work with subject teachers to develop discipline-specific courses ? the direction that is more labor-intensive but, potentially, more productive;

In addition, more research can be condeucted on how academic skills and knowledge should be presented to students for whom English is a second language. The current paper focuses on learners that are proficient in English and, while it does examine English being a writer-responsible language and how students may struggle with writing because of their prior education, it does not provide an in-depth analysis on language transfer or the difficulties that students with a lower level of English proficiency are likely to face.

At this interesting time for Russian academia, the decisions taken by top universities on how to teach academic writing in English can shape the landscape of English academic writing instruction in Russia for years to come. Hopefully, the scholars that will design the courses will base their programs on the latest findings and learn from the Anglo-American education system rather than simply copy it.

References

1. Abidin Pammu; Zaini Amirb & Tengku Nor Rizan Tengku Mohd. Maasum (2013) Metacognitive Reading Strategies of Less Proficient Tertiary Learners: A Case Study of EFL Learners at a Public University in Makassar, Indonesia. Social and Behavioral Sciences 118, pp. 357-364

2. American Psychological Association (2010) The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 6th edition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. 272 p.

3. Anthony, L. (1999) Writing research article introductions in software engineering: How accurate is a standard model? IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 42(1), 38-46.

4. Arazy, O. and Kopak, R. (2011), “On the measurability of information quality”, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 62 No. 1, pp. 89-99.

5. Bair, Mary A. Ph.D. and Mader, Cynthia E. Ph.D. (2013). Academic Writing at the Graduate Level: Improving the Curriculum through Faculty Collaboration, Journal of University Teaching & Learning. 16 p.

6. Baleghizadeh S., Yahya Gordani Y. (2012) Academic Writing and Grammatical Accuracy: The Role of Corrective Feedback. Gist Education and Learning Research Journal. number 6, pp. 159-176

7. Bangert, R., M. Hurley, and B. Wilkinson. (2004) “The effects of school-based writing-to-learn interventions on academic achievement: A meta-analysis.” Educational Researcher 74 (1): 29-58

8. Beaufort, A. (2007) College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing Instruction. Logan: Utah State University Press. 33 p.

9. Bent M., Stubbing R. (2011). The Seven Pillars of Information Literacy: the core model. SCONUL Working Group on Information Literacy. 14 p.

10. Bharuthram, S. (2006) Developing reading strategies in higher education through the use of integrated reading/writing activities: A study at a university of technology in South Africa. PhD thesis. University of KwaZulu-Natal. Durban. 353 p.

11. Bhatia, V. K. (1993) Analysing genre: Language use in professional settings. London: Longman, 34 p.

12. Brown, D. (2004). Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices. New York: Pearson Education, Inc. 324 p.

13. C. Keck (2006) The use of paraphrase in summary writing: a comparison of L1 and L2 writers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 15 (4), pp. 261-278

14. Caverly, D. C., Orlando, V. P., & Mullen, J. A. L. (2000) Textbook study reading. In D. C. Caverly (Ed.), Handbook of college reading and study strategy. Mahwah, NJ. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 105-147.

15. Coleman J. (2014) How to get published in English: Advice from the outgoing Editor-in-Chief. Elsevier Ltd.8 p.

16. College Board. (2013). 2013 SAT report on college & career readiness. Retrieved from http://media.collegeboard.com/homeOrg/content/pdf/sat-report-college-career-readiness-2013.pdf

17. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (2010): Council of Europe. 273 p.

18. Cottrell S. (2011) Critical Thinking Skills: Developing Analysis and Argument. London: Palgrave Macmillan.? 282 p.

19. Donahue, C. (2011) Cross-Cultural Approaches to Writing and Disciplinarity. Writing in The Disciplines: Universities into the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan. Croydon, pp. 14-29.

20. Duncan, M. (2007). Whatever Happened to the Paragraph? College English, 69(5), 470-495. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25472231

21. Eubanks, P., & Schaeffer, J. (2008). A Kind Word for Bullshit: The Problem of Academic Writing. College Composition and Communication, 59(3), 372-388. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20457010

22. extension.harvard.edu (2017) Expository Writing. Available at: https://www.extension.harvard.edu/academics/courses/subject/expository-writing/e-expo [Accessed 24 Apr. 2017]

23. Falk-Ross, F. (2002) Toward the new literacy: Changes in college students' reading comprehension strategies following reading/writing projects. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 45, pp. 278-289.

24. Fitzgerald, J. (1987). Research on Revision in Writing. Review of Educational Research, 57(4), 481-506. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1170433

25. Gorlewski, J., & Heveron-Smith, M. (2012). Research for the Classroom: Punctuation: The Power and the Possibilities. The English Journal, 101(4), 101-103. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41415483

26. Gugin D. (2014) A Paragraph-First Approach to the Teaching of Academic Writing. English Teaching Forum Number 3. pp. 24-29

27. Harmon, J. (2007). Let Them Use the Internet: Why College Instructors Should Encourage Student Internet Use. College Teaching, 55(1), 2-4. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27559299

28. Herschensohn, J. (1994). BALANCING ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES IN EVALUATION OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE SKILLS. The Journal of General Education, 43(2), 134-146. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27797219

29. Hyland, K. (2004) Disciplinary discourses: Social interactions in academic writing. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

30. ЭlknurYьksel, Эsmail Yьksel (2012) Metacognitive Awareness of Academic Reading Strategies. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 31. 894 - 898

31. Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates (ICAS) of the California Community Colleges, the California State University, and the University of California, (2002). Academic Literacy: A statement of competencies expected of students entering California's public colleges and universities. Sacramento: ICAS, p.4.

32. Iwai Y. (2011) Academic English Reading for International College Students:The Role of Metacognitive Reading Strategies. Research in the Schools 2011, Vol. 18, No. 2, 75-88

33. Lam, H., Dillon, T., Chang E. (2011). Determining Writing Genre: Towards a Rubric-based Approach to Automated Essay Grading, 2011 International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications, 270-274.

34. Lendemann E. (1993) Freshman Composition: No Place for Literature. College English, Vol. 55, No. 3, pp. 311-316.

35. Lesgold, A. M., & Welsh-Ross, M. (Eds.) (2012). Improving adult literacy: Options for practice and research. Washington, DC. The National Academies Press.

36. Livingston, C., Klopper, B. &Cox, S. (2015) The impact of an academic reading programme in the Bachelor of Education (intermediate and senior phase) degree, Reading & Writing 6(1), Art. #66, 11 p.

37. Longman Dictionary of American English: 4th edition (2008): Pearson Education ESL. 1204 p.

38. Mackey, T., & Jacobson, T. (2005). Information Literacy: A Collaborative Endeavor. College Teaching, 53(4), 140-144. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27559244

39. Meg Gorzycki, Pamela Howard, Diane Allen, Geoffrey Desa& Erik Rosegard (2016) An Exploration of Academic Reading Proficiency at the University Level: A Cross-Sectional Study of 848 Undergraduates, Literacy Research and Instruction, 55:2, 142-162

40. Mokhtari, K., & Sheorey, R. (2002). Measuring ESL students' awareness of reading strategies. Journal of Developmental Education 25(3), 2-1

41. Morzhakov A. (2016) Teaching Academic Writing in English. Higher School of Economics. Moscow.

42. Perin, D. (2013) Literacy skills among academically underprepared students. Community College Review, 41(2), pp. 118-136.

43. Pinker, S. (2014) The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century . New York, NY: Penguin.

44. Reid N. (2010) Getting published in international journals: Writing Strategies for European Social Scientists. Oslo: Norwegian Social Research.303 p.

45. Richards, J. (1983). Listening Comprehension: Approach, design, procedure. TESOL Quaterly, 17, 219-239.

46. Roig M. (2015) Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing. St John's University. 71 p. Retrieved from: https://ori.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/plagiarism.pdf

47. Saengpakdeejit R. &Intaraprasert C. (2014) Reading Strategies in Foreign Language Academic Reading: A Qualitative Investigation. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 4, No. 12, pp. 2599-2608

48. Santos, M. B. D. (1996) The textual organization of research paper abstracts in applied linguistics. Text, 16. pp. 481-499

49. Sengupta, S. (2002). Developing academic reading at the tertiary level: A longitudinal study oftracing conceptual change. The Reading Matrix, 2(1).

50. Shi L. (2004) Textual borrowing in second-language writing. Written Communication, 21, pp. 171-200.

51. Snow, E. (2002) Reading for understanding : toward a research and development program in reading comprehension. Santa Monica: RAND.

52. Sommers, N. (2008) `The call of research: A longitudinal view of writing development.' CCC 60(1): 152-164.

53. Stapleton, P. (2005). Using the Web as a Research Source: Implications for L2 Academic Writing. The Modern Language Journal, 89(2), 177-189. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3588679

54. Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch.

55. Stern, C. (2005). Digital Information Literacy: Teaching Students to Use The Internet in Source-Based Writing. Effective Learning and Teaching of Writing, Vol. 14 part 2. Springer Netherlands, pp. 443-453.

56. Swales, J. M. (1990) Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 260 p.

57. Tony Dudley-Evans (2000) Genre analysis: a key to a theory of ESP? - University of Birmingham, 9 p.

58. University of Chicago (2010) Chicago Manual of Style. 16th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1026 p.

59. Van Schalkwyk, S. (2008) Acquiring academic literacy: A case of first-year extended degree programme students at Stellenbosch University. PhD thesis, University of

60. Vitse C., Poland G. (2017) Writing a scientific paper--A brief guide for new investigators. Vaccine, Volume 35, Issue 5, Pages 722-728, ISSN 0264-410X,http://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2016.11.091

61. Wang S., Tu P. (2014) Tense Use and Move Analysis in Journal Article Abstracts. Taiwan Journal of TESOL Vol 11.1, pp. 3-29

62. Wardle, E. (2007) “Understanding `transfer' from FYC: Preliminary results of a longitudinal study.” Writing Program Administration 31 (1/2): 65-85.

63. WEBB, S., & KAGIMOTO, E. (2009). The Effects of Vocabulary Learning on Collocation and Meaning. TESOL Quarterly, 43(1), 55-77. Retrievedfrom http://www.jstor.org/stable/27784986

64. Wingate, U. (2011) A Comparison of "Additional" and "Embedded" Approaches to Teaching Writing. Writing in The Disciplines: Universities into the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan. Croydon, pp. 64-87.

65. writingprogram.fas.harvard.edu (2017) Expos 20. Available at: http://writingprogram.fas.harvard.edu/pages/expos-20-0 [Accessed 24 Apr. 2017]

66. Writing-speech.dartmouth.edu (2017) Writing Courses. Available at: http://writing-speech.dartmouth.edu/curriculum/writing-courses [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017]

67. Yu-Chih Sun, Fang-Ying Yang (2015) Uncovering published authors' text-borrowing practices: Paraphrasing strategies, sources, and self-plagiarism, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Volume 20, Pages 224-236, retrieved from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1475158515300035

Appendix

1. Table 1 ? The full classification of academic writing skills and knowledge

Author: Anton Morzhakov

2. Table 2 ? The core skills and knowledge of academic writing

Author: Anton Morzhakov

Размещено на Allbest.ru