Academic writing

Find out about our research in the field of academic writing.

Writing is considered one of the most difficult skills to develop, and thus considerable time is spent on developing this skill.

Learners with native languages other than English start writing in English as one of the four language skills. However, writing instruction extends far beyond language learning.

Learners who are already proficient in English may learn to write in university academic writing courses, such as first year composition classes in the U.S. Even beyond learning to write, students at all tertiary levels write to learn content knowledge.

Research in the field of academic writing focuses on this full range of educational contexts, from beginning language learners to PhD candidates writing doctoral dissertations, as well as professional academic writing published across the disciplines.

It also focuses on different aspects of academic writing, such as pedagogical approaches, teaching and learning strategies, assessment and evaluation, and discursive, multimodal, and language features of student and professional academic writing.

Researchers able to supervise in this area

• Robby Nadler
• Jean Parkinson (especially writing pedagogy, English for Specific Purposes, genre analysis)
• Rachael Ruegg