Annual one-day seminar
Research, scholarship and practice
in the area of Academic Literacies
Friday 30 June 2006
University of Westminster
The Centre for Higher Education Research,
the Educational Initiative Centre,
Polylang EAP and the Academic Writing Centre
An Investigation of Genres of Assessed Writing
in British Higher Education
RES-000-23-0800
Warwick - Reading - Oxford Brookes
Current Researchers
Hilary Nesi, Sheena Gardner, Jasper Holmes,
Sian Alsop, Laura Powell,
CELTE, Warwick
Paul Thompson, Alois Heuboeck
SLALS, Reading
Paul Wickens, Signe Ebeling, Maria Leedham
ICELS, Oxford Brookes
Project Aims

Develop a Corpus of British
Academic Written English (BAWE)

Characterise proficient student
writing across disciplines and years
BAWE Corpus Grid
1
Arts & Humanities
Life Sciences
Physical Sciences
Social Sciences
2
3
4
The probable 28 disciplines
Arts and
Humanities
Applied Linguistics, Archaeology, Classics,
Comparative American Studies, English Studies,
History, Philosophy
Life Sciences
Agriculture, Biochemistry, Food Science and
Technology, Health and Social Care, Medical
Science, Plant Biosciences, Psychology
Physical Sciences
Architecture, Chemistry, Computer Science,
Cybernetics & Electronic Engineering, Engineering,
Mathematics, Physics
Social Sciences
Anthropology, Business, Economics, Hospitality,
Leisure and Tourism Management, Law, Publishing,
Sociology
Planned Corpus Size
from 28 disciplines
from each of 4 ‘years’
6-8 instances
of 4 different assignments
= 3000+ assignments,
An estimated 10 million words
Four Research Strands
1.
Corpus development
2.
Discourse community perspectives
3.
Multidimensional analysis of register
4.
SFL analysis of genres
1. Corpus Development



Collect assignments
Tag files and prepare for submission to
Oxford Text Archive
Develop interfaces for end users
Access to the Corpus



?Full texts available from the Oxford
Text Archive
?On-line search engine to allow for
concordancing with limited co-text
?Shared portal with BASE, MICASE,
MICUSP
2. Discourse Community
a. Departmental documentation
b. Tutor interviews
c. Student interviews
d. Assignment submission forms
3. Multidimensional Register Analysis
•Biber’s dimensions; lexico-grammatical
features
•Feature analysis of the academic corpus
•search for clusters of distinctive features
by
•<level, <disc, <discGroup and <type
4. Systemic Functional Genres
School history genres
1. Analytical exposition:
(Background)^ Thesis^ Arguments^ Thesis Reinforcement
2.
Analytical discussion:
(Background)^ Issue^ Arguments^ Position
3.
Challenge:
(Background)^ Arguments^ Anti-Thesis
Tutor Interviews

What role does assignment writing play in your
department?

What different types of written assignment do you set
your students?

What are the main differences between these types?

In what ways does student writing progress?

What do you value / dislike in student writing?
Essays


All assign essays
‘Essay’ has many meanings….
Essays have a basic structure

Introduction, body, conclusion
(Biological Sciences)

Introduction, logical sequence of argument,
conclusion
(Medicine)

Argument, counter-argument, conclusion
(Hospitality & Tourism)
Compared to other assignment types

The structure of essays is less prescribed
(Theatre Studies)



Greater scope .. in terms of what they’re
writing about (Engineering)
An essay is generally more ‘rangy’, with a
freer structure (Law)
Essays have more flexibility than practical
reports, and may address only a subset of
the classic RA (Psychology)
Essays involve critical thinking
 ‘A chance to show .. that you can think
deeply about a subject’ (Anthropology)
 Give more scope for originality
(Psychology)
 ‘The traditional Law essay would
probably take the form of a critical
discussion’
Engineering assignments:









Essays
Laboratory reports
Project reports
Reflective journals
Posters (e.g. for transport museum)
Summaries of analysis + recommendations
Site investigation reports (both factual and
interpretative)
Funding proposals
Business plans
Published Academic Research




‘Over time, student writing should approximate ever
more closely to the writing that academics submit for
publication in learned/scientific journals’
(Economics).
student writing should conform to ‘the style you’d
expect in a research paper’ - ‘publishable in style,
but not in content’ ( Food Sciences)
Biology students are advised to ‘write in the style of
current opinion journals’.
Physics expects students ‘to write a scientific paper
– as might be published in a scientific journal for an
audience of their peers’.
Professional Writing




Publishing project proposals and letters to
authors, in the persona of a publisher.
Case reports (patient description +
management plan) assess competence to
progress as a medical practitioner.
Demonstration and analysis of computer
coding (‘preparing students for real life’)
‘problem questions’ apply the law ‘rather as
barristers and solicitors have to do’.
Disciplinary differences:
‘education is a value in itself, and it’s part
of a person’s development of selfhood
…… it depresses me when students
view it as a kind of grim vocationalism’
(Theatre Studies)
there is ‘little point’ in writing academic
essays in some modules, as Publishing
is a vocational degree and assignments
‘try to replicate what goes on’.
For some, the essay is limiting
‘The fact that essays are still used as the only mode by
the majority of English literature assessors seems to
me very limiting’
(English Studies)
‘We are a traditional department and we still use mainly
essays and we’re very conscious that we would like
to, and perhaps need to, do something about that’
(Sociology)
a) Creative writing

Crime fiction (Sociology)

dramatic dissertation: playscript of
the facts or trial of a legal case
(Law)
b) Reflective writing

Students produce original work and then evaluate it
(Computing, English Studies, Theatre Studies)

Students write reflectively about their experiences during
group work (Engineering, Hospitality & Tourism)

Students write reflectively about the educational value of
a practical task (Anthropology)

Students reflect on past personal experiences (Medicine)
c) Empathy Writing
writing for school children, friends,
museums, or newspapers
(Physics, Biology, Mathematics
and Engineering)
d) New Technologies




Blogs
Website evaluations (Medicine, Theatre
Studies)
Web-page design (Publishing)
Powerpoint presentations (Business and
others)
Undergraduate Research Project:
Centre for English Language
Teacher Education
*
Laura Powell
Aims & Objectives
•Student attitudes towards different
genres of academic writing
Eg, Essays, Lab Reports, Case Studies, Creative Sketches
•How does the student know what is
expected?
Interview 36 students
Arts
Life Physical Social
Sciences Sciences Sciences
English
Medicine
History
Psychology
Philosophy Biological Sciences
Physics
Chemistry
Engineering
Law
Business
Sociology
What is the most
important feature of
an academic essay?
What is the most important feature of an academic essay?
2%
5%
19%
CL
TI
EX
16%
A
CR
2%
1%
S
PR
R
B
18%
12%
25%
Time Invested
Expression/Voice
Arguing and Counter Arguing
Creativity or Originality
Presentation
Research
Demonstrating Understanding by Explaining Background
Structure
Clarity
Life Sciences Social
Physical
Sciences
Arts
Time Invested
Expression/Voice
Arguing and Counter Arguing
Creativity or Originality
Presentation
Research
Demonstrating Understanding by Explaining Background
Structure
Clarity
Sciences
Trigger Questions
•Structure
•Creativity or Originality
•Is there a right answer?
•How standardised is too standardised?
Structure:
Medicine
&Philosophy
“It’s proof, proof, proof. A fixed journey
on a regimented path.”
“The more unique, the higher the mark.
They don’t agree with set structures. They
don’t agree with exams even.”
Social Sciences
CL
EX
A
B
Structure
R
Structural Flexibility and Creativity
“Just argue for and against the
title to provide as balanced a view
as possible and to cover the
subject matter in enough depth.”
Law, First Year
Structural Flexibility and Creativity
“It’s a means to an end. We
have x-points and x-answer. It’s
just a case of getting there
really.”
Physics, Second Year
A-Levels
Intuition
Course
Handbooks
Feedback
How do you know?
Website
Marker’s Subjectivity

I cater my essays to the first-marker
English Literature 3nd year

It’s easier to know what they want and write
to them when you’ve read their papers and
interests
Chemistry 4th year
Marker’s Subjectivity
“No, it doesn’t vary from marker to
marker. They have to follow a very
specific set of marking guidelines, you
see.”
Law, First Year
First Year
&
Finalists
Time Invested
Expression/Voice
Arguing and Counter Arguing
Creativity or Originality
Presentation
Research
Demonstrating Understanding by Explaining Background
Structure
Clarity
First Year
Standardisation
&
Second Year
“It’s taken a year of trial and error
and I still don’t have an inkling
of an idea what they want. We need
guidance. It’s insufficient.”1st year, Philosophy
First Year
Standardisation
&
Second Year
“To get beyond a 2:1, individuality is
key. ‘This is what I want to say and
that’s how I will say it.’ If we curb
subjectivity, how would we deserve the
marks?”
2nd year, Philosophy

Questions?

Your possible use of the corpus?