Writing: At the Centre of the University?Ann Hinkle
Level: Advanced
Writing: At the Centre of the University?- Ann Hinkle
Within the last five years, a nation-wide sampling of governmental and academic investigations has
revealed writing problems among undergraduates in higher education and higher education graduates in
business and industry. "ITT receiving institutions frequently noted students’ continuing need for help with
essay writing skills, spelling and syntax" (HMI 1991). A national survey within 17 institutions of higher
education revealed "poor English, especially spelling, punctuation and grammar [as] widespread in students
in all subjects and in all universities surveyed" (Lamb 1992). A follow up on these students within the
business sector exposed "dissatisfaction amongst employers about the standard of written English in young
entrants to industry and commerce" (Lamb 1994). In a more recent survey in HE, 30.5- 50 per cent of
undergraduate writing samples, covering three academic disciplines, contained an average of one new error
every 50 words (Winch and Wells 1995).
Clearly, researchers have documented a student writing problem. With increasing enrolments in the move to
a mass education system, the problem is mounting into higher and higher stacks of poorly written essays to
be read by increasingly frustrated and exhausted lecturers. Clearly, too, researchers claim that students are
at the centre of the problem: they can’t spell, they can’t punctuate, they can’t meet essay standards. But to
any piece of writing, good or poor, there is more than just the writer and his or her text. Given any piece of
writing, there is also the consideration of audience. Have we considered this aspect in defining the scope of
the problem?
I recently attended a national workshop addressing the issue of developing undergraduate writing. It was
attended by 25 academics representing departments of American Studies, Computing, Education, Fine Arts,
Language Support, English, Chemical Engineering, Physics, Classical Studies, and Project Management.
The workshop was lively. We were generating ideas about the range of student writing problems. We were
criticising student writing samples. We were designing standards for essays spanning the three years of
student experience and, although we had come together with common concerns, interests in improving
student writing, we were still mostly talking about students, focusing on them. What about us? What about
this other aspect of writing, the audience? We, are, after all the readers of undergraduate essays.
Throughout the course of the day, I tried to listen to what we were saying about ourselves. Consistently, four
issues were raised within comments, and a picture of audience emerged.
One type of repeated comment -- "The problem I have is not getting back what I want in an essay"-- raises
the issue of communication from lecturers to students. From this or similar statements, we are reminded that
we are guided by fixed standards for essays whether they are personal and/or departmental. And
appropriately, as mentioned in discussion, many lecturers or departments distribute these standards to
students. However, students need more than prescriptive guidelines. They, like lecturers preparing journal
articles or reviews, need models. Students need to have access to excellent models of "what [lecturers]want"
in an essay, examples of essays that meet standards. For even the best new undergraduates will only be
writing excellent A-level quality essays at first. Aren’t we trying to move them beyond this into a more
critically intellectual domain? Where will they possibly gain exposure to this type of writing if not from
departments in the university setting? In addition, what kind of writing feedback are we giving students on
individual essays? Is that feedback specific, constructive and clear? If lecturers are "not getting back what
[they]want in an essay" maybe students, legitimately, don’t know what to give them. Thorough
communication to students about writing expectations is needed from lecturers and departments.
Other comments of this nature moved further to suggest issues of writing ownership. For example, in regard
to talking about essay standards, one lecturer said, "[In an essay] I’m interested in seeing what I’ve said in
this course." True, course content should be part of most essays, but shouldn’t we, first and foremost, be
interested in seeing what students think about what lecturers have said? If the essay assignment is not
meant to provide a student platform for voicing opinions, synthesising ideas and drawing conclusions, then
what is the purpose of the essay? If it is to function as the vehicle for echoing the lecturer’s words, then why
wouldn’t an objective test suffice? And why would any student be motivated to write well or care about
punctuation if the task is to repeat what has already been said? How many of the type errors seen in student
writing pertain to apathy rather than lack of skill? And why would lecturers want to mark hundreds of identical
essays that were parroting his or her own words? Students must take ownership of the words they write by
having opportunities to develop their own essay titles and new ideas from understanding course content
presented. Lecturers must give them permission to do so. The best professional and academic essays are
driven by the writers’ ideas and (only) thoroughly supported by facts, experts and analysis. Lecturers are
Last Updated 23rd May 2007
Writing: At the Centre of the University?Ann Hinkle
Level: Advanced
readers of student essays, not owners.
The most frequent type of comment pertained to accountability: "It is not my responsibility to deal with
writing. Structure, yes. Use of language, no" and "I am not qualified to make judgements about language
use." In essence, "writing is not my job." But in fact, writing is our job. Academics report spending between
10-20 hours every week writing (Hinkle 1997). It is at the core of every discipline, the commonality binding
disciplines together. Without language, what would a university be? Of course, it is our job to judge
language. What better person to comment on perfect word choice in a physics essay than a physics
lecturer? It is the lecturer within a specialised discipline who will best know what words might work for a
specialised audience. However, many workshop participants believed that writing was the job of the
language support staff and that content issues should be the responsibility of the subject lecturers.
However, it is simplistic to make such rigid distinctions in writing assistance because it is impossible to
completely fragment writing. Word choice is related to structure. Sentence construction is related to tone.
Language support staff must work with subject lecturers to become familiar with style and expectation
differences within disciplines. Subject lecturers must work with language support staff in order to become
familiar with efficient ways of responding to poor writing. A balance of assistance needs to be determined for
individual students. Perhaps the student who has been identified as severely deficient in grammar, for
example, does need to work with language support staff more consistently for a while, but would it be beyond
the responsibility of the subject lecturer to respond to that student’s writing by saying "the intent of the essay
is interesting but incorrect grammar prevents understanding of the argument" and to then go on to select a
strong sentence where grammar is working to make the case in point? We are all accountable and working
relationships with colleagues can balance that accountability.
The notion that many subject lecturers are not qualified to judge and, in fact, are not judging language is
debatable, for when academics voice comments such as "I have returned sub-standard writing to students
without marking it" (another typical comment heard at the workshop) they are obviously judging language
and using their expertise to do so. But the lecturer who reads an essay and returns it blank as sub-standard
work is wasting invested reading time and invalidating the efforts of the student. In contrast, the lecturer who
reads a sub-standard essay and returns it with a specific and constructive comment makes use of invested
reading time and initiates the writing improvement process. Wouldn’t any academic respond more favourably
to an editor’s informative suggestion to rewrite specific passages and re-submit rather than a flat-out
rejection? Granted, lecturers’ writing skills are much more sharpened and seasoned than those of
undergraduates, but the process of writing is not all that different. We all struggle with words. We all feel the
satisfaction from an opinion stated. We, lecturers and students, have much in common. Lecturers must admit
this and share their sharpened and seasoned expertise with students. Research documenting student writing
problems concludes that universities are now poised for solutions.
Many institutions have developed study support centres, but most institutions have unstructured ways of
handling student writing problems. Overall, writing programmes are poorly funded. However, before we fully
invest in systems, we must thoroughly assess the current systems that host the problem. These include, not
only students, but lecturers and the educational philosophies they bring with them to the reading of student
essays. Are we creating a climate for facilitating writing improvement in higher education? We should be,
because writing is the business of everyone. It is at the centre of the university.
REFERENCES
Hartley J and Knapper C (1984) "Academics and Their Writing" Studies in Higher Education 9(2), p. 151-168.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Schools (Great Britain). (1991) Access Courses in Initial Teacher Training.
London: HMSO.
Hinkle A. (1997) "Designing Courses with Social Climates Supportive of Written Expression:
Transcriptional and Compositional Responses to Student Writing" in Graham G and Rust C (ed)
Improving Student Learning through Course Design, Oxford Centre for Staff Development.
Lamb B (1992) A National Survey of UK Undergraduates’ Standards of English. London: Queen’s
English Society.
Lamb B (1994) A National Survey of Communication Skills of Young Entrants to Industry and
Commerce. London: Queen’s English Society.
Winch C and Wells P (1995) "The Quality of Student Writing in Higher Education: A Cause for
Concern?" British Journal of Educational Studies 43(1), March p. 75-87).
Williams K (1995) "Developing Students’ Writing" University of Reading. 14 November 1995.
Conference.
Last Updated 23rd May 2007