This case study explores the challenges that Master's students encounter when learning to write in academic English as part of a UK postgraduate course, after having achieved the required IELTS entry score. Interviews with six Chinese and Japanese learners at different stages of the Master's study revealed more sophisticated writing difficulties…

Strong arguments have been forwarded for embedding academic writing development into the UK higher education curriculum and for subject tutors to facilitate this development (Hyland, 2000; Lea & Street, 2006; Monroe, 2003; Wingate, 2006). This small-scale case study explores subject tutors' practices and beliefs with regard to the provision of…

Since it was first introduced in 2008, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been attracting a lot of interest. Since then, MOOCs have emerged as powerful platforms for teaching and learning academic writing. However, there has been no detailed investigation of academic writing MOOCs. As a result, much uncertainty still exists about the…

This study investigated the engagement with writing of reluctant writers in the contexts of home and school. A structured and semi-structured survey method was used to capture responses from 106 reluctant writers in 9 primary schools (age range 6--9 year olds) in the UK. Findings show that although these students were deemed to be reluctant…

For students new to higher education, the task of developing their academic writing skills, and particularly the principles and practices of source-referencing, can be daunting. Although institutions and teachers can and do provide positive guidance on this score, all too often students veer into inadvertent plagiarism through lack of confidence…

The assessment of children's writing raises technical and practical challenges. In this paper we examine the potential use of a curriculum based measure for writing (CBM-W) to assess the written texts of pupils in Key Stage 2 (M age 107 months, range 88 to 125). Two hundred and thirty six Year three, five and six pupils completed a standardized…

Considering the change of attitudes of plagiarism detection to assessment for learning, it is necessary to explore the effect of the paradigm shift for Turnitin, from "plagiarism detection" to self-service learning aid. Two research questions are explored in the present study: (1) How Turnitin augments self-service skills of students and…

Concerns about the relation between critical and creative writing are reviewed in the context of encouraging students to engage in both kinds of writing as a response to literature in undergraduate degree courses. In particular the paper seeks to illustrate and promote good practice in the integration of creative and critical written responses to…

Describes a teacher's experiments with improving students' writing in the geography classroom using peer editing exercises. Discusses the development and gives examples of the editing exercises and style sheets. Briefly reviews the theory of audience-centered communication. (MJP)