The Annual Literacy Survey is a survey for teachers and other school staff, asking about their attitudes to literacy as a whole, as well as reading, writing and speaking and listening. There were responses from 1,535 teachers from across primary, secondary and other settings. As outlined in report, the survey particularly interested in how this…

Writing is central to PhD work, though often a source of challenge, given the dissertation is the basis for the award of the degree. Universities may offer writing workshops, but these frequently take a remedial, skills-based approach: writing as something to fix rather than a developmental life-learning process of gaining confidence and fluency…

With borders reopening after the COVID-19 pandemic, the travel industry has employed different methods to attract potential customers. One of the popular promotional strategies is advertorials. This study examines 75 travel advertorials from "the Telegraph," a national daily newspaper in the UK, to address two objectives -- 1) to…

Current research suggests that students who struggle with grammar, spelling, mechanics and other "problems of ability," as well as students who suffer from "problems of engagement," as well as those students who see reading and writing as a chore, can benefit from creative writing assignments and learn to enjoy reading and…

"OpenEssayist" is an automated writing evaluation system (AWE) designed to provide immediate textual and graphical feedback to students to help them improve their academic writing. One of the graphical visualisations as part of "OpenEssayist," (named a 'rainbow diagram'), illustrates how well the key concepts within the writing…

The paper explores questions of power arising from feminist facilitators running a doctoral writing group at a UK university. Butler's [2014. Re-thinking Vulnerability and Resistance. [Online]. Accessed September 12, 2017.…

Students and teachers from different language backgrounds are at risk of becoming victims of conflicting trends and conventions when writing in English. This study compares conventions of English academic writing at several European universities with what is taught in English-speaking countries. Data were collected with questionnaires and by…

This study considered the sources of facilitating experiences and strategies for thesis writing from doctoral students and graduates (N = 30). The sample was balanced between science and social science knowledge areas, with equal numbers of English as Second Language (ESL) participants in both groups. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used…

Research on authorial identity has focused almost exclusively on the attitudes and beliefs of students. This paper explores how academics understand authorial identity in higher education. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with professional academics and analysed using thematic analysis, identifying themes at two levels. At the semantic…

This paper argues for a pedagogic practice to overcome the challenges that many professional practitioners face in undertaking a professional doctorate. Recent examination feedback on a professional doctoral programme of 300 candidates in the UK highlighted that a number of candidates often struggle to write persuasively, critically and…

One of the fundamental ways in which knowledge develops is through contrast. This applies not only to the development of ideas and theories in argumentative texts, but also to the contrasting of new findings with old in experimental reports. Contrast, then, is central to the development of academic knowledge. A common finding in contrastive…

This article investigates the extent to which Year One B.Ed student teachers arrived at university already possessing self-confidence as writers. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection were used to identify students' self perceptions and confidence as writers and their understanding of processes of written composition. The…

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 essay explores what the development of writing might look like and how it might take shape in a secondary English classroom. The study problematises current definitions of progress. In direct opposition to standards-driven models, I propose an alternative way of thinking about the development of writers through a series of narrative accounts…

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…