research writing breaking the barriers pdf

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Breaking the Barriers of Research Writing: Rethinking Pedagogy for Engineering Graduate Research

2012, Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association

Related Papers

Teaching in Higher Education

Cecile Badenhorst

Rosalie J Goldsmith

CONTEXT Competence in written communication is regarded as a critical requirement for engineering graduates and engineering educators alike, but the development of writing within the engineering curriculum is frequently invisible, and occasionally non-existent. This is despite repeated calls from EA and employer groups for Australian engineering faculties to improve the communication skills of their engineering graduates. It is also despite several decades of excellent initiatives and interventions to support and develop engineering students' written and spoken communication, many of which have fallen into disuse once their champion has moved on. PURPOSE This study seeks to investigate and provide answers to the following research questions: why are writing practices unsustained in the current Australian engineering curriculum? What would make them thrive? APPROACH The study involves engineering academics from several Australian engineering faculties as participants, and investigates their views of how writing is developed in the subjects that they teach. This paper presents the analysis of one participant's site of practice. The approach uses the theoretical perspective of practice theory. Interviews, documents and participant observations are analysed using practice architectures theory to reveal what constrains the development of writing practices as part of the engineering curriculum. RESULTS Key results show that the development of writing within engineering subjects is currently not seen as a key part of doing engineering, and that modelling or practising writing is not seen as part of the subject coordinator's role. It also reveals that engineering academics can have a lack of agency about developing the writing practices of their students. CONCLUSIONS If writing is to be developed intrinsically in the engineering curriculum, there will need to be practice architectures which enable rather than constrain practices of writing. These changes may include reframing writing practices as part of what engineers do.

Shelley Burgin

David Boud , Rosalie J Goldsmith

Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie

Aviva Freedman

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

Christianna White

Su-Hie Ting

2013 IEEE 5th Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED)

Ershad Hussain

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings

Although writing is still the main form of assessment at university, the practice of writing continues to be marginalised, particularly in technical disciplines such as engineering, notwithstanding decades of reports identifying gaps in graduate communication abilities in these fields, and diverse interventions to address these gaps. The assumption underlying many of the reports and interventions is that engineering students neither value nor are interested in writing, but actually many engineering students are not provided with the opportunity to develop or practise disciplinary writing in the subjects they study, despite being required to write in a range of genres as part of their assessment. This implies that writing practices are neither seen as developmental nor as intrinsic to the engineering curriculum. This demands the question: why not? This paper reports on a study investigating perceptions of writing practices in the engineering curriculum at the level of engineering academics. Using activity theory to capture the dynamic interactions of the various participants in engineering subjects, the study analyses the perspectives of engineering subject coordinators about writing practices in their subjects through interviews and documents. Current findings show tensions between the value of propositional or technical knowledge and that of writing practices. These findings can be used to develop a discussion with engineering academics to emphasise the developmental nature of writing and to make writing practices more visible in the engineering curriculum.

Research writing - breaking the barriers

• Badenhorst C
• ISBN: 9780627027048
• eISBN: 9780627028960
• ePub ISBN: N/A
• 212 Pages | Published: 2007
• Print: R565.00 eBook: R508.50

Research writing: breaking the barriers is a book for those who regularly write documents based on research. If you find your writing is stale and you are unable to improve it, or you are trying to understand why you cannot finish a paper, or perhaps you are feeling jaded and disillusioned with the environment of "publish or perish" and would like to gain a sense of control, enjoyment and inspiration from doing research and publishing, then this book is for you. While it is conceptualised around qualitative research writing in an academic context, the book focuses on generating quality ideas, demystifying the writing process and breaking the barriers of real and imagined writing restrictions. Any researcher can benefit from this creative adventure.

The book links theory and practice through sets of practical activities. Each of these is designed to take you through the entire process of writing a research paper. Activities for postgraduate dissertation writers are also included. Topics covered include writing in an academic discourse, developing a writer's identity, finding time to write, conceptualising research, creativity and research, and writing with energy and style.

The author, Cecile Badenhorst (PhD), is a sessional lecturer and research fellow at the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at the University of the Witwatersrand. She teaches on the PhD programme and supports students in completing their research dissertations.

PART I: COMPOSING 1. A writing identity 2. The cyborg writer 3. The academic way 4. Academic discourse 5. Research and "truth" 6. The nature of the academy 7. The academic hierarchy 8. Research paper specifics 9. Conceptualising research 10. The problem statement 11. Conceptual framework 12. The purpose statement 13. Research questions 14. Relating the problem/purpose statements to the research paper 15. Beginning a research article 16. Academic writing 17. Genre 18. The genre of a research article 19. The genre of argument 20. The genre of literature reviews 21. Referencing 22. Why is writing difficult? 23. Making writing easier 24. Writing and creativity 25. Thinking about creativity 26. "Eyes" of creativity 27. Understanding creativity 28. Theories about writing 29. Stages of writing 30. The creative brain 31. Left-brain dominance 32. Vertical vs lateral thinking 33. Pulling this all together 34. Creative techniques 35. Organic mapping and brainstorming 36. Free-writing 37. Chaos/order 38. Linking writing to theories of creativity 39. The researcher's journal 40. Writing demons 41. Writing strategies 42. Writing to inquire 43. "Voice" 44. Writing groups 45. Research narrative 46. Sequencing 47. "Bare bones" 48. Key message 49. Pushing the boundaries 1 50. Pushing the boundaries 2 51. Pushing the boundaries 3 52. Pushing the boundaries 4 53. Pushing the boundaries: summing up 54. The importance of drafts 55. What's in draft 1?

PART II: REVISING 56. Where you are now 57. Revision: getting started! 58. Writing as thinking 59. Building blocks 60. Thinking about structure 61. A basic structure 62. Different types of structures 63. Using organic maps to develop structure 64. The complexities of structure 65. Is your argument clear? 66. Coherence 67. Representation 68. Audience vs reader 69. Time 70. How do we manage time to write research? 71. Revision 1 - re-vision 72. Revision 2 - an eye for crafting 73. Feedback 74. Peer review feedback 75. Beginnings and endings 76. Revision 3 - scrutiny 77. Transitions and coherence 78. Signposts 79. Writing with energy and style 80. Active vs passive verbs 81. Strong verbs 82. Words 83. Dense writing 84. Reviewing a research paper 85. Publishing from a dissertation 86. Revision 4 - a critical eye 87. Productive writers

Supplementary material available for this title includes: All source material (excluding figures and tables) has been supplied in an editable format (Microsoft Office) and you can fully customise it to your needs. Please click on the link below to access the Lecturer Support Material (LSM) portal: LSM Portal If this is the first time you access Van Schaik Publishers LSM, you will need to register and set up a profile. Once your registration has been approved you will be sent an email and will then be able to request access to the resources you need for a particular book. You will also be able to request access to the resources of additional books using your profile. We welcome any suggestions regarding new or additional resources. For any queries or feedback please contact our digital publisher at  [email protected] . The material available varies from book to book and may also be developed further over time. If you are uncertain about the registration and access request procedures, please download the LSM Manual. LSM Manual Lecturer Support Material is available free to lecturers who lecture on courses where the book is prescribed but samples are also available should you wish to review what is available as part of your prescribed book selection process. Please contact your Marketer for access to the sample LSM. Student requests for LSM will not be entertained and any attempts by students to access lecturer support material will be reported to a student’s lecturer or to the Head of Department.