For many years, I wrote as a professional technical author, but should I refer to myself as an author? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. The question is the frequent anxiety that I felt as I chewed the end of my pencil (In those early days).
As a boy, I was known for drawing and painting (Scenery for school plays) and acting in those plays (The merchant in The Merchant of Venice, if I remember correctly). But, by contrast, I had an insatiable interest in aerospace (Every sixpence and shilling was spent on model aeroplane construction kits) and occasional reading of non-academic novels by W.E. Johns (Biggles Survives To Fly Again!).
My school teacher advised me to go to an art college, but my vision of an artist was the man with a tired face, who drew wonderful coloured chalk drawings on the sidewalks for a living. Thus, as a young man, I joined the Royal Air Force as a cadet … electronics engineering seemed a more worthwhile occupation.
Finally, being unable to calculate Ohm’s Law in my head, convinced me to venture into technical writing. Being able to interpret engineering drawings was easy to write about and creating 3D cutaway illustrations was much appreciated by my peers.
Eventually, editing became part of the process, which meant that every book that came into my hands was accompanied by a red pen and a yellow highlighter. I never read novels after that.
Today, having retired from a short, but enjoyable, English teaching career at overseas universities, I wonder how I should overcome the anxiety to complete unfinished novels that linger quietly on my hard drive.
When teaching, I was aware that universities do not make it a priority to equip graduate students with academic writing skills and, therefore, they run the risk of greater numbers failing to complete Master’s courses and PhDs.
Most graduate student writers come into academia without the knowledge and skills of how to handle large, complex academic writing projects; “The consequences are potentially slower graduation rates, larger numbers of incomplete degrees and non-published theses/dissertations.” said professor Margarita Huerta of UNLV, Las Vegas.
Students participating in Writing for Excellence research programmes, created by UNLV, provide emotional and instrumental support for graduate students who wish to improve their academic writing.
Researchers noted that the study could not be generable to all graduate students in higher education. The findings also found that females exhibited higher writing anxiety, which suggested that it may be linked to wider gender inequality in higher education. International students also showed statistically significant lower self-efficacy than students who reported not to be international.
Universities believe that they are supporting international students by providing editing services or English language courses, but warned that there was a lot more to mastering academic writing than a command of the English language.
Writing 'correct' English is just one piece of the bigger puzzle of supporting graduate students’ academic writing. It should not be assumed that all non-native English speakers’ writing skills are necessarily lower than native speakers’ writing skills. While some may struggle with writing competence, many may have very strong writing strengths. Non-native English speakers may just have more writing anxiety because of lack of early self-confidence and other factors.
Universities should, therefore, look to improve self-efficacy among all their graduate students by teaching self-management skills related to piecing together academic writing projects.
We, at least the younger, like, generation, appear to be losing, like, you know when Twitter becomes, like, the preferred method of, you know, communication. I wonder if it is too late. LOL.
