In the academy, knowledge is built and produced primarily in written form (Bazerman, 1988). The written text, published in a journal or book, is a definitive form of claims and
arguments, which build on prior work, leading to future claims (Bazerman, 1988). When writing an academic piece, writers make sense of other writers’ points of view and decide
when to attribute an idea to another writer, which is appropriate to the academic
community to which they belong (Hyland, 2002; Ivanič, 1998). Academic writing is an act of self-representation, personal conviction or ‘voice’ in the writing which not only conveys disciplinary content, but also carries a representation of the ‘author identity’ which is the author’s stance towards the subject (Andrews, 2003; Hyland, 2002).
Journal paper writing, book writing or other sorts of experienced research writing is not the same genre as undergraduate writing, as they require different discursive moves. A
discursive move as part of a written discourse contains a set of communicative acts related by a goal or theme. Discursive moves can serve authors to motivate, instruct, explain, compare, or summarise depending on the goals. For instance, in the field of biochemistry, authors can use discursive moves to provide an introduction to their study, stating the purpose, describing the procedures, presenting the findings, and stating the limitations (Kanoksilapatham, 2005). As an illustration, the following sentences are taken from an introduction of a biochemistry journal article, conveying the author’s rhetorical moves as:
making topic generalisation: “Protein export pathways are less well characterized, although...” (Kanoksilapatham, 2005, p. 274).
indicating a gap: “Consequently, how related the serotonin N-acetyltransferase catalytic mechanism will be to that of other superfamily members is unclear” (Kanoksilapatham, 2005, p. 275).
presenting findings: “Our results show that U2snRNP is functionally associated with the E complex and is also required for its assembly” (Kanoksilapatham, 2005, p. 276).
The way in which authors use discourse moves to convey similar meaning might vary in different disciplines. Additionally, the types of discourse moves used might vary between disciplines; in specific disciplines certain moves might not be widely preferred. For
example, in the field of economics authors might not prefer to indicate a gap in their introductions, whereas in medicine they might do so extensively (Ryvitytė, 2003). Although experienced research writing authors are generally expected to present new arguments, indicate gaps in their fields, and present their studies and findings, many of these discursive moves are not expected to be found in undergraduate student writing. The discourse moves introduced above are examples taken from journal papers, but discourse moves are also part of student writing. For instance, Ivanič put the phrase ‘writer identity’ at the centre of undergraduate writing (Ivanič, 1998; Lillis & Turner, 2001). The word
identity here explains how student academic writing should be perceived. It needs to move
beyond simply reporting findings or expressing others’ ideas, to employing accepted rhetorical resources in a particular genre and social community (Hyland, 2002). This enables students to evaluate, and internalise what has been said in that social community in order to develop their own perspective, ‘voice’ within the community, allowing them to adopt more sophisticated skills (sophisticated writing skills are higher order writing skills such as argumentation or organising ideas coherently, whereas lower order writing skills are things like spelling, punctuation, or grammar).
“Writing encompasses a wide range of skills, from the mechanics of punctuation and spelling to the systematic or even creative development of ideas. The higher order skills of communication necessarily involve critical thinking and problem solving...” (White, 1993, p. 3). Students do not add anything from their identity when the issue is spelling and sentence structure; they do what they should specifically in order to produce grammatically correct sentences. When they develop arguments, conduct research, or solve problems, however, they think of themselves as individuals (White, 1993), and their identity plays the role. The significance of creating one’s personal views and opinions in the making of text has been signalled several times through seminal works on academic writing, see for instance (Bakhtin, 1981; Clark & Ivanič, 1997; Fairclough, 1992).
2.2.1 Academic discourse community
While academic writing allows student writers to develop personal views, opinions and identity in their disciplinary area, it also enables them to adopt the practices and discourses of a community in which they are involved. Academic writing provides a way of
expressing perspectives and ideas in ways similar to other members of this community (Hyland, 2002). As defined by Swales (1990), a discourse community has six defining characteristics:
1) a broadly agreed set of common public goals
2) mechanisms of intercommunication among its members
3) it uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback 4) it utilises and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative
furtherance of its aims
5) in addition to owning genres, it has acquired some specific lexis (“the total stock of words in a language; the level of language consisting of vocabulary, as opposed to grammar or syntax” (Oxford English Dictionary, lexis))
6) it has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.
What it means to be a member of a specific academic discourse community, constituted by a range of values, assumptions and practices, is generally found challenging by most higher education students embarking on their studies, who need to learn the expectations and norms of academic discourse communities of their disciplines (Ivanič, 1998). Teaching students to write for their undergraduate courses initiates them into the academic discourse community (Bizzell et al., 1982). A discourse community is a group of people who
generally have a shared interest, goals or purposes and use written communication to achieve these goals (Borg, 2003; Swales, 1990).
Students might not be a part of a discourse community that relates solely to argumentative writing; but to position themselves within an academic discourse community, newcomers need to learn the expectations of this community with regard to written texts, and this has implications for the teaching of writing within academic communities (Atkinson, 1997; Borg, 2003; Swales, 1990; Wenger, 1998). “There are different literacies in different contexts, so that students need to learn the specific characteristics of academic writing, and of the disciplinary culture into which they are entering” (Ivanič, 2004, p. 222).
Consequently, educators should be aware of how academic conventions position students, and be sensitive to the struggles of novice writers (Hyland, 2002). That is why there is “an important consciousness raising task to ensure students understand the rhetorical options available to them and the effects of manipulating these options” (Hyland, 2002, p. 1111) so that such understanding will give an insight to the learners about how to control their writing and how to meet the challenges of participating in academic genres. To ensure that students can understand this, various research studies have been conducted, which are outlined in the following sections. These studies range from finding generic conventions for academic writing in general, to defining genre-specific expectations, needs and requirements of different academic communities. Before moving on to differences and similarities between disciplinary discourses, the next section will give an overview of the role of academic writing in higher education, and discuss what really is important in student essays and what the academy requires students to write.