Academic & Professional Communication

Empowering Individuals to become Powerful Academic Writers

Helping writers control their message means offering them lifelong tools for success. My presentations on academic writing highlight the ways that my research informs pedagogy, such as the invited lecture I gave at Pennsylvania State University on Designing Research, Designing Courses: Using Research to Inform Course Design (2018).

Being invited to The Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, I gave a 2-day workshop in Quito and then a series of 8 online workshops on Publishing your Scientific Research in English (2018). Offering workshops online allows more participants to develop their skills and meet their goals, such as with the American English Webinar I gave on Writing coherently and cohesively (2017).

In Hyderabad, India, I enjoyed spending time with participants in a 2-week workshop on STEM Grant Proposal Writing (with the Ministry of Technical Education) as a Senior English Language Specialist with the U.S. Department of State (2014).

Publications

Students' experiences with the writing process are important to me and something I enjoy researching. My article on how culture and educational context influence Chinese students’ understandings of source use practices and plagiarism explores the role of culture in this writing (see Bikowski & Gui, 2018). Similarly, academic culture itself influences students' behavior, such as in my piece on how to develop an educational framework for nurturing a culture of academic honesty (see Bikowski & Broeckelman, 2007). Determining effective practices for giving students feedback is essential in writing instruction—emphasizing the importance of articulating your feedback philosophy to students (see Haupt & Bikowski, 2014) and of considering how as institutions we can best meet students' needs (see Lee, Vahabi, & Bikowski, 2018). Meeting students' needs comes down to understanding what they will need to do in their coursework (see Cooper & Bikowski, 2007) and simultaneously realizing that not all student texts share the same features (see Jarvis, Grant, Bikowski, & Ferris, 2003).

Courses

I have developed and taught numerous graduate and undergraduate courses on Academic and Professional Communication. These courses are for domestic and international students and include Thesis and Dissertation Writing, Academic Writing in Graduate Studies, Critical Reading and Writing in Graduate Studies, Technical Writing in Engineering, Professional Writing in Public Administration, Business Relations and Communication Skills, and Communication Skills for Teaching Assistants. I also teach graduate students in Applied Linguistics, in Grammar in Use: Pedagogical Grammar, Teaching of Second Language Reading and Writing, and Computer Assisted Language Learning courses and practicum.