BALEAP
2019

I attended the 2019 BALEAP conference in Leeds, UK. I presented the slides above, which document a study on writing quality in graduate students' theses and dissertations.

Click here to review the conference program

Abstract: Empirical, research-based graduate theses and dissertations comprise a somewhat occluded genre that functions as a means of gatekeeping for entry into academic professions. Although they generically resemble academic research articles, a different rhetorical situation apply to theses and dissertations. Unlike research articles, the primary purpose of a thesis or dissertation is to perform competency as a researcher, a scholar, and a writer. Because review committees are comprised of subject matter experts, thesis and dissertation authors may not receive the level of critical feedback on the quality of their writing that English writing experts might provide. To determine whether there is a need for additional writing skills support, the quality of the writing in authentic texts must be evaluated.

This study was initiated in response to administrative concerns that theses and dissertations were being approved and published without adequate review of writing quality. The purpose was to identify writing quality issues and to develop pedagogical materials to address them. After obtaining approval from the Institutional Review Board, we began compiling the corpus from ProQuest’s database of published theses and dissertations. It consists of 126 texts (67,507 words; 535.8 average words per text) from 58 disciplines. To ensure representativeness and comparability of texts in the corpus, texts were selected on the basis of discipline, degree type (Masters or Doctoral), and format (introduction-methods-results-discussion/conclusion). These texts were analyzed by four trained raters, with at least two raters analyzing each text. Analysis focused on both local (accuracy of language use, mechanics, and formatting) and global (effectiveness of communication and conformity with genre) concerns. Reliability was assessed using Fleiss’ kappa; agreement was substantial (63.5% - 100% depending on number of raters and issue type). Theses and dissertations contained between a moderate and high amount of writing quality concerns in all disciplines, at all levels, suggesting that additional pedagogical support would be beneficial.

Pedagogical materials were developed according to areas of need. The highest occurrence of global concerns was found in Electrical and Computer Engineering, with Introduction and Conclusion sections containing the highest number of quality issues for all disciplines. Therefore, pilot materials were developed for a workshop delivered to the Electrical and Computer Engineering department; these materials contained authentic text samples from the Introduction and Conclusion sections of theses and dissertations from that discipline. The accessibility of authentic samples underscores the value of corpora for EAP needs analysis and materials development.

References

Basturkmen, H. (2010). Developing courses in English for specific purposes. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Brown, J. D. (2016). Introducing needs analysis and English for specific purposes. Routledge.

Charles, M. (2018). Corpus-assisted editing for doctoral students: More than just concordancing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 36, 15-25.

Dudley-Evans, T., & St. John, M. (1998). Developments in ESP: A multi-disciplinary approach / Tony Dudley- Evans, Maggie Jo St. John. (Cambridge language teaching library). Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press.