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writing coaches, writing help, writing mentors, writing responsibility, writing skills development
By Claire Aitchison
In this post I want to explore whose responsibility doctoral writing is. That is, who does what, when it comes to supporting and developing doctoral writing?
Of course doctoral students have some responsibility for developing their writing and moving it forward from that which was considered acceptable to or appropriate for undergraduate study. But not all commencing doctoral students have the same writing competencies for advanced academic work. Increasing numbers of doctoral researchers enter research degree programs from diverse pathways – perhaps having been away from university for years, coming from industry, being ‘end of career’ candidates, or coming from quite different cultural, linguistic or educational backgrounds into doctoral study. To mix metaphors: it isn’t a level playing field at the start line.
In Australia supervisors are responsible for making the initial judgement call that a thesis is ready to be submitted. But this does not necessarily mean the supervisor has responsibility for developing the writing to that point. Some studies have identified a reluctance by supervisors to carry the responsibility for developing their students’ writing (See for example Paré, 2011 and Catterall et al 2011 http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1212&context=jutlp Some supervisors report a lack of skills, confidence or interest in writing, rather they see their job as building research skills or as disciplinary experts. And with shorter completion times and additional bureaucratic and auditing burdens on supervisors, some find they simply do not have time to oversee their students’ writing.
When we look beyond the student supervisor dyad, the picture gets even more muddled.
Institutions themselves are not always clear about whose job ‘writing’ is. Murray and Cunningham (2011) in their article on supporting academic publishing, argue that institutions are responsible for developing writing where those institutions benefit from research publications (and equally, one may argue, from doctoral publications and completions).
In the North American tradition, freshman rhetoric and composition courses inform undergraduate writing, but there doesn’t seem to be parallels at the postgraduate level. (Please correct me if I’m wrong!)
In Australia and New Zealand, doctoral writing is frequently attended to by centralised units such as Graduate Schools, Learning Centres, Academic Development Units, or Schools of Education. Support may include face-to-face or online workshops, programs, intensives, writing retreats and so on, mostly not-for-credit and not compulsory. (Our blog colleague, Susan Carter, is co-authoring a book with more on such ‘generic writing supports’–Watch this space for the release date.) Typically these courses focus on writing skills, processes or genres, covering things like writing literature reviews or conference abstracts, writing for scholarly journals, structure, editing, and so on. Course provision may involve in-house writing specialists, linguists or literacy lecturers, as well as visiting experts, or disciplinary experts with an interest or track record in writing and publishing. Individual disciplinary groups or Research Centres may also offer a range of writing support directly to their students.
There is also another, less well acknowledged source of doctoral writing ‘help’. I am talking about what appears to be a rapidly growing, sometimes hidden, market of non-institutional writing support mostly accessed via the Internet. In my own work with doctoral students over the last two decades, I have been aware of the increasing uptake of such services by students. I am aware too of a growing industry of retired or under-employed academics who offer services as writing consultants, mentors, editors and coaches. As far as I know, this burgeoning industry is little documented and much of it unregulated. I believe too, that many institutions and/or supervisors are unaware of the extent, or nature, of uptake of these services by their doctoral students.
It seems to me that as long as institutions don’t recognise the centrality of writing to the doctoral project, and as long as we fail to provide systematic and integrated writing support into/ within degree programs, then students will seek help with their writing where ever they can find it. And as a consequence, their experiences will be uneven, and even unhelpful or inappropriate.
Perhaps you would be prepared to share your experiences of the different kinds and formulations of doctoral writing support that you are aware of.
We’d also be interested to hear of any institutional policies that identify responsibilities around doctoral writing.
(If you wish to remain anonymous please indicate as much when you hit the ‘comments’ button, which sends your comments to us before we publish it on the blog.)
Some references:
Catterall, J., Ross, P., Aitchison, C., & Burgin, S. (2011). Pedagogical Approaches that Facilitate Writing in Postgraduate Research Candidature in Science and Technology. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 8(2).
Paré, A. (2011). Speaking of writing: supervisory feedback and the dissertation. In L. McAlpine & C. Amundsen (Eds.), Doctoral education: research-based strategies for doctoral students, supervisors and administrators (pp. 59 – 74). New York: Springer.
Murray, R., & Cunningham, E. (2011). Managing researcher development: ‘drastic transition’? Studies in higher education, 36(7), 831 – 845.
Thanks for the blog on this topic, Claire. It does to some extent describe what has until recently been the situation of my ‘zoo’, Macquarie University (in Sydney). However, MQ is moving into a new era of doctoral research training with the launch of our 2-year Master of Research degree, which replaces Honours and Postgrad Certs/Dips as the standard entry pathway to a PhD – a version of “graduate school” if you like. Macquarie has recognised that research literacy, and doctoral writing skills in particular, are essential for doctoral success, and that the institution needs to shoulder at least some responsibility for developing these in higher degree research candidates. This recognition is evidenced in the one compulsory unit of the Master of Research degree: the Research Communications unit (which I was given the privilege/burden of designing and convening – and quite a challenge it has been!)
The Research Communications unit is a 4 credit point subject taken by all MRes students in their first semester of “graduate school”, and while it doesn’t aim or claim to equip students with everything they need to be able to produce the perfect PhD thesis or publish in A* journals, it does represent a commitment one institution is making in developing doctoral writing (and presentation) skills in its students, from the very beginning of their higher degree research studies.
(We’re still working on how to follow up on this research communication training throughout the PhD years!)
Thanks Juliet for outlining what has come to be known as ‘the Macquarie model’. Many Australian institutions, including my own, are looking over the fence to see how this works … Certainly the advantage of your model is that it addresses concerns about the adequacy of current Masters level pathways into doctoral degrees and, by the sounds of it, strengthens key skills for doctoral success. Nice to hear from you, thanks.
I also work at Macquarie, and although there has been some resistance to the MRes, I see this as a great step. I myself came to my doctorate work via an MPhil in the New Zealand system. This gave me a huge advantage over students coming from an Honours background. For one, I had already concieved of and written a thesis of 65,000 words and was well aware of the writing process. It comes as a shock to many that writing actually involves ALOT of drafting and re-drafting.
Yet even better than this MPhil background is the attitude towards writing my supervisor took. SHe was very clear, all the time, that she expected multiple drafts. She got outside people in to run writing workshops where we ALL — professors included — exchanged first drafts of pieces we working on and were taught how to give useful feedback. THis gave us insight into an important fact: even well-published professors have first drafts that are pretty messy, and that they need other people to help them too.
This approach by your supervisor is a wonderful example of writing-rich supervision. Thanks for sharing, a fabulous example of inventive and practical pedagogy at work. thanks for sharing Kelly.
Thanks Claire, your blog describes my zoo although it is trying to change. I work at Griffith University and there is an institutional awareness that academic writing is important. Basic research and communications courses have been implemented at undergrad and postgrad levels which increases in complexity as students progress on to higher degrees. However, it is unevenly dispersed across disciplines and is reliant on champions within departments. Students who enrol at GU to complete doctoral qualifications are funnelled through a centralised unit that provides general academic skills and process information, so students tend to understand the processes for doctoral research . Stories from doctoral students I see suggests there is inconsistency of services provided to students through central and disciplinary based units and supervisors. Their stories suggest they use supervisors for disciplinary knowledge but rely on each other, learning advisers or international advisers and external help to develop their writing, editing and proofing. The removal of a doctoral editing service from our central unit is a fact that they often use to seek assistance from other university services.
I’m a Learning Adviser in a centralised unit, under PVC Admin. My role is responsible for students at all levels from all disciplines and staff. I mostly see business and health students. I was also a Learning Adviser in NZ, in a centralised unit, with responsibility for students and staff from all levels in Creative Arts and prior to that all Maori students from all disciplines and all levels from a specific campus and region (distance students).
It’s nice to hear your experience Kelly. My colleague and I worked with supervisors in Creative Arts to operate writing clinics for PG students and staff – we know students loved it and our staff were initially reluctant but as the idea caught on writing groups emerged and they liked the support from each other. It removed some of the pressure too.
Hi – For commencing post grad engineering students at UNSW we have a compulsory 6uoc course – Research Essentials- -aims to inform them about policies and processes they need to know about, help students identify strengths and weaknesses in their academic writing, and also to prepare them for the first review . Students ( masters and PHD) submit 3 written assignments ( increasing in length and complexity) and one oral task and receive feedback from senior PHD students.
Initially there was some resistance from students and some supervisors ( never had to do this before, concern about stepping on supervisors job/role, course expectations & assessment tasks… etc …). Course has been running twice a year for the past 4 years.
We have about 130 new Postgrad research students enrol each semester .
Fostering writing development in our researchers second and third year is not very structured- we do offer thesis writing support ,and some individual case management – but no other courses that integrate writing development in the second or third year are offered. If any one has done so .. care to share?
cheers
Thanks Pam. That’s really interesting.
For the sake of building a picture of ‘who ‘s doing what’ – I wonder if you (and Juliet, and others) would mind indicating what kind of providers you are (other than damn fine ones!). Readers are likely to be interested to know if we’re working from/for academic development, faculty, grad schools or learning centres, for example.
I work in a learning centre (under PVC academic portfolio) as learning advisor ( professional staff ) .. my areas of responsibility are engineering , science and international student prep programs .. Most of my work is in engineering .
Pam
Yes, no problem. I work centrally – ie at the university, not faculty, level – under the Dean of Higher Degree Research (HDR) as Lecturer in HDR Learning Skills.
This is a relatively new position (for me and for the university). For quite a while at MQ, the provision of research/doctoral writing training was undertaken by individual faculties/departments, and was somewhat unbalanced across the university (ie some faculties provided a lot, others very little). Recognising this inequality and the importance of giving all PhD candidates access to academic literacy & research training support, the Dean HDR created the position I’m now in. So, as well as looking after the MRes Research Communications unit, I’m currently trying to design & develop training programs and an organizational structure that better supports all of our PhD candidates in their doctoral writing and research skills: still definitely a work in progress (and what I was alluding to in the last sentence of my previous comment)!
A big job, Juliet – but what a great challenge! All the best to you.
Thanks for a great post, Claire. I teach in a program in Canada that fits into the model you identify in Australia and New Zealand: centralized non-credit instruction focusing on writing and speaking skills, exclusively for graduate students. We offer courses, workshops, individual appointments all designed to improve graduate student autonomy through increased genre awareness and communicative proficiency.
So nice to hear from our Canadian friends. Thanks for joining the conversation and telling us of the similarities in our systems.
I went directly from an Honours thesis into a PhD and I have found the transition to upgrading, and improving my writing extremely difficult at times. The idea of doing a Masters first now seems like a very good idea, in that I could have eased into the higher quality of writing much more smoothly.
Yeah, your experience is so common…- the wisdom of hind sight – but of course it’s not always so easy for graduates to see this when they start out particularly when there appears to be a shorter, viable alternative. Perhaps we should share anecdotes such as your when we advise candidates?
At my University (UK) there has been a recent push to support doctoral students with their writing. It’s a creative arts institution and students do produce a half written and half practice based PhD. This poses problems with integrating the reflection on their practice with the more theoretical and academic written work. I work in the academic support department and at all levels we deliver lectures, workshops and tutorials to all higher education students and in the last year or so have been asked to provide writing support to doctoral students. I put together a programme based on what students said they wanted and now provide three day long workshops throughout the year aimed at different stages on topics such as dealing with the transfer forms (from MPhil to PhD), editing and revision – also a surprise to students because most assumed a first draft was a final draft once proofread, reader-based prose (using Linda Flower’s approach – until discovering this blog I had issues with accessing good writing advice material that is recent), looking at PhD structures, positioning of the author and narrative voice, literature reviews, writing for conferences and journals and am about to deliver a session on getting through the Viva. So far feedback has been positive and although I plan the workshops around writing tasks, I’ve found that students want to talk more about writing processes than actually writing anything. Is this an avoidance technique I wonder or perhaps these sessions are and should be about letting students talk about writing worries/fears rather than prescriptive sessions. I think this is a fairly new area for UK Universities and I’d love to read/hear more about what sort of writing advice is provided to doctoral students as at the moment it’s quite an isolating experience.
Hi Laura,
Wow! – some more info about great pedagogical practice. I SO agree with the idea of longer-length workshop programs for HDR researchers. Even more than ever before, people are hungry for slabs of time to THINK and WRITE and for the connectedness and learning that comes from sustained productivity/interactions in the company of others. Certainly I think that’s one of the reasons on-going writing circles and retreats are a great way to go.
I’d be interested too to see what others think about the question you pose re ‘avoidance’ – from my perspective, this is a common and really valid conversation (it’s not only what, but how, that counts) BUT not at the expense of doing the writing. I learnt from Rowena Murray that being the Writing Nazi has it’s place, especially when the program has built-in talking times… Thanks for your contribution.
I work as a Graduate Writing Specialist at a research-centered, doctoral granting university in the United States. I work within a writing center, which would fall under “centralised units”…sort of. We have writing consultants for graduate students, but as the Grad Writing Specialist I work with students and I put together programming for them. I have heard of only a handful of places where there are courses on graduate level writing, usually within a department, so they are centered around writing within that discipline.
Thanks for adding to the picture of what’s going on in the US Liana. I gather that writing support for graduate researchers varies there too, with much work at the level of one-on-one consultations (with a writing consultant who may, or may not, be located in a Writing Centre), some programmed support (ie workshops and the like) and very few course-level offerings. Interesting. Thanks
We have an HDR academic skills advisor, Megan Poore, for our school with about 120 PhD students (I’m the director of PhD study and research more generally in the school). She works with students on a one to one basis as well as putting on workshops, short courses etc on all aspects of PhD work. I think this is extremely useful for students. I didn’t see anything of this sort at the two US universities I studied and worked at (Boston U. and RPI). There the “Writing Center” was just for undergrads in my impression.
Thanks David. I know of Megan’s work. She’s lucky to have such a supportive workplace – and so are your students!