Tags
academic literacies, Doctoral writing, English language writing skills, generation 1.5, supervisor feedback
By Cally Guerin
Last week a student came to me in tears, distraught at what she felt was a very unfair assessment of her writing ability after her supervisor had decided her English was not up to scratch. She is from an Asian background, and was born and educated in Australia. While English might not be her first language or ‘mother tongue’, she is certainly not using English as an Additional Language (EAL), as the current terminology has it. (It used to be English as a Second Language, ESL, and may be moving on to English as an International Language, EIL – all of which depends on the context and perhaps the current fashions in the field.) Our universities have plenty of ‘Generation 1.5’ PhD students like her who work and think in more than one language.
Putting the labels aside, the young woman is also typical of many students who have come through the Australian school system, and is a reasonably competent writer with room for improvement – which is what one might say of at least 90% of PhD students. As academic developers we see lots of students who can write grammatically correct sentences (at least most of the time), can more or less communicate their ideas, but don’t produce particularly elegant prose. My assessment of this student’s work was that her writing fell into this category, rather than being about her language background. And perhaps she does, therefore, need some guidance in developing the academic literacies necessary for doctoral writing.
The situation has several perspectives. How can students respond to supervisors who seem to be very harsh on their writing, imposing their own personal preferences and calling it ‘an English language issue’? Most students are sharply aware of the power supervisors have over them; nonetheless, it can be frustrating to feel you have to impersonate your supervisor’s style. How do supervisors judge ethically when to insist that writing should be altered, and when they should back off and accept that it is not their own writing and doesn’t need to be in their voice? And where should thesis examiners draw the line concerning style, voice and accuracy? (Or, for that matter, journal reviewers who seem to have very specific ideas about what is ‘correct’ – but that is another story!). Is it necessary to set the highest standards right from the start? Could that be too discouraging for students, or does it prepare them for what lies ahead in the academic world? Where does reasonable academic rigour end and pettiness – that could even be construed as racist – begin?
My own experience working as an academic editor has been useful in encouraging me to think carefully about the difference between something that is incorrect, and something that is simply a matter of style. I do think that supervisors have a responsibility to help students learn the specific writing conventions of their individual disciplines, and I readily acknowledge that certain vocabulary can have vastly different connotations in particular areas. Nevertheless, it’s also important to notice what is actually right in someone’s writing, what is being achieved, what is a surface issue and what is genuinely problematic.
And feedback needs to be specific to be useful. To label all writing issues as ‘English language problems’ seems to me to be particularly unhelpful in developing writing skills for doctoral students. Many students take time to learn the disciplinary vocabulary of a new field and the accompanying conventions of research communication in their area. The language of the discipline itself can be very foreign for researchers grappling with the details of unfamiliar sub-disciplines, regardless of their own language background! Acquiring academic literacy often requires specific training at all levels of education.
Are you a Generation 1.5 doctoral student, a learning advisor who recognizes this story as a familiar one, or a supervisor of such students? How has this played out in your experience? Is it common to misunderstand these aspects of academic writing? I’d love to hear your stories about how students in similar situations have negotiated expectations about language and writing in the academic setting, how they have developed the required academic literacies, what strategies have proved useful, and what the pitfalls might be.
Thank you for the post, Cally. Can you elaborate a bit more of what is a Generation 1.5 PhD student?
I am also a PhD student with an Asian background, been educated in Australia for 5 years up to now (finished by Honours degree then moving on to do the PhD). I wasn’t born in Australia but I feel comfortable with my English now (unlike when I first came to Australia 4-5 years ago).
Am I a Generation 1.5 PhD student? I’m not sure
Generation 1.5 usually means someone who was not actually born in the country where they now live, but immigrated as a child. This means their education takes place in the language of the new country, but they speak a different language at home. Maybe we need another term for people who migrate for the last couple of years of high school or to begin undergraduate degrees in another language? Labels can be unnecessarily restricting, of course, but handy to indicate common patterns. There’s an interesting article in the Journal of Academic Language and Learning about this topic from the Australian perspective.
Thanks a lot for your sharing. I felt that I saw myself in your writing as an international learner at a western university, and also most of my assignment are writing academic papers and research. Recalling my first experience, I was almost stressed out when the people at the writing center a place to help students with their paper work, tried hard to get the main points of my essay. Thus, I questioned myself how my professors thought about it. What I could see in the feedback of my paper is the comments on my reflections or solutions. Then the next coming day, I went to my professor and asked him how he felt about my English and if he got any troubles in reading them. With a greeting smile always and some compliments on my assignments, he advised me to bring my work to the Writing Center. Unless he said: “that would help me a lot”, I might have been still confident with my writing of English ability. After two or three times coming to the Writing Center, I realized that my understanding of English grammar might even better than some of volunteer students there and the reason why it took time for them to read through my paper was they could not get used to my Asian writing style.
That explained for your saying above: “…..think carefully about the difference between something that is incorrect, and something that is simply a matter of style.” 🙂 Applause
To conclude my story here, I am certainly trying hard every day to make my writing sound more academic and scientific. That said, I sometimes think it’s interesting to keep your personal writing style with correct grammar and structure because your paper will properly sound more international and different to others in certain circumstances.
Hi Alphatrang, and thank you for your endorsement of my comments! It’s certainly a big challenge for many of us at all stages of academic writing. I’m particularly interested in your mention of the volunteers’ understanding of English grammar, as I think one of the issues facing Generation 1.5 writers is that Australian school students generally get very little in the way of formal grammar instruction at school. This means that they don’t have much of a vocabulary for talking about grammar issues, nor a way of expressing the rules. Instead, they have to rely on responses like: ‘It just sounds right/wrong’. On the other hand, international students who have attended many grammar lessons while learning English are often much better at being able to identify what’s correct or incorrect.
And I guess what sounds like contradictory advice – compliments on the assignment, plus advice to go to the Writing Centre – might be because the supervisor wants to acknowledge all that has been done well, at the same time as recognising that there’s more to be done.
Don’t give up, and do continue trying hard every day to improve your writing. We all keep learning!
Hi Cally
I read your post this morning and it struck a chord. I am a learning adviser and have worked with doctoral students from a range of disciplines for a number of years. Students have usually been referred by their supervisor for ‘academic writing issues’, which is an equally benign description as ‘English Language Issue’. I’ve found that Asian students, Middle-Eastern students, Indigenous students and mature-aged students seem to be the majority of the referred cohort with ‘academic’ or ‘English’ issues. My experience is similar to yours, in that PhD students can write in English and communicate their meaning, but can be stylistically clunky. I’ve also experienced students attempting to squash their research findings into their supervisors research field or style because they think that’s what they want, which also creates a problem.
It’s been my experience, and a fairly common one, that academics are quite often supervising in a field they know something about but not necessarily within the same topic as the student. There is a tendency for supervisors to pull student research toward the field and language they are most familiar with. They also tend to use words like academic and English issues, but most do not know the rhetoric used by learning advisers or editors. It’s similar to students requesting assistance with their ‘grammar’. It is the word they know and use, but not necessarily the issue with their writing. It creates an environment for misunderstanding.
Depending on the state of the relationship between the student and their supervisor, you could help her define the actual issue and then see if she will talk to her supervisor about it. It is possible for you to successfully mediate as well. I’ve had conversations with supervisors, some of them awkward, about the department’s expectations or have requested writing or style guidelines in order to assist PhD students. This usually opens up a dialogue with supervisors because there usually aren’t any. Supervisors are usually relieved that someone can provide the words to describe the writing symptoms they are looking at. It takes tact, diplomacy and objectivity to do this. As an academic editor, I imagine you would have all 3 in abundance.
I’ve also experienced the opposite where supervisors undermine student confidence like it’s some test of character or rite of passage. Usually the student doesn’t want intervention because they feel it may cost them a favourable report for their PhD, which creates unnecessary anxiety. Explaining the process involved within your institution for conferring a degree often helps, also some information about the other examiners also helps. I’ve often found that students in this situation leave the institution with some damage. If they are in the early stages of their PhD, they transfer supervisors, topics or institutions. Mid-way through their degree they change supervisors (if they can), avoid them or seek mediation. If they are near the end of the PhD, they usually leave with a PhD, but have a poor view of the supervisor and occasionally the institution. I’ve found that recruiting the help of another faculty member or another supervisor to be useful for stylistic differences. However, if you think that this is racially driven, then I would recommend you or the student have a conversation with the Head of School.
I hope it works out for your student.
Hi Averil, this sounds like excellent advice from someone who has dealt with a range of delicate situations in the past. I think you are absolutely right that sometimes it’s the lack of a vocabulary to talk about writing that lies at the heart of the miscommunications. And also right on the money in that our roles as mediators can be very valuable in moving these discussions forward. Thank you for you empathetic comments.
Good Evening
I am not sure that the issue is a Gen 1.5, I feel that it is more that generation (yes, I am making an assumption we are talking about mid-20s). I have taught at TAFE and also teach at a state-based Police Academy, and I have found that there is a generation who struggle putting coherent and slightly eloquent sentences together.
In terms of the supervisor, I am not sure if mine has any power over me. Perhaps because I am what they called middle age (48) and he is only four years my senior, so we have a relationship not of peers, but also certainly not of power. I defer to his omnipotence (wink) and his significant knowledge and experience.
He was also my Masters supervisor last year and at the beginning we hit a slippery patch when he was terse with me – in my eyes – and I bit back. We found an equilibrium and have flown through my masters and now my first year of my Ed.D. The only hiccup we now have is over APA referencing – I am right but don’t say anything (hehehe).
My advice would be, if she believes she is right, then let her supervisor know how she feels and talk it out. Perhaps with a third party present to act as a calming influence.
Nice to hear from you – and especially good to hear of someone who has successfully negotiated the tricky territory that can sometimes lie between students and supervisors. The ‘power’ dimension is not always abused, of course, and the majority of supervisor/student relationships run smoothly; however, the mixture of responsibilities and decision making that lie with supervisors do mean that they have institutional authority in the situation. Your suggestion of having some kind of mediator present is helpful, and I guess sometimes the co-supervisors can take this role too.
But back to the real topic here, I think there are all kinds of reasons for the levels of writing skills we see in doctoral students, which is why there is so much for us to explore through this blog!
(And good luck with your referencing!)
I have the same problem in that I failed high school, became a qualified automotive engineer and am now studying for a M.Ed. I don’t think or talk like an academic but am having to learn to write academically. English is my ‘mother toungue’ but that doesn’t make it any easier. I don’t want to damp down the level of writing but maybe some teaching in academic writing? Bob.
Does your institution run writing workshops for postgrads? Sometimes students seem to think that these are ‘remedial’ workshops, but can be wonderful for developing a better understanding of the unspoken conventions of academic writing. Give it go if you haven’t already done so!
Thanks for this post – very interesting! I recently read an article around this issue that may be of interest ‘The growth of voice: Expanding possibilities for representing self in research writing’ by Rosemarry Viete and Phan Le Ha. This examines Ha’s strategic resistance toward writing generic academic English as a postcolonial strategy – it also details the affective importance of her having a presence (as a person of Vietnamese heritage) in her text. I thought it was a fascinating read.
Yes, the article provides a really interesting insight into the personal struggles this whole issue can raise. Must admit, I love to see people taking these kinds of risks in doctoral writing that push the boundaries into new territory (to use a colonial metaphor!). Not easy to pull off, though, and there are others like Cho who point out the academy’s unfriendliness to ‘different voices’. But everyone who successfully negotiates these issues helps develop our ideas about what constitutes ‘academic writing’.
Great blog and takes me back to the first chapter I wrote for my Masters thesis. My supervisor handed it back to me with one comment “I am not your editor”. I was taken aback by this as my home language was English and I had always achieved high grades in English at school. (I had even been born in England.) I made an appointment with an editor and paid her for two hours of work. (There were no writing centres or academic skills advisors in those days.) The editor went through the chapter with me and edited it in front of me. It was time and money well spent. She taught me a huge amount about writing in the academic language required for a thesis as well as more mundane things like reading aloud to determine the punctuation. I never had to pay for editing again and when the thesis was handed in, I only had 3 editing corrections that the examiners found. (By the way, the supervisor and I got along fine after that. I don’t think he thought of it as a power thing.)
Hopefully more people are able to take advantage of the workshops run by academic developers now. Great to hear it turned into a positive experience, rather than putting you off all together!
As an academic language and skills adviser who works a lot with students writing theses, I find these questions of supervisor reactions to student writing resonate a great deal – they also intersect with the issues raised in the post on editing. There is a great range in the way supervisors deal with with the way their students write, from “You have a problem with English – go and get help” (and some require that students get their draft edited before they read it), to the helpful people who rewrite large sections in Track Changes. The problem, as Cally points out, is that the latter doesn’t help the student to improve unless they can distinguish between personal stylistic preferences, changes made to bring the writing into line with disciplinary conventions, editing to increase precision or reduce wordiness, and questions of grammatical accuracy. The same applies to changes made by editors – one student came to me to help her interpret the changes an editor had made to a draft journal article, because her supervisor had said she should “learn from them”.
Hi Jan, thanks for your comments. One of the things that seems to be happening ‘out there’ is the uneven help that students receive from supervisors. While some supervisors see writing development as integral to the training received during doctoral studies and central to their responsibilities to the students, others see this as way beyond their brief. In the sessions I run for new supervisors, I’m trying to help them develop strategies for working with students’ writing, but even so, I think lots of supervisors feel that they simply don’t have enough time to do any more than guide the research project itself. Cally