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Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics www.iiste.

org
ISSN 2422-8435 An International Peer-reviewed Journal
Vol.68, 2020

An Investigation on Academic Writing Problems Encountered by


Undergraduate Students of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University,
Sanghar Campus
Arham Arif
BS English Linguistics at Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Sanghar Campus, Pakistan

Syed Hyder Raza Shah


Lecturer English at Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Sanghar Campus, Pakistan

Fakhra
BS English Linguistics at Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Sanghar Campus, Pakistan

Arshad Ali
BS English Linguistics at Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Sanghar Campus, Pakistan

Abstract
The aim of this research is to investigate the academic writing problems encountered by undergraduate students
of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Sanghar Campus and to suggest the effective strategies to cope up these
problems. Qualitative method was used to collect the data in which 12 students and 3 teachers were selected for
semi structured interviews. The conducted interviews were thematically analyzed. Findings of this research
revealed that the lack of logical thinking, intended delivering expressions and repetition of ideas in academic
writing are the major problems of student. Teachers recommended some strategies that writing short sentences,
using simple vocabulary, mind mapping, influential language and cohesive devices can help students to improve
academic writing. The study suggested that critical reading and frequent feedback from teachers will help students
to overcome the problems of academic writing.
Keywords: Academic writing, logical thinking, undergraduate students, and vocabulary.
DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/68-03
Publication date:May 31st 2020

1. Introduction
These days, English is significant in every single instructive action. Students mostly prefer the universities where
English is the medium of instruction in teaching. According to (Adams, K. H., & Keene, M, 2000) through English
student can easily deal with the academic needs and can play a productive role in their domains and context. The
most important and challenging aspect for university students is academic writing. Specifically, this is the case of
L2 or Foreign language learner. Academic writing plays a vital role in EFL learning. According to (Thaiss, 2006)
academic writing is a process that intends to fulfill the aim of education. It plays an important role to socialize the
students to express the motive and domain in universities. A quality of academic writing is to concentrate on
creating new ideas, organize them and perform in acceptable manner and write it again after getting the views of
readers. Second language learners feel difficulties in learning academic writing because it is difficult to utilize
non- native language precisely and accurately. According to (Ismail, 2011) English writing facilitate students to
think in critical way and inspires them to learn the various aspects of academic writing, e.g. using great vocabulary
and powerful expressions. Academic writing has various elements, like self-expression and essential reduction.
Academic writing has different parts such as, using appropriate conjunctions, paraphrasing, and impressive style
of word structures. There are also some factors which involves the use of some steps, that students should be
follow before writing. Such as: summarizing, understanding the paragraphs, excluding unnecessary words,
changing long sentences by breaking them and express some meaning by using different words (synonyms of that
words). (Johns, 2008) said that novice writers permit themselves to achieve their writing task after safe
examination by using various rhetorical and linguistic options to accomplish important tasks.
Academic capacities are a basic portion of communication for the understudies all through their scholastic
life since it grants them to arrange their assumptions and considerations obviously and moreover to pass on
significance through well-created content. Academic writing is vital but still very difficult skill for learners to learn.
(Negari, 2011) Students are facing various problems in different areas; from correct spelling to evolve an argument
in his essay. According to Zamel, V. (1983) during the activities of academic writing learners can get affective
ideas for accurate language use in writing process. Thus, students must be familiar with the kinds of academic
writing, such as narrative, illustrative, descriptive approaches and strategies by applying critical thoughts,
paraphrasing writing in their own wording. The academic writing challenges amid students can be connected to

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Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics www.iiste.org
ISSN 2422-8435 An International Peer-reviewed Journal
Vol.68, 2020

the writing discipline. Such as communication, understanding and management discipline. In so many cases, some
students may misunderstand and face hurdles in understanding the academic writing instructions are given by non-
native English speakers. Further, instructions for academic writing are not very much clear for their position to be
executed. In other words, (Fawwaz, A.-H., & Ahmed, A., 2007) distinguished a few issues related to students’
considering in overseeing a few tests to move forward their scholarly writings such as the utilize of cohesion
viewpoints, frail association among the words, and the need in creating certain sorts of disciplines in scholastic
composing.

1.1 Significance of the study


In the process of learning English, academic writing considered as essential part. By knowing the difficulties in
academic writing and student’s needs, there will be a reasonable image of the best and productive course books to
be received in their respective projects and programs. Obviously, lecturers put forth a valiant effort and apply a
great deal of time and endeavor to improve their students writing. Undesirably, in most of the cases the concluding
production of writing is not worthy as acknowledged to be. That is the reason most of educators see writing the
most troublesome skills as instruct (Al Murshidi, (2014). The consequences of present investigation produce
essential bits of knowledge that could add to increasingly advantageous direction for the teachers. The discoveries
can be similarly important in term of proposing some potential responses for the difficulties that undergraduate
students experienced while academic writing.

1.2 Problem Statement


Academic writing is a challenging task for ESL learners because all the ESL learners do not have command over
the English grammar, vocabulary or other areas of writing. There are a lot of problems which they face and which
become the hurdles in their fair academic writing, which directly or indirectly affect their grades in competitive
exams.

1.3 Aim and Objectives


The aim of this research is to investigate the academic writing problems encountered by undergraduate students at
SBBU, Sanghar Campus, and to suggest the effective strategies to cope up academic writing problems.
1. To investigate the academic writing problems encountered by undergraduate students.
2. To find out the effective strategies to cope up academic writing problems.

1.4 Research Questions


1. What are the academic writing problems encountered by undergraduate students?
2. What are the effective strategies to cope up academic writing problems?

2. Review of related literature


(kareem, 2013) distinguished academic writing as the development and manufacture of such techniques taught in
universities as like producing and systemizing the thoughts of students and their vocabulary development, critical
thinking and grammatical syntax (2013, p.1553).
Al-Badi explains the writing as a difficult procedure. Al-Fadda (2012, p. 123) describes that writing
academically in English at the proficient level is a challenging task for the most of the native speakers too. In
acquiring any foreign language (FL), the academic writing plays significant role. It comprises such crucial
elements like; self-expressing and critical thinking. Also, the techniques which include the summarizing and
rewording cannot be neglected while writing academically (kareem, 2013). It is an acceptable truth especially for
those who are working on research articles as the scholars. They have to use the others’ works into utilizing that
into their own voice. Writing is learnt from two differ and theoretical perspectives: socio cultural and cognitive.
The cognitive viewpoint is the goal oriented and it focuses on the process of writing and repeating while the socio
cultural viewpoint is context oriented and it focuses on the production of writing for a specific purpose (Lee, 2005).

2.1 Previous studies


(Al-Mukdad, 2019) had an examination on Investigating English Academic Writing Problems Encountered by
Arab International University Students. He used quantitative method for conducting the research, the number of
participants was 50 students from different fields at Arab International University (AIU), and the subjects were
given the survey to fill. The study resulted that the students are not well aware about the differences of English
like; general English and Academic English, it happens because of the lack of background about academic writing.
Another major problem was declared that it happens because of various linguistic rudiments.
(Al Badi, 2015) conducted a research on the difficulties of academic writing for ESL learners. He used mixed
method for conducting the research. He involved 20 postgraduate students; those students were from different four
nationalities studying at university at Australia. He distributed 2 types of questionnaires among the participants.

14
Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics www.iiste.org
ISSN 2422-8435 An International Peer-reviewed Journal
Vol.68, 2020

1st questionnaire contained closed questions while the 2nd questionnaire contained the material to support the data
gathered by 1st questionnaire and it was mostly open ended questionnaire. The findings of the research revealed
that their previous educational background affects their academic writings. The most ordinary mistakes are like;
coherence and cohesion fault and the proper usage of language. The study also revealed that students mix their
own ideas in others’ ideas lead their academic writings to be poor.
(Pineteh, 2013) had study on the academic writing challenges of undergraduate students at South Africa. He
used qualitative method for doing this research, in which he involved 20 participants of 1st and 2nd year, 12 of them
were male participants while rest of them were male participants. He used interview as the tool for collecting data.
All the participants were interviewed and the questions were adopted from different research papers, the interview
consisted of 20-30 minutes. The study resulted that the literacy backgrounds, the linguistic background, attitudes
of students towards academic writing.
(Al-Khairy, 2013) had an investigation on academic writing problems of Saudi English major undergraduates.
He used quantitative method in which close ended questionnaire were given to the students and the data was
analyzed by SPSS and was completed with descriptive analysis. The findings of his research show that
undergraduate students commit a lot of mistakes in academic writing because they faced problems in coherence
and cohesion of sentences.
(Khan, 2011) directed an investigation on academic writing problems faced by undergraduate students of
Saudi university. He used quantitative method and findings of his research reveals that students faced problems in
grammar, vocabulary, spelling errors, incorrect use of prefixes and suffixes.
(Al Fadda, 2012) led an exploration on challenges in academic composition: from the point of view of King
Saud college postgraduate understudies. He used quantitative method for conducting the research, in which he
involved 50 participants. The participants were the postgraduate students of academic year 2009-10. He distributed
the questionnaire among the participants and analyzed the data by descriptive approach. The findings of this
research indicated that students whose English is the Second language, face different challenges and stress while
writing academically, such as the complexity to distinguish the written English and spoken English, recognizing
the techniques and abilities which are essential for a successful writing, evading from epidemic vocabulary and
designing the outline before drafting.
(Al Mubarak, 2017) had conducted research on problems of academic writing faced by undergraduate
students of Al Imam Ali Mahdi University Sweden. He used quantitative method to collect the data and the data
was collected from 15 students of final year, belongs to BA department. Findings of his research reveal that, 70%
students faced problems in punctuations and prepositions. Remaining students faced difficulties in consistency in
sentences.
(Bitchener, J., & Basturkmen, H., 2006) investigated an investigation on the topic Second language (L2)
postgraduate students’ perceptions of difficulties faced in writing the discussion of their thesis in New Zealand.
They adopted the qualitative method for conducting the research. They adopted the interviews for collecting the
data, in which he involved the teachers, supervisors of Second language as well as the learners of the second
language. The findings of the study revealed that in the comparison of supervisors, the students have more issues
and face more issues while writing discussion section of their thesis. Additionally, both students and supervisors
have bounded knowledge of the features and causes for the difficulties while writing. Their perceptions for writing
problems of the students differ from each other.
(Al-Khasawneh, 2010) directed an examination on the theme composing for academic purposes: issues
looked By Arab postgraduate understudies of the school of Business, University. He used qualitative method for
conducting the research. And the tools he adopted were the semi-structured interviews. 10 Arab and post-graduate
students of the business programs as the informants were involved which were interviewed. The results of the
study revealed that there are different problems and issues which are faced by the students, those problems include;
problem in organizing the ideas means the lack of the awareness of cohesion and coherence, less proficiency on
grammar rules, spelling, vocabulary register and referencing like problems.

3. Research Methodology
In the present study, researcher has used the qualitative method to conduct the research for knowing the deepness
of thoughts. The subjective research is developing request of scientists of sociologies (Dornyei, 2007). Research
in subjective model talks about the systems of gathering information in open-finished poll that investigate
interpreted accounts in subjective substance. This study used semi structured interview in which one on one
interviews were conducted from 12 students and 3 teachers. The questions for interview were taken from the main
two research questions, and interviews were conducted from Shaheed Benazir Bhutto university Sanghar campus.
The thematic analyses were used to analyze the data. Researcher has chosen this thematic analysis "because it can
help the researcher to examine and analyze the data" (Braun, V. and Clarke, V., 2006). Qualitative method was
welcomed by the researchers of applied linguistics in mid 1990s. Conversely, in applied linguistics, qualitative
research offers observations, interviews, and authentic documents of communication behavior (p.193). This

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Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics www.iiste.org
ISSN 2422-8435 An International Peer-reviewed Journal
Vol.68, 2020

analysis is very helpful for getting rich and accurate collection of data.

4. Findings of Q1
Findings of this study revealed that lack of logical thinking, delivering intended expressions, repetition of ideas,
lack of understanding and grammatical errors are the major academic writing problems encountered by
undergraduate students.

4.1 Lack of logical thinking


Most of participants face these problems in academic writing because they don’t have power of comprehension,
they do not read the books which become hurdle in writing logical ideas, and Because Illogical ideas can never
make a successful piece of text in writing process. Logical thinking does not come by itself, but through the
comprehension of books, intellect and experience.
4.1.1 Delivering intended expressions
This is most common factor among the students that they mostly remain fail to deliver their exact intended
expressions while writing any idea. The students think that they have encountered the expression exactly as they
have intended. Consequently, when reader read the text, do not understand the actual meaning of that writing.
4.1.2 Repetition of ideas
Most of the participants were of the view that they faced this difficulty in academic writing because English is not
their mother tongue. So they have not proper command over vocabulary and the whole language. They repeat their
ideas and words again and again, which abolish their writing.
4.1.3 Lack of understanding
Participants were of the view that, they cannot understand the given topic to write. When they start writing, they
do not have enough understanding of their ideas related to topic. Arrangement of ideas is another big issue which
they faced while writing. Student are not able to understand that which ideas they have to write specifically and
which they should write generally.
4.1.4 Grammatical Errors
For some students the major issue is the difference between their native language and target language. They are
totally opposite to each other and become reason of grammatical errors. Mostly students tried to translate their
native language into target language, so in this case they do not apprehend how to convert vocabulary, prepositions
and structure of sentences from their native language to target language. It leads them to grammatical errors.
Students are not expertise on punctuation. They do not use it correctly which totally changes the meaning of
sentences.

4.2 Findings of Q2
To deal with problems in academic writing Teachers recommended some strategies that writing short sentences,
using simple vocabulary, mind mapping, influential language and cohesive devices can help students to improve
academic writing.
4.2.2 Strategies
4.2.3 Mind Mapping
Teachers suggested that in academic writing mind mapping plays a vital role because it all about that how
individual become creative in academic writing while using mind map. Mind mapping is a graphical tool that helps
to structure information and helps you examine, recall, synthesize, understand and develop new ideas better. It
enhances the cognitive ability in relation to the number of ideas produced and strengthens the focus on writing.
Mind mapping can be utilized in any action where thought, arranging, review, or inventiveness is included, as
indicated by (Buzan, 1989). In the context of related ideas with images and keywords, a mind map allows
individual to record a wealth of information.
4.3.3 Cohesive devices
Cohesion refers to producing a coherent and fluid text by using transition terms, including reference words or
conjunctions. There are total six types of transition words which help to accomplish text or document cohesion.
I. In descriptive writing spatial order words are used to indicate spatial relationship. Such as: next to, above,
inside, outside, below and beside.
II. In writing stories time order words are used to indicate systematic arrangements. Such as: first, after, next,
when, then, during, while, as, later, meanwhile and finally.
III. In expository writing numerical order words are used to indicate priority order. Such as: also, first, finally,
in addition, second, less and more importantly.
IV. In expository writing effect/cause word orders are also used to indicate connecting relationships. Such as:
since, so, for, consequently, hence, thus and as a result.
V. In expository writing, comparison/contrast words orders are also used to indicate differences and
similarities. For instance: (for comparison) additionally, also, as though, as if, similarly, like and just as;

16
Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics www.iiste.org
ISSN 2422-8435 An International Peer-reviewed Journal
Vol.68, 2020

and (for contrast) on the other hand, in spite of, but, yet, conversely, in contrast, however, nevertheless,
rather and instead.
VI. In descriptive reports specific/general word orders are used to indicate more explicit explanation on a
notion. Namely: such as, like, for instance, for example, in other words, indeed and in fact.
Conjunctions are used to linking the sentences (besides linking different parts of the same sentences) and it might
have subsequent functions: result, addition, opposition, reason, time and example. Pronouns, objective pronouns,
possessive pronouns and demonstrative pronouns are the examples of reference words. Repetition of phrases and
keywords, using paraphrasing and synonyms also help to build a cohesive message or text.
4.3.4 Writing short sentences
The sentences in academic writing should be used short. Complex and complex compound sentences should be
avoided in academic writing, which will not lead the reader towards getting bore and also save time.
4.3.5 Using simple vocabulary
In academic writing vocabulary should be used general. The selection of the words should be the according to the
situation/scenario of the passage. The vocabulary should not be as the flowery language, it must be simple and
easy words. It helps students to convey their ideas easily and effectively.
4.3.6 Influential language
Influential language in academic writing empowers ideas and makes the writing effective. The language which
should be used must be such influence over the reader. The language also should be regional but the reader should
be influenced by the usage of the language.

5. Discussion
Al-Badi (2015) conducted a research on the difficulties of academic writing for ESL learners. He used mixed
method for conducting the research. He involved 20 postgraduate students; those students were from different four
nationalities studying at university at Australia. He distributed 2 types of questionnaires among the participants.
1st questionnaire contained closed questions while the 2nd questionnaire contained the material to support the data
gathered by 1st questionnaire and it was mostly open ended questionnaire. The findings of the research revealed
that their previous educational background affects their academic writings. The most ordinary mistakes are like;
coherence and cohesion fault and the proper usage of language. The study also revealed that students mix their
own ideas in others’ ideas lead their academic writings to be poor.
Al-Mukdad (2019) had an investigation on Investigating English Academic Writing Problems Encountered
by Arab International University Students. He used quantitative method for conducting the research, the number
of participants was 50 students from different fields at Arab International University (AIU) and the subjects were
given the survey to fill. The study resulted that the students are not well aware about the differences of English
like; general English and Academic English, it happens because of the lack of background about academic writing.
Another major problem was declared that it happens because of various linguistic rudiments.
By intending the finding of above authors, the findings of this present study revealed that lack of logical
thinking, delivering intended expressions, repetition of ideas, lack of understanding and grammatical errors are the
major problems faced by undergraduate students of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Sanghar Campus. This
study also recommends some strategies to cope up academic writing problems. The strategies recommend by this
study, will be convenient for the future learners.

6. Conclusion
Academic writing is a process that intends to fulfill the aim of education. The aim of this research is to investigate
the academic writing problems encountered by undergraduate students at SBBU, Sanghar Campus, and to suggest
the effective strategies to cope up academic writing problems. Qualitative method was used to collect the data in
which semi structured interview was conducted. Data was analyzed by thematic analysis. Findings of this research
revealed that lack of logical thinking, delivering intended expressions, grammatical errors and repetition of ideas
in academic writing is the major problems of student. This study recommend some strategies that using simple
vocabulary, mind mapping, influential language and using short sentences can help students to cope up academic
writing problems. This study suggests that critical reading and frequent feedback from teachers will help students
to overcome academic writing problems.

Reference
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Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics www.iiste.org
ISSN 2422-8435 An International Peer-reviewed Journal
Vol.68, 2020

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