Asian Undergraduate Students’ Apprenticeship in Research Paper Writing: Academic Interactions and Researchers’ Responsibilities
Title
Asian Undergraduate Students’ Apprenticeship in Research Paper Writing: Academic Interactions and Researchers’ Responsibilities
Asian Undergraduate Students’ Apprenticeship in Research Paper Writing: Academic Interactions and Researchers’ Responsibilities
Keywords: Genre analysis, college student writers, research paper writing, textual organization
Author
Yi-Huey Guo
Tunghai University, Taiwan
Bio
Yi-Huey Guo is an assistant professor in the Foreign Languages & Literature Department at Tunghai University, Taiwan. She received her Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. She specializes in writing and rhetoric studies and her main research interests are in the area of English for specific purposes and second language writing.
Abstract
Although research paper writing is a very common course assignment for undergraduates, some academic professionals consider it an unnecessary genre practice for this group of writers since they do not write for an authentic audience and are not taught reliable research design. This study validates the need for such genre practice by investigating the research paper drafting processes of four Taiwanese sophomores who were faced with first-time English research paper writing. It holds that the ways the students perceive their need for writing and transform it into a research paper reflects their interactional patterns in this academic literacy practice. The results show that the participants had the tendency to draw on pre-existing socio-cultural norms for the formation of new norms: they relied on pleasure reading or career interest for research ideas and direct quotations or personal statements/examples for supporting details. The study discusses the implied meaning of their underdeveloped academic interactions, validates undergraduates’ need for research paper writing genre practice, and concludes the need for conceptualizing and reifying undergraduate researchers’ responsibilities in their instruction.
Although research paper writing is a very common course assignment for undergraduates, some academic professionals consider it an unnecessary genre practice for this group of writers since they do not write for an authentic audience and are not taught reliable research design. This study validates the need for such genre practice by investigating the research paper drafting processes of four Taiwanese sophomores who were faced with first-time English research paper writing. It holds that the ways the students perceive their need for writing and transform it into a research paper reflects their interactional patterns in this academic literacy practice. The results show that the participants had the tendency to draw on pre-existing socio-cultural norms for the formation of new norms: they relied on pleasure reading or career interest for research ideas and direct quotations or personal statements/examples for supporting details. The study discusses the implied meaning of their underdeveloped academic interactions, validates undergraduates’ need for research paper writing genre practice, and concludes the need for conceptualizing and reifying undergraduate researchers’ responsibilities in their instruction.
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