CONFINED BY CONVENTIONS? EXPLORING L2 STUDENTS' SENSE OF OWNERSHIP IN SCIENTIFIC WRITING

Writing and Writing Instruction in Different Academic Contexts

CONFINED BY CONVENTIONS? EXPLORING L2 STUDENTS' SENSE OF OWNERSHIP IN SCIENTIFIC WRITING

Eleanor Paynter¹, Anne van Leeuwen²

¹Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands ²Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands

Can the teaching of genre conventions go too far? As scientific writing instructors, we teach students to follow the conventions of scientific genres, but our aim is also to help them develop as critical thinkers and independent writers. We train our L2 students to use concise, impersonal, and formal language, but this focus on the “technical voice” (Carr 2013) may cause students to think that effective writing comes from following a set of rules. Instead, our goal is that they become aware that effective, engaging writing involves making a series of choices within the established conventions. We believe that by recognizing and developing these choices, which compose their individual style, students will gain more ownership over their writing, thus becoming stronger writers (Hyland 2002). In an ongoing project, we have worked with a group of final­year biomedical bachelor’s students as they compose their first independent study report. Through interviews, reflections and a writing exercise, we have investigated their perception of style and used this to reconsider how we might help them develop a sense of ownership in their writing. For example, we discussed choices they could make with regard to tone, sentence structure, cohesive devices, and vocabulary. In this presentation, we will share our experience with this project as the basis for a discussion about teaching genre conventions in a way that encourages students to find and develop their own style.

References

CARR, J.M. (2013) Using a Collaborative Critiquing Technique To Develop Chemistry Students’ Technical Writing Skills. Journal of Chemical Education. 90 (6). p. 751−754.

HYLAND, K. (2002) Options of identity in academic writing. ELT Journal. 56 (4). p. 351­358.