Guidelines to prepare the strategies for improving writing skills of research students
Guidelines to prepare the strategies for improving writing skills of research students
Research students do not write? it is impossible. Their performance is checked by their style and quality of writing. A comprehensive guide for research students to prepare strategies for improving writing skills is aimed here. The researcher has classified the guidelines into headings, and these headings contain subheadings as well.
1. Guidelines for activating ideas
a. Write topic on a simple paper and start writing whatever comes in mind
b. Join with lines, if some ideas seem relevant
c. Sketch all the process steps , if possible
2. Guidelines for organizing ideas
a. Analyze ideas generated in activating ideas
b. Delete irrelevant ideas
c. Highlight relevant ideas
d. Simplify and clarify ideas
e. Group similar ideas
f. Make sections and sub sections for further elaboration
3. Guidelines to make outline
a. Take organized data
b. Consider what kind of sequence to be followed
c. Make sketch of research methodology
4. Guidelines to structure data
a. Keep outline intact
b. Put data accordingly with citation
c. Data must follow logic
d. Attracting readers
5. Guidelines for organizing material
a. Prepare outline
1. Indicate pattern of report
2. Headings and subheadings
b. Logical ordering of material
c. Coordinating
d. Subordinating
e. Numbering
f. Phrasing
g. dividing
6. Guidelines for writing reports and synopsis
a. Differentiating between synopsis and report
b. Identify steps needed to write synopsis
c. Identify steps needed to write research report
d. Tense selection according to requirement
e. sentences structure
f. Do not miss a single component necessary for synopsis and report: I.e. introduction, objectives, methodology and conclusion
7. Strategies for improving writing skills of research students
Writing skills of research students can be strengthened by following these strategies derived from the referred material:
7.1. Brainstorming
Usually teachers give students a topic and ask them to think over it by themselves and give back after writing their own ideas in their own words. According to Christmas( n.d.) ‘Human brain is a pattern recognition machine. We learn to interact with our environment in patterned ways and this is no different from the way student approach a piece of writing. The brainstorming techniques are designed to expand the cognitive toolkit students have at their disposal when facing a writing task. By thinking about a question from different perspectives, as well as exploring the perspectives of their classmates, students can develop the skills to help them access
and develop a broader range of ideas in a writing situation.'
7.2. Planning sheets
Planning sheets help research students to work keeping principles of focus and organization in mind. Planning sheets provide them with opportunity to plan earlier and save time later in revision. (Johnson,2003)
7.3. Practicing outline making
Teachers can ask students practice making outline for essay, speech, assignment, presentation etc
7.4. Essay writing practice
Students should practice essay writing activity, as it can give them confidence to write research papers as well. It also gives research students integrate ideas and put in sequence i.e. introduction, body and conclusion
7.5. Standardized format
By requiring students to adopt certain standardized format when writing, one gives direction for page limits, bibliography style, margins, and font size. Using such a model frees the student to focus on details relevant to the research instead of the assignment. They articulate their thoughts succinctly and to remove text that does not contribute to the overall story they wish to tell.
7.6. A standardized structure
Guidelines are also provided about a predetermined structure that includes the following sections: Introduction, Related Work, Approach, Evaluation, Results and Discussion, Future Work, and Conclusion. Students can readily relate these requirements in their own assignments to example published conference papers. This structure gives authenticity to the student writing assignments since what they create, both in look and content, "feels" like genuine research. this appearance helps to validate the work they do, and in turn encourages students to see communication of results as integral to the activity of research.
7.7. Editing practice
Students should be given practice to edit their work, as they are keen to see their quality of writing. They should believe that minor changes in the draft can make their text impressive. (Johnson,2003)
7.8. A review panel
The review panel aspect of the writing assignments promotes specific responsibilities for both the student and the grader. it also helps to improve student attitudes about writing an "outside" audience allows the instructor to show examples of actual review committees from actual conferences, since they are often posted on the conference web site. Students get a practical sense of the diversity of people who comprise such a committee, which in turn gives them a reason to establish the appropriate context early on in a paper.
7.9. Convincing
It is important for the instructors to guide the student in this reflection and to present it as an authentic part of actual research that all experienced authors must contend with. The students must be asked to write for convincing, they should provide logic to convince, each time they do so, their expertise will exceed.
7.10. Collaborating with others in problem solving
students get a lot of experience working with others in the course, because all of the projects were done in groups. they would come to appreciate input from others because the groups were balanced by discipline (for example, each group had at least one engineering major and at least one social science major).
7.11. Designing and carrying out experiments
Because the course projects so heavily rely on experimental evaluation, it is expected that students would come to appreciate the skills they were developing in carrying out experiments. They can learn how to conduct research, how to understand and control variables, how to explain the experiment, how to make experiment bias free etc.
7.12. Conference
The research students can be asked to participate in the conference being held at some where, when they will say others presenting their thoughts, they will learn many skills, and also may aim to present their paper in conference next time as well.
7.13. Related literature summarizing practice
Since our approach requires the use of a template which includes a "Related Work" section, students are required to practice library research skills in order to make connections between their current work and what has been done before. They can be asked to provide a limited word summary in a limited time, it will make them prepared for better writing.
7.14. Book summary practice
The students might be asked to bring summary of the book given or referred to them. It will enhance their creative writing skills, analysis, documentation and argumentation. Book summary will also make them aware of the writing style used by thee book writer. Writing instruction often involves explicitly and systematically teaching students how to summarize texts. In fact, students can learn to write better summaries from either a rule-governed or a more intuitive approach. Overall, teaching adolescents to summarize text had a consistent, strong, positive effect on their ability to write good summaries.
7.15. Crafting a clear research question that is worth Studying
Essential to any peer-reviewed paper, forming a relevant research question is a skill our approach allows students to practice. In the process of learning what it means to conduct research at the college level, they must also put themselves forward with articulating the merits of their work as an attempt to answer a sufficiently broad question that has important implications. The students can be given some topics and asked to make research questions for them, it would be of help for their research skills.
7.16. Communicating to a broad audience
Often, students write for their professors or present to their fellow classmates. The result is communication that only makes sense to the limited few who have undergone the same classroom experience that the student has, as the following writing example from a student illustrates: By requiring students to write for a review committee, they must establish context to people who are not only outside of their classroom, but outside of their college/university experience.
7.17. Using familiar ideas upon which to build arguments
Good introductions are crucial not only to establish context, but to clearly state the problem and motivate the reader to care about finding a solution. Ideally, this is done by starting the reader on familiar ground and then gradually leading the reader into new territory concerning the research at hand. Without this familiarity, the reader quickly loses interest since it also happens to be an introductory paragraph in a paper. This approach provides an abundance of examples by which students can learn how explaining their own research must start with the reader and author on common ground. It will be of big contribution to the research students' writing skill acquisition
7.18. Writing comparison of books on a topic
Students can be asked to write comparison of two books on a topic, when one compares some thing, creative writing develops which is very essential for research students. They can be asked to find out common features , different features or both.
7.19. Practicing objective making of research topics
The research students can be asked to write objectives of research topics given to them. Making objectives requires expertise, which needs a lot of practice to be done. So, the research students should be asked practicing making objectives. They can also make objectives o f the researches done by looking at their topic only, and then compare.
7.20. Practicing deriving conclusions
Research students should be asked to derive conclusions from a long essay, report, findings etc. As, this will train them using critical thinking. The whole class can be given an essay to derive conclusions and their conclusions might be compared.
7.21. Writing creative assignment
Creative assignments make research students think creatively, use their own style of writing, which works crucially in further research.
7.22. Building theories
Research students can be asked to build theories after reviewing related literature on a topic.
7.23. Writing notes
Research students can be asked to write notes on the given topics, it makes them searching and researching to find out important notes
7.24. Comparison of different concepts
Different scholars see different concepts differently. Research students can be asked to compare different concepts and find their similar and varying features.
7.25. Reading journal
To become good readers and writers, students should be aware of the importance of building a large vocabulary, and extensive reading is one of the best ways to achieve this goal. They also have to produce grammatically correct sentences. This means using grammar structures accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately. Authentic readings help student learn to use grammar structures correctly. So, they must be provided journals to read, so that they may improve their writing accordingly.(Herrero,2007)
7.26. Writing articles
Research students, especially M.Phil and PhD students are asked to write articles. The purpose is to give them expertise in writing skills. Article is small scale research, which gives practical skill for writing thesis.
7.27. Writing perceptual assignments
Research students can be asked to write perceptual assignments, which make the writing full of researcher's critical thinking.
7.28. Writing strategies
Teaching students strategies for planning, revising, and editing their compositions has shown a dramatic effect on the quality of students' writing. Strategy instruction involves explicitly and
Systematically teaching steps necessary for planning, revising, and/or editing text (Graham, 2006).The ultimate goal is to teach students to use these strategies independently. Strategy instruction may involve teaching more generic processes, such as brainstorming.
7.29. Collaborative Writing
Collaborative writing involves developing instructional arrangements whereby adolescents work together to plan, draft, revise, and edit their compositions. It shows a strong impact on improving the quality of students' writing. collaborative arrangements in which students help each other with one or more aspects of their writing have a strong positive impact on quality.
7.30. Specific Product Goals
Setting product goals involves assigning students specific, reachable goals for the writing they are to complete. It includes identifying the purpose of the assignment (e.g., to persuade) as well as characteristics of the final product.Specific goals : (a) adding more ideas to a paper when revising, or establishing a goal to write a specific kind of paper and (b) assigning goals for specific structural elements in a composition. with adolescents who are weaker writers. Overall, assigning students goals for their written product had a strong impact on writing quality. Setting specific product goals provides students with objectives to focus on particular aspects of their writing. For example, students may be instructed to take a position and write a persuasive letter designed to lead an audience to agree with them. In addition to this general goal, teachers provide explicit subgoals on argumentative discourse, including a statement of belief, two or three reasons for that belief, examples or supporting information for each reason, two or three reasons why others might disagree, and why those reasons are incorrect. . (Garaham&Perin,2007)
7.31. Word Processing
The use of word-processing equipment can be particularly helpful for low-achieving writers. In this type of instruction, students might work collaboratively on writing assignments using personal laptop computers, or they might learn to word-process a composition under teacher guidance.Typing text on the computer with word-processing software produces a neat and legible script. It allows the writer to add, delete, and move text easily.Word-processing software, especially in more recent studies, includes spell checkers as well.
Compared with composing by hand, the effect of word-processing instruction in most of the studies reviewed was positive, suggesting that word processing has a consistently positive impact on writing quality. . (Garaham&Perin,2007)
7.32. Sentence Combining
Sentence combining involves teaching students to construct more complex and sophisticated
sentences through exercises in which two or more basic sentences are combined into a singl sentence. In one approach, students at higher and lower writing levels are paired to receive six lessons that teach (a) combining smaller related sentences into a compound sentence using the connectors and, but, and because; (b) embedding an adjective or adverb from one sentence into another; (c) creating complex sentences by embedding an adverbial and adjectival clause from one sentence into another; and (d) making multiple embeddings involving adjectives, adverbs, adverbial clauses, and adjectival clauses. The instructor provides support and modeling and the student pairs work collaboratively to apply the skills taught. . (Garaham&Perin,2007)
7.33. Pre-writing
Pre-writing engages students in activities designed to help them generate or organize ideas for their composition. Engaging adolescents in such activities before they write a first draft improves the quality of their writing. Pre-writing activities include gathering possible information for a paper through reading or developing a visual representation of their ideas before sitting down to write. For example, some common pre-writing activities include encouraging group and individual planning before writing, organizing pre-writing ideas, prompting students to plan after providing a brief demonstration of how to do so, or assigning reading material pertinent to a topic and then encouraging students to plan their work in advance. . (Garaham&Perin,2007)
7.34. Inquiry Activities
Inquiry means engaging students in activities that help them develop ideas and content for a particular writing task by analyzing immediate, concrete data (comparing and contrasting cases or collecting and evaluating evidence). designed to sharpen their inquiry skills improves the quality of their writing. Effective inquiry activities in writing are characterized by a clearly specified goal (e.g., describe the actions of people), analysis of concrete and immediate data (observe one or more peers during specific activities), use of specific strategies to conduct the analysis (retrospectively ask the person being observed the reason for a particular action), and applying what was learned (assign the writing of a story incorporating insights from the inquiry process). . (Garaham&Perin,2007)
7.35. Process Writing Approach
The process writing approach involves a number of interwoven activities, including creating
extended opportunities for writing; emphasizing writing for real audiences; encouraging cycles of planning, translating, and reviewing; stressing personal responsibility and ownership of writing projects; facilitating high levels of student interactions; developing supportive writing environments; encouraging self-reflection and evaluation; and offering personalized individual assistance, brief instructional lessons to meet students' individual needs, and, in some instances, more extended and systematic instruction. . (Garaham&Perin,2007)
7.36. Make illustrations and diagrams
Research students can improve their writing skills by making illustrations and diagrams, which are essential parts of writing, if they are given data and asked to make their illustrations and diagrams.
7.37. Study of Models
Research students can be asked to study different models. The study of models provides with good models for each type of writing that is the focus of instruction. Students should follow the critical elements, patterns, and forms embodied in the models in their own writing. Instance is here:
‘The effects for all six studies reviewed were positive though small. It was not possible to draw separate conclusions for low-achieving writers, as none of the studies specifically addressed this population'.(Garaham&Perin,2007)
7.38. Observation of peers in learning to write
Rijlaarsdam et al(2008) urge that research students can improve writing by observing the peers, their style of organizing, presenting data, their flow of logic etc. So, such provisions must be provided to research students containing opportunities to observe.
7.39. Argumentative text writing
According to Eemeren& Grootendorst(1999), ‘To be able to formulate the precise strategies a writer can use to transform an analytic overview into a comprehensible and acceptable argumentative text, more detailed research has to be undertaken. one should imagine the various presentation transformations to be, but it goes without saying that it should be shown by way of concrete examples how such strategies are to be put into practice'
7.40. Writing for Content Area Learning
Writing has been shown to be an effective tool for enhancing students' learning of content material. Although the impact of writing activity on content learning is small, it is consistent enough to predict some enhancement in learning as a result of writing-to-learn activities.
The process writing approach stresses activities that emphasize extended opportunities for writing, writing for real audiences, self-reflection, personalized instruction and goals, and cycles of planning, translating, and reviewing. ( Klein& Kirkpatric ,2010).
8. Guidelines
Here are some guidelines in general to make writing skills of research students effective. University of Wisconsin Whitewater School of Graduate studies and continuing Education (2009) urges following strategies to improve research student's writing skills.
Remind students that writing is a process that helps us clarify ideas.
Tell students that writing is a way of learning, not an end in itself. Also let them know that writing is a complicated, messy, nonlinear process filled with false starts. Help them to identify the writer's key activities:
- Developing ideas
- Finding a focus and a thesis
- Composing a draft
- Getting feedback and comments from others
- Revising the draft by expanding ideas, clarifying meaning, reorganizing
- Editing
- Presenting the finished work to readers
Explain that writing is hard work
Share with your class your own struggles in grappling with difficult topics. If they know that writing takes effort, they won't be discouraged by their own pace or progress. One faculty member shared with students their notebook that contained the chronology of one of his published articles: first ideas, successive drafts, submitted manuscript, reviewers' suggested changes, revised version, galley proofs, and published article.
Give students opportunities to talk about their writing
Students need to talk about papers in progress so that they can formulate their thoughts, generate ideas, and focus their topics. Take five or ten minutes of class time for students to read their writing to each other in small groups or pairs. It's important for students to hear what their peers have written.
Encourage students to revise their work
Provide formal steps for revision by asking students to submit first drafts of papers for your review or for peer critique. You can also give your students the option of revising and rewriting one assignment during the semester for a higher grade. Faculty report that 10 to 40 percent of the students take advantage of this option.
Explain thesis statements
A thesis statement makes an assertion about some issue. A common student problem is to write papers that present overviews of facts with no thesis statement or that have a diffuse thesis statement.
Stress clarity and specificity
The more the abstract and difficult the topic, the more concrete the student's language should be. Inflated language and academic jargon camouflage rather than clarify their point.
Explain the importance of grammar and sentence structure, as well as content.
Students shouldn't think that English teachers are the only judges of grammar and style. Tell your students that you will be looking at both quality of their writing and the content.
Distribute bibliographies and tip sheets on good writing practices.
Check with your English department or writing center to identify materials that can be easily distributed to students.
Here is a list for consideration for the research students, what they should do, i.e.
a. Write down words they do not understand and look them up in a hard copy or on-line dictionary.
b. Use spelling check and grammar check options on your computer but do not rely on them alone. Grammar check explanations can be quite confusing. These checks also do not pick up all errors
c. Read their draft carefully, preferably some time after you have completed a draft
d. Read their advanced draft aloud if it is convenient or get someone else to read it.
e. think about direct ways of making a statement i.e., write directly!
f. Develop your own "writing challenges checklist"Maguire (2008c)
g. Turn around time for editing If cannot find time to undertake the task, do the right thing and return the work unassessed.
h. edit to ensure that standards are met.
i. Calm, objective, informed and effective comments are needed from an Editor, Referee or Examiner. In these roles they certainly do not have the right to humiliate an author or candidate.
j. Which style is appropriate for a publication? It depends on the nature of the publication and the audience they are seeking to inform/help. Must keep this in mind.
k. Follow the style of the journal you choose as much as possible.
Conclusion
We can conclude that the strategies described in the assignment can improve research students writing, and that the rules mentioned must be followed by the research students , so that their writing quality is enhanced.
About the Author
1. Mark Collonney (1994), The McGraw-Hill Workbook: USA ,McGraw-Hill Inc. ISBN No: 0-07-012498-1
2. Courtland L Bovee& John V Thill (2005), Business Communication Today: 8th Edition: India, New Delhi, Dorling Kindersely Publishing Inc.Pearson Education
3. Mary Ellen Guffey( 2003), Business Communication: Process and Product: 4th Edition:USA, Thomson Learning, South Western. ISBN No: 0-324-11452-4
4. Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools – A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York.Washington, DC:Alliance for Excellent Education.
5. Aaron G. Cass and Chris S. T. Fernandes( 2008) Simulated Conference Submissions: A Technique to Improve Student Attitudes about Writing: 38th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference: October 22 – 25, 2008, Saratoga Springs, NY
6. Maguire, G., (2008) Solutions to Introductory Editing Exercises
7. Maguire, G., (2008) Advice to Research Students
8. Bradley Christmas( n.d.) The role of brainstorming in improving student writing performance In the efl classroom
9. Johnson,C(2003) The Paragraph Book: Educators Publishing Service.
10. Herrero,a. H(2007) journals: a tool to improve students' writing skills :Efectos del uso del diario en el mejoramiento de la producción Escrita del estudiante Volumen 7, número 1 enero-abril 2007
11. Rijlaarsdam, G., Braaksma, M., Couzijn, M., Janssen, T., Raedts, M., Van Steendam, E., Toorenaar, A., & Van den Bergh, H. (2008). Observation of peers in learning to write, Practice and Research.Journal of Writing Research, 1 (1), 53-83
Legal Admin Connects Economy Fraud Child Slaughter with DHS Social Worker Misconducts
social work report writing skills
social work report writing skills
social work report writing skills
No comments:
Post a Comment