Addressing the Scholarly Writing and Publication Needs of Graduate Students

Introduction

Across industries, organizations in the U.S. notice that almost a quarter of job applicants lack basic skills and almost a third of the basic skills that are lacking revolve around the ability to write in English (Society for Human Resource Management, 2014). The lack of basic written English skills is noticed by educators in different disciplines in higher education, including sociology (Burgess-Proctor, Cassano, Condron, Lyons, & Sanders, 2014), engineering (Catana, 2017), veterinary and allied animal health fields (Clarke, Schull, Coleman, Pitt, & Manathunga, 2013), education (Pelger & Sigrell, 2016; Street & Stang, 2008), biology (Hódar, Pérez-Martínez, Morales, Martín-Cuenca, & Iáñez-Pareja 2016), agriculture (Motavalli, Patton, & Miles, 2007), chemistry (Van Bramer & Bastin, 2013), and other fields. What unites these educators is a conviction that “coherent, logical, effective, and even elegant student writing” (Burgess-Proctor, 2014, p. 130) can help students in their academic and professional lives. The workforce needs applicants with the ability to write coherent, succinct sentences in English. Being born in the U.S. is not a guarantee of skills in written English such as preparing reports, presentations, minutes, and correspondence.

While students experience difficulties with writing at both undergraduate and graduate levels, this chapter focuses on graduate students. Graduate students are usually believed to know how to write due to their prior educational and professional experiences (Palmer & Major, 2008; Sallee, Hallett, & Tierney, 2011) and, therefore, receive less assistance from universities and programs with their writing. Contrary to this belief, graduate students’ “papers are written so poorly that their comprehension of the material is difficult to determine” (Ondrusek, 2012, p. 174). Sixty percent of doctoral students have difficulty conducting a literature review and synthesizing that information into a quality dissertation (Switzer & Perdue, 2011). Additionally, when feedback is given to graduate students, they often have difficulty addressing the constructive comments given on their writing (Rocco, 2002). Graduate students are often unable to write for an academic audience or adhere to an academic style of writing and integrate and cite sources (Pfeifer & Ferree, 2006). What makes the situation more serious is the expectation that graduate students should write at a higher level than their undergraduate counterparts, for example, by writing more complex and lengthy papers, synthesizing several viewpoints, providing critique, and creating and carrying out original research projects (Ondrusek, 2012). Despite a deficit in the quality of graduate student writing and high expectations for their writing, little has been done to address the problem.

In this chapter, we discuss writing initiatives undertaken to address the scholarly writing and publication needs of graduate students.