Academic Writing: A Handbook for International Students - Critique
According to
Bailey (2006), “those students who are not native speakers often find the
written demands of their courses very challenging” (p. vii). In his book, the
author aims to provide students with lots of practice that could help them to
self-acquire competence in academic writing skills and also, to assist teachers
who are concerned about their students’ writing progress. But, although the
book would be suitable for secondary students or higher education beginners, it
might not respond to teachers and students’ expectations in the last years of
college.
As Bailey states
in his blog “Academic Writing” in the
post “What concerns teachers about students’ writing?”, teachers’ most common
complaints about students writing in higher education are “students not using
critical thinking, students answering questions that had not been asked,
plagiarism, lack of logical development and organization in essays”. All these
weaknesses are dealt with in “part 1: The Writing Process” (pp. 3-60). The
author also claims that “there is a need to use an argument style of writing,
to improve referencing, to revise the use of paragraphs, over-short answers and
over-complex sentences”. In “part 2: elements of writing” (pp.65-114) the
author approaches these problems. Finally, in “part 3: accuracy in writing”
(pp. 119-182) the author gives practice on the most common complaint that is
“inaccurate use of vocabulary”.
However, all the
above mentioned topics are vaguely delved into in the book. There is a
considerable amount of practice but there are few references. In the “Avoiding
Plagiarism” section (p.7) for example, the author should have included a clear
guide with strategies for plagiarism avoidance so as students can use it as a
notes when writing their own productions. Pupils may find it difficult to
correct mistaken exercises because, although answers are provided in the book
(pp.204-258) there are no clear explanations. The same may happen when students
are doing the tests in the “Writing Tests” section (pp.201-203).
Bailey’s book
would have been more accurate if it had targeted a smaller range of audience.
The author argues that the book “is a flexible course that allows students of
all subjects and levels, from foundation to PhD, to practise those aspects of
writing which are most important for their studies” (p. 6). However, different
disciplines often have different writing requirements as Purdue OWL (2013)
identifies: professional-technical writing, writing in literature, writing in
the social sciences, writing in engineering, medical writing, etc.
The author should have stated in the introduction that the book spectrum is reduced to a beginner academic level. “part 4: Writing Models” (pp. 185-199) clearly depicts that this book is not complete enough to satisfy the demands of classes that are subject specific because it does not comprises a wide range of academic genres.
The author should have stated in the introduction that the book spectrum is reduced to a beginner academic level. “part 4: Writing Models” (pp. 185-199) clearly depicts that this book is not complete enough to satisfy the demands of classes that are subject specific because it does not comprises a wide range of academic genres.
So as to
conclude, it can be stated that the book would be useful for international
students who are about to start higher education. A student that is in the last
years of university would not find this book useful because it vaguely delves
into practical writing skills and common difficulties in writing.
References
Bailey, S. (2006) Academic
Writing: A handbook for international
students. (2nd edition).
Retrieved November 2013 from
Bailey, S. (2012)
Academic Writing Blog. Retrieved November 2013 from
Purdue OWL (2013) Subject Specific Resources. Retrieved
November 2013 from
