Liebe Lehrende, Betreuer:innen und Tutor:innen, sei es in Form von Seminar-, Beleg- und Forschungsarbeiten oder einer großen Abschlussarbeit zum Ende des Studiums: „Wissenschaftliches Schreiben entscheidet wesentlich über Studienerfolg und wissenschaftliche Karriere“ (Kruse 2007, S. 9). Ob Studierende Schreibkompetenzen entwickeln oder nicht, hat über eine Note im Seminar hinaus nachhaltige Auswirkungen auf ihre Zukunft. Dies verweist geradewegs auf die hohe Relevanz der Schreibdidaktik an der Hochschule. In diesem Bereich hat sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten viel getan. Von deutschen Unis als „Wüsten der Schreiblehre“ (Wolfsberger S. 13) spricht heute keiner mehr. Neben einer Fülle an Literatur zum universitären Schreiben gibt es inzwischen an vielen Hochschulen Schreibzentren und in manchen Studiengängen wurden eigene Seminare zum wissenschaftlichen Schreiben etabliert. Gut so. Und doch: In einer Welt, in der Lehrsituationen perfekt auf das akademische Schreiben ausgerichtet sind, wäre unsere Broschüre vielleicht gar nicht nötig. Von diesem Zustand ist die deutsche Hochschullandschaft leider noch weit entfernt. Natürlich ist uns am Schreibzentrum der TUD bewusst, welche Herausforderung darin besteht, für eine schreibförderliche Lehre zu sorgen, während diese in Curricula nicht unbedingt vorgesehen ist. Gleichzeitig nehmen wir die Überforderung von Studierenden wahr, die vor ihren großen schriftlichen Arbeiten stehen, und bisher wenig Möglichkeit hatten, ihre Schreibkompetenzen auszubilden. In insgesamt fünf Modulen möchten wir daher mit Ihnen aus verschiedenen Perspektiven auf das studentische Schreiben an der Hochschule blicken und Ihre Rolle als Lehrperson darin in den Fokus setzen. Wir beginnen mit der Durchleuchtung wissenschaftlicher Schreibprozesse (Modul 1). Darauf folgt die (gute) Betreuung von Schreibaufgaben, etwa die effektive Kommunikation von Schreibaufträgen oder die Besonderheiten, die in der Betreuung langfristiger Schreibaufgaben bestehen (Modul 2). In den beiden folgenden Modulen gehen wir auf fachgebundene Spezifika der Schreibdidaktik (Modul 3) bzw. die Zielgruppe der internationalen Studierenden (Modul 4) ein. Abschließend fokussieren wir die Frage, wie sich die Ausbildung von Schreibkompetenzen der Studiereden konkret im Semesterverlauf unterstützen lässt (Modul 5). Die Broschüre bietet Ihnen die Möglichkeit, Ihre bisherige Vorgehensweise in der Lehre zu reflektieren, um diese schreibförderlicher zu gestalten. Wichtig war uns dabei ein starker Praxisbezug, weshalb Sie zu jedem der Themen konkrete Methoden oder Checklisten mit didaktischer Rahmung und Anleitung finden. Darüber hinaus haben wir viele nützliche Übungen zusammengestellt, die Sie an Ihre Studierenden weitergeben können, sowie Materialien, die speziell für Ihre Rolle als Begleiter:in studentischer Schreibprozesse gedacht sind. Best-Practice-Beispiele von Lehrenden runden die Broschüre mit authentischen Einblicken in unterschiedliche schreibdidaktische Herangehensweisen ab. Die Starthilfe Schreibdidaktik gibt es als Print- und Digitalversion auf der Website des Schreibzentrums.:1 Wissenschaftliches Schreiben und was sich dahinter verbirgt 9 Der Weg zur Kompetenzentwicklung 10 Über die Vielseitigkeit wissenschaftlicher Texte 15 Erwartungen und Anforderungen an studentische Schreibprojekte 20 Wie Schreibprozessmodelle bei der Betreuung von Schreibaufgaben helfen 23 Zum Einsatz von KI im Schreibprozess 28 Zeitplanung für Lehrende 33 2 Gute Betreuung von Schreibaufgaben und was dafür wichtig ist 42 Prüfungsleistungen konkrete Schreibaufgaben zuordnen 43 Bewertungsprozesse und Bewertungskriterien erarbeiten 45 Anleitung zum Erstellen eines Leitfadens für Studierende 58 Checkliste für Konsultationsgespräche und den Betreuungsprozess 61 Feedback geben und geben lassen 66 Wenn es mal nicht so läuft, wie geplant: Kollegiale Fallberatung 75 3 Fachspezifische Schreibdidaktik und wie sie Studierenden langfristig nützt 79 Anforderungen an spezifische Textsorten kommunizieren 81 Berufsbezogenes Schreiben 91 MINT-Studierende beim Schreiben anleiten 97 4 Internationale Studierende und wie man Missverständnissen vorbeugt 99 Die eigene Wissenschaftskultur reflektieren 100 Die eigene Kommunikationskultur reflektieren 103 Internationale Studierende anleiten – ein Leitfaden 106  5 Fragen Studierender im Schreibprozess und wie man darauf antwortet 111 Im Semester Schreibkompetenzen vermitteln 112 Nützliche Methoden für oft gestellte Fragen 119 Methodenanhang 123 Bibliografie 173 Weitere Anlaufstellen 179

Argumentive writing is key to academic success, yet it is slow to develop and never mastered by many. Researchers investigating the development of argumentation have proposed a number of school-based interventions that aim to strengthen students’ argumentive writing. One such model is the Argue with Me (AMW) program, which focuses on the interpersonal context of argumentive discourse as a pathway to building a student’s skill in independent argumentive writing. Central to the method is students engaging deeply with a debate topic: first in peer-to-peer electronic dialogues, then with various reflective activities based on written transcripts of dialogues, and finally proceeding to individual independent writing on the topic. Previous research has shown that students who participate in the AWM program improve their argumentation skills in both the electronic dialogues and subsequent independent essays, including transfer to new topics. Epistemic understanding of the purpose and value of argumentation has also been shown to improve. While the results from previous AWM studies are positive, independent argumentive writing remains far from proficient, with students continuing to struggle with integrating counterarguments into their writing, especially on a new topic where these have not been first introduced by another person in discourse. Unlike many other intervention programs, the AWM model does not explicitly address writing. Hence, an augmented version of the AWM program was developed and evaluated in the present study. It included an experimental writing condition that was administered to twenty-three 6th grade students who participated in the AWM program during 12 class sessions over a period of 16 weeks. The remaining twenty-five students served as a comparison group. They participated in the AWM program but received no additional writing support. Participants showed engagement and motivation in completing the AWM program; final individual essays did not show superior performance by students in the experimental writing condition, relative to intervention participants in the comparison group. The discussion reviews potential program and school factors that may have contributed to this outcome. Qualitative analyses of student work provide some additional insights, leading to the possibility of future AWM studies that incorporate writing supports, as well as potential implications for classroom practice.

Foundation Programme (FP) students at the University of Namibia (UNAM) Oshakati Campus display inadequate academic writing abilities. As their aim is to gain admittance to UNAM main campus science-related courses, it is vital to have effective academic writing skills. This action research (AR) study is a comparison of three writing programmes, the process approach, the modeling approach, and the process genre approach which were implemented separately to three different class groups in 2008 and 2009 to improve the writing skills of students and the teaching practice of the researcher. The effects of the interventions were examined using a combination of the quantitative and qualitative research methods. Data were collected using questionnaires, pre- and post-intervention essays and laboratory reports and interviews. The findings indicate that all three approaches improved the academic writing skills of FP students. The process genre approach had a higher rate of effect than the other two approaches. / English Studies / M. A. (Specialisation TESOL)

Foundation Programme (FP) students at the University of Namibia (UNAM) Oshakati Campus display inadequate academic writing abilities. As their aim is to gain admittance to UNAM main campus science-related courses, it is vital to have effective academic writing skills. This action research (AR) study is a comparison of three writing programmes, the process approach, the modeling approach, and the process genre approach which were implemented separately to three different class groups in 2008 and 2009 to improve the writing skills of students and the teaching practice of the researcher. The effects of the interventions were examined using a combination of the quantitative and qualitative research methods. Data were collected using questionnaires, pre- and post-intervention essays and laboratory reports and interviews. The findings indicate that all three approaches improved the academic writing skills of FP students. The process genre approach had a higher rate of effect than the other two approaches. / English Studies / M. A. (Specialisation TESOL)

There has been growing concern in the higher education sector in South Africa about the high number of students with low academic literacy (AL) levels who are gaining entry into the sector. This influx necessitated the introduction of academic literacy interventions which are aimed at supporting these students in meeting the academic literacy requirements of university education. As a result, the tertiary sector has seen a growing number of AL interventions, each catering for a different context. However, the available literature reports very little substantial evidence on the impact/effectiveness of such interventions regarding the purpose for which they have been designed. The Vaal Triangle Campus (VTC) of the North-West University has also found that the majority of first year students who register at this Campus in order to attain a tertiary qualification, show inadequate levels of academic literacy in English. However, the academic literacy intervention that is currently used at this campus has never been formally assessed for its effectiveness in improving students’ academic literacy levels. The purpose of the current study was therefore to investigate the impact of the academic literacy intervention on students’ academic literacy levels. This intervention, which consists of two complementary semester modules, is offered over a one-year period to new first year students. As a first step, a comprehensive literature survey was conducted on important changes that took place in the tertiary education sector after 1994. The reason for this enquiry is based on the fact that many of these changes, such as the ‘massification’ of tertiary education, had far-reaching consequences for the tertiary sector in terms of more underprepared students who gained access to university education. Furthermore, available literature on the types of academic literacy interventions in South Africa, as well as specific sources on the reported impact of such interventions, were critiqued. The empirical part of the study made use of both a qualitative and quantitative research paradigm in order to investigate the impact of the AL intervention at the VTC. A highly reliable academic literacy test (the TALL – Test of Academic Literacy Levels) was used to determine whether students showed any significant improvement in their levels of academic literacy as a result of the intervention. This study reports positive findings in this regard. The investigation further gathered opinion-based data through the administration of three questionnaires aimed at determining student and lecturer perceptions of the impact of the intervention. The main findings of the two student questionnaires (one administered for each AL module) show that students generally see the value in attending the academic literacy modules because they feel that they derive benefit from them. The findings of the lecturer survey indicate that although mainstream lecturers are acutely aware of the low academic literacy levels of their students, they do not see the impact of the intervention on improving such levels. They are further not very knowledgeable about what the focus of the intervention entails. The main conclusion of this study is, in brief, that the academic literacy intervention has a definite effect on the improvement of students’ academic literacy levels. However, no conclusive data was found to support the idea that the improvement was due only to the influence of the intervention. / MA (Applied Language Studies), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

There has been growing concern in the higher education sector in South Africa about the high number of students with low academic literacy (AL) levels who are gaining entry into the sector. This influx necessitated the introduction of academic literacy interventions which are aimed at supporting these students in meeting the academic literacy requirements of university education. As a result, the tertiary sector has seen a growing number of AL interventions, each catering for a different context. However, the available literature reports very little substantial evidence on the impact/effectiveness of such interventions regarding the purpose for which they have been designed. The Vaal Triangle Campus (VTC) of the North-West University has also found that the majority of first year students who register at this Campus in order to attain a tertiary qualification, show inadequate levels of academic literacy in English. However, the academic literacy intervention that is currently used at this campus has never been formally assessed for its effectiveness in improving students’ academic literacy levels. The purpose of the current study was therefore to investigate the impact of the academic literacy intervention on students’ academic literacy levels. This intervention, which consists of two complementary semester modules, is offered over a one-year period to new first year students. As a first step, a comprehensive literature survey was conducted on important changes that took place in the tertiary education sector after 1994. The reason for this enquiry is based on the fact that many of these changes, such as the ‘massification’ of tertiary education, had far-reaching consequences for the tertiary sector in terms of more underprepared students who gained access to university education. Furthermore, available literature on the types of academic literacy interventions in South Africa, as well as specific sources on the reported impact of such interventions, were critiqued. The empirical part of the study made use of both a qualitative and quantitative research paradigm in order to investigate the impact of the AL intervention at the VTC. A highly reliable academic literacy test (the TALL – Test of Academic Literacy Levels) was used to determine whether students showed any significant improvement in their levels of academic literacy as a result of the intervention. This study reports positive findings in this regard. The investigation further gathered opinion-based data through the administration of three questionnaires aimed at determining student and lecturer perceptions of the impact of the intervention. The main findings of the two student questionnaires (one administered for each AL module) show that students generally see the value in attending the academic literacy modules because they feel that they derive benefit from them. The findings of the lecturer survey indicate that although mainstream lecturers are acutely aware of the low academic literacy levels of their students, they do not see the impact of the intervention on improving such levels. They are further not very knowledgeable about what the focus of the intervention entails. The main conclusion of this study is, in brief, that the academic literacy intervention has a definite effect on the improvement of students’ academic literacy levels. However, no conclusive data was found to support the idea that the improvement was due only to the influence of the intervention. / MA (Applied Language Studies), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Responding to Student Writing: Strategies for a Distance-Teaching Context identifies viable response techniques for a unique discourse community. An overview of paradigmatic shifts in writing and reading theory, 'frameworks of response' developed to classify response statements for research purposes, and an overview of research in the field provide the theoretical basis for the evaluation of the empirical study. The research comprises a three-fold exploration of the response strategies adopted by Unisa lecturers to the writing of Practical English (PENl00-3) students. In the first phase the focus falls on the effect of intervention on the students' revised drafts of four divergent marking strategies - coded correction, minimal marking, taped response and self assessment. All the experimental strategies tested result in statistically-significant improvement levels in the revised draft. The benefits of self assessment and rewriting, even without tutorial intervention, were demonstrated. The study is unique by virtue of its distance-teaching context, its sample size of 1750 and in the high significance levels achieved. The second phase of the research consisted of a questionnaire that determined 2640 students' expectations with respect to marking, the value of commentary, their perceptions of markers' roles and their opinions of the experimental strategies tested. Their responses were also correlated with their final Practical English examination results. The third phase examined tutorial response. The framework of response, developed for the purpose, revealed that present response strategies represent a regression to the traditional product-orientated approach to writing that contradicts the cognitive and rhetorical axiological basis of the course. There is thus a disjunction between the teaching and theoretical practices. The final chapter bridges this gap by examining issues of audience, transparency, ownership, timing of intervention and training. The researcher believes that she has successfully identified practical and innovative strategies that assist lecturers in a distance-teaching context to break away from old response blueprints. / English Studies / D.Litt. et Phil. (English)

Case studies have been frequently used by Public Administration students enrolled for master’s degrees by coursework and mini-dissertation. There are apparently various meanings of and a lack of clarity about the concept “case study” when used in the titles of South African Public Administration master’s dissertations. The purpose of this study was to analyse case studies reported on in South African Public Administration master’s dissertations in order to determine the characteristics of these studies. The study examined case studies in South African Public Administration master’s dissertations completed between 2005 and 2012. It began by reviewing the various components of a case study, then went further to analyse the way in which case studies were applied in the field. The study defined case study as a research process determined by a combination of the following components: a specific strategy for selecting the unit of analysis (the case), a specific research design, research purpose, the methods of data collection and data analysis, and a specific nature of the expected outcomes of the study. The major findings of the study were that most case studies in the analysed dissertations have used interventions (60,9%) as their case. About (43,5%) of the analysed dissertations were evaluative in nature. There is, however, an uneven distribution in terms of the case study design used by a significant proportion of the dissertations (83%) employing the single-case design as opposed to the multiple-case design (17%). The results presented in relation to case selection strategies used show that typical cases were the most investigated. Moreover, a number of the dissertations seemed to be more aligned towards qualitative methods, although mixed methods were mostly used. These dissertations preferred interviews as sources of evidence. Meanwhile, pattern matching appeared to be the dominant technique used to analyse case study evidence in these dissertations. Hypothesis generating was also identified as the outcome in most of the dissertations. / Public Administration / M. Admin. (Public Administration)

The thesis is a study of the early stages of the writing cycle in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) class at the University of Singapore. The study focuses on a group brainstorming activity prior to the stage of writing the first draft and on the impact of this activity on the students’ first individual drafts. In addition, the study compares two different modes of discussion: face-to-face and online synchronous chat. The comparison is concerned with the interactional patterns of the discussion in the two modes, and with the transfer of content from the discussion to the first written drafts. The use of group brainstorming at the pre-writing stage is a familiar activity in the writing class but researchers have not yet paid much attention to the way in which the ideas generated in the brainstorming activity are transferred to individual written drafts. It is this gap that this dissertation seeks to fill. A question of particular interest is the extent to which knowledge construction in the composition class is accomplished by the individual or by the group. Data were collected from four classes of first-year undergraduate students of Science taught by the researcher. The control group, with 31 members, carried out their brainstorming activity in face-to-face mode, while the experimental group, with 27 members, carried out their brainstorming using a synchronous chat facility. The primary data were the chat scripts, face-to-face transcripts and first writing drafts. Analysis of the discussion data was carried out using a genre-based content analysis model deriving from speech act theory (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975), rhetorical structure theory (Mann & Thompson 1986, 1988), and more recent work on collaborative writing by Plowman (1993), think-aloud protocols (Smagorinsky, 1991) and collaborative computer-based communication by Garrison and Anderson (2003), among others. The model is used to count the frequency of different ideas according to their rhetorical characteristics in the two conditions (face-to-face and synchronous chat), and to determine whether the ideas were generated by individuals or through group discussion. The analysis then looks at the extent to which the ideas were subsequently reproduced in individual drafts. The frequency analyses are complemented by detailed qualitative analysis of the discussion transcripts and the essays of four students, two from each discussion mode. The results of the analysis suggest that collaborative brainstorming is productive in helping students with the generation and development of ideas for their writing. The findings also suggest that there is a strong link between ownership and use of ideas initiated in the discussion. This tendency is stronger in the chat group than in the face-to-face group. Analysis of the discussion transcripts suggests that this difference is a result of more ideas being initiated in the chat group. In addition to these group differences, the analysis shows that discussion in both modes is characterised by a tendency to seek consensus, with very little argument and negotiation of content. The implications of these findings for the use of group discussion in the writing class are discussed.

This study examines the use of discourse-organising nouns (DONs), such as fact, issue, and problem, in Swedish advanced students’ academic writing in second language (L2) English, and in what ways texts produced by the L2 students resemble or differ from those produced by advanced native-speaker (L1) students and from expert writing in this respect. The study uses corpus linguistic methodology and is set within the frameworks of Halliday’s systemic-functional linguistics and Granger’s Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis. Results show both similarities and differences across the writer groups. Noteworthy similarities include overall frequencies of DONs and their modifiers. Differences include variety of usage and register appropriacy. These differences were often the largest between the L2 student writing and the expert writing, though findings suggest that both student groups can usefully be thought of as learners of academic writing in English in this respect. Specifically, the students’ usage was found to be less varied than the expert writing, and to be characterised by more frequent use of semantically vague nouns (e.g., thing and fact) and nouns marking attitude and involvement (e.g., opinion and question). Other central findings include the tendency, on the part of the students, to use DONs less frequently in syntactic structures prototypical of formal academic prose, and to use them more frequently in structures with the potential to express stance, compared to the expert writing. The study also found more frequent use of evaluative modifiers of DONs in the student writing. In sum, the L2 student writing and, to a lesser extent, the L1 student writing, was found to approximate the corpus of expert writing in many respects, but with less variety, fewer markers of formality, and more frequent occurrences of interpersonal features in their use of DONs. The result is discourse that can in part be characterised as vague and subjective, as well as involved and informal. / This study examines the use of discourse-organising nouns (DONs), such as fact, issue, and problem, in Swedish advanced students’ academic writing in second language (L2) English, and in what ways texts produced by the L2 students resemble or differ from those produced by advanced native-speaker students and from expert writing in this respect. Results show both similarities and differences across the writer groups. Noteworthy similarities include overall frequencies of DONs and their modifiers. Differences include variety of usage and register appropriacy. In short, the L2 student writing and, to a lesser extent, the L1 student writing, was found to approximate the corpus of expert writing in many respects, but with less variety, fewer markers of formality, and more frequent occurrences of interpersonal features in their use of DONs. The result is discourse that can in part be characterised as vague and subjective, as well as involved and informal. These differences were often the largest between the L2 student writing and the expert writing, though findings suggest that both student groups can usefully be thought of as learners of academic writing in English in this respect.