Thesis (M.T.S.C.)--Miami University, Dept. of English, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-46).

No description available.

Writing research articles in English is a common requirement in doctoral studies in the natural sciences; however, learning to write the research article genre is challenging, particularly in a foreign language (L2). A potential resource for learning the RA genre is giving and receiving peer review. L2 writers at the undergraduate level have been found to benefit from PR, but less  is known about the learning of L2 writers at the graduate level who are writing for specialized discourse communities. The aim of this dissertation is to describe how a group of L2 doctoral students in the natural sciences used online peer review in a research writing course. Inductive analysis was used to categorize the kinds of review comments that 11 course participants gave and received. In another study, three students’ revised texts were analyzed in detail to see how they used peer comments. To explore  students’ perceptions of using the PR activity, pre and post course interviews were inductively analyzed.  Findings were interpreted using Vygotskian constructs of learning in order to see where mediation likely occurs.  The combined studies suggest that reviewers adopted roles that influenced what they noticed, analyzed and languaged. As a group, they focused on the lexical and syntactic precision of peers’ texts, as well as the organization, cohesion, voice, stance and research knowledge. Writers used the intent of the review comments approximately 40 percent of the time, but this usage reflected only a small portion of the writers’ revision activities that occurred in response to review.  Other activities included composing, re-writing, investigating, interviewing outsiders, and re-ordering the texts.  Writers found precision and organizational comments most useful. Findings from these combined studies indicate that peer review can be a potentially powerful tool for doctoral students to familiarize themselves with discipline-specific research articles.

This study explores MBA students’ experiences of academic writing, and endeavours to determine the difficulties experienced by MBA students during the writing of their dissertations especially in terms of academic literacy. Case study research design and mixed methods were used to generate both quantitative and qualitative data in this qualitative study. A constant comparative method of analysis was used to identify categories and themes within the data. The results of this research showed that the majority of MBA students, while at Business School X, viewed their identities primarily as business professionals as opposed to students of business in an academic setting. Findings of the study showed that MBA students’ identities as readers and writers are strongly framed by the business genres they encounter in their professional capacities. The study also revealed that MBA students writing their dissertations desire to produce a professionally relevant research document as much as one that meets the requirements of academic rigour. It is within this arena of academic research writing that a dilemma exists for MBA students with reference to the purpose, format and value of the dissertation as a vehicle for reporting research findings. Recommendations are that academic literacies and genre pedagogy are mainstreamed into the course design of the MBA programme at Business School X and that the repurposing of the dissertation as a genre be evaluated in terms of business relevance.

This project is intended to serve as an exploratory investigation of inquiry-based teaching in an Advanced Placement (AP) literature and composition course. The rigid curricular constraints of AP courses and the assessment-based guidelines for teaching such courses can challenge the value placed in teaching students to think critically. This project seeks to draw attention to the difficult terrain that teachers navigate when trying to foster environments that facilitate inquiry-based learning while at the same time holding students to the standards set by the curriculum. As an exploratory study, the project aims to identify important issues and questions concerning inquiry-based learning as they have been disclosed by a specific classroom context, that of a twelfth-grade AP literature and composition course I have taught. In addition to drawing from information and insights, along with personal experiences, derived from a specific classroom context, I examine research and scholarship on the concept of inquiry-based learning. In particular, I consider the scholarly work on invention, discourse communities, and critical pedagogy to offer the most relevant insights to the issues I identify and the questions I raise. The first part of this study consists of examining such areas of scholarship in “dialogue” with one another. That is, I consider the implications the various scholarly works have for one another, ii i particularly in the context of the AP course I teach. Because this study is exploratory in nature, the second part of my project consists of detailed summaries of the major scholarly works I have examined. Thus, this project serves as a preliminary inquiry for future study, and it serves to help teachers make informed decisions about developing and implementing inquiry-based teaching strategies that can take root in the rocky terrain of assessment-based curricula.

No description available.

No description available.