"Hidden" Features of Academic Paper Writing

This paper describes the development of a set of working concepts to enable students and their professors to address issues involved in the writing of academic papers. It draws upon recent theoretical turns in the fields of Writing in the Disciplines (WiD), Genre Studies and Academic Literacies, and considers whether and how such theory can be adapted to practice. Whereas dominant models of student writing (ESP; ESL) have tended to emphasise formulaic lists of things to be covered, usually in terms of the structure of the essay (e.g., introduction; theory; methods; data), this approach focuses on the more hidden features that are called upon in judgments of academic writing that often remain implicit. The paper describes how, during a literacy course at GSE, a table of terms was drawn up for making explicit the criteria used for assessing and reviewing academic papers. In the first instance this framework was applied to the chapters of an edited book, with particular respect to the opening sections, using a typology of “vignettes, personal, declarative.” The terms in the hidden features table as a whole were then used to review drafts of students’ assignments for the course. The paper concludes with some student responses, and the implications for wider applications in support of academic writing are considered.