Academic Writing

I started teaching a 2.5 week writing course over at the university for the English Program for Internationals (EPI). I am teaching Fulbright scholars. My 17 students are from all over the world (Europe, Asia, South America) and will be attending an American university in the fall for work on either an MA or a PhD. Considering that these are graduate students, you may be wondering what I could possibly have to teach them in a writing course. A lot, actually.

See, they are all very good at writing in their home countries. They are intelligent, enthusiastic, etc. I really like them. But see, they are used to writing in their culture's style. As with a great many other things, there is no universal style of writing. Heck, there isn't even a universal style in the States. What do I mean by style? Well, in this case I mean formatting/layout of the academic/nonfiction text. Grammar/sentence structure matters as well (for that see Strunk's Elements of Style) but my main focus is how to research and document sources. It's much more rigid than the rules for creative writing where you can experiment to a certain degree. There are more style types (see Style Manuals and Citation Guides) than you would at first think but fortunately we mainly deal with APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language Association).

I've had experience with both over the years but my humanities focus mainly deals with MLA. Most of my students are APA. lol So, guess who gets to relearn the style. Actually, it's a good thing to know. I've talked with colleagues and we all agree that there is no way to know every style rule -- even in the one you use most. Hence the need for the sites and books.

One of my students (from Brasil) asked me if he could just write in his home style since it was simple and he knows it. His reasoning was that he would be going from this class to another in two weeks where he would have to use yet another style. I had to answer in the negative. I understood his point (having had to bounce around from style to style myself over the years) but the point of the class is to learn the style that he will use in his American classes. It sucks to have to come from a weak argument position of, "No, you need to do this style because that's the way things are." But, it's the truth. When it comes to academics there are certain rules that just can't be gotten around even if they don't seem to make sense at first. In this case, I do think the rule makes sense because if he were to publish here (which he claims he will not pursue but you never know), he would have to submit in the proper format. This gives the journal a consistent look. And that is no bad thing.

Have you guessed at the second problem of having everyone in the class using their home style? I don't know them. I would be willing to learn them but the problem comes with the styles most likely being in their home language. I am no linguistic scholar. While I have a natural talent for deciphering things, the only other language that I can read with any ease is French. I can pick out words in Spanish but not with any degree of fluency. And I don't know the Chinese alphabet (my one Japanese student said that they use the Chinese alphabet for writing) so I would be completely at a loss there.

Of course, another side to the whole argument is that if they are allowed to write in their home styles. . .what would be the point of the class? Nothing. They would learn nothing that they could use in the future.

Also, the secondary point to the class (and the bigger goal) is to help them understand the concept of plagiarism. According to my superiors, many of the EPI students don't understand the severity of such an action. They don't really comprehend it because their culture isn't set up that way. Mostly, if it's accessible, you can use it. Giving proper citation and credit is not always necessary depending upon what it is. I suspect that EPI is referring to paraphrasing more so than direct quotation. Ugh, paraphrasing is a hard thing because we get most of our information from outside of ourselves. But see, these rules are hammered into American students from very early on. This does not mean that American students don't plagiarize (snort. . .uh huh, never had that happen in my class. . .riiiiggght) but that they have no excuse for doing such a thing. Each case is different, and accidents can happen, but it is an ingrained cultural context. Getting used to using a particular citation style helps keep that concept at the front of our brain instead of the back.

So, I guess that is essentially the whole point to learning a resourcing style: to help keep ourselves honest. It isn't easy but who said it had to be? And it certainly isn't fun for 99% of us (I know a few linguists who love this stuff. . .they're just weird) (wink). Most of my students (both EPI and regular semester) will never really have to use this stuff but does that make it pointless? No. It helps hone a sense of discipline. And even if it doesn't, no knowledge is ever truly wasted. We may not be aware of how knowledge affects us or will affect us, but that is a joy of having it.