Identifying the needs of postgraduate students: The first step of academic writing courses
Abstract
Academic writing practices constitute central processes through which students learn the conventions of their disciplines to meet the expectations of their academic communities. Therefore, academic writing courses should touch on the specific dimensions of it. One of the most prominent requirement of these courses is to identify the needs of students and to implement a program based on the negotiation between the needs of students and the expectations of academic communities. The present study aimed to explore the academic writing needs of post-graduate students attending at departments related to English language. The analysis revealed that the participants (30 postgraduate students of English) obtain a clear idea of the disciplinary conventions and the importance communication with readers in academic genres but they did not seem to develop an awareness of building stance in academic genres. There was not a statistical difference between MA and PhD students’ academic writing needs. Apparently, academic writing courses in post-graduate programs should place heavy demands on more specific needs-based curriculum to meet their students’ target needs.
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