The writing assignments and writing problems of doctoral students: Faculty perceptions, pedagogical issues, and needed research

Abstract

The writing requirements and problems of doctoral students have not been targeted in writing survey research, in spite of the importance of writing in the lives of these students. The present survey asked graduate faculty at one university to provide specific information about the writing they require of first-year doctoral students, the criteria they use to evaluate students' writing, and the writing problems of native- and normative-English-speaking (NS and NNS, respectively) students. The 85 questionnaires returned represented 28 departments and were almost equally divided between humanities/social science and science/technology fields. The survey results raise pedagogical issues concerning global versus local writing problems, the role of vocabulary instruction, the need for discipline-specific writing instruction, and the timing of ESL support service writing classes for graduate students.