A Conversation about “Editing” Plurilingual Scholars’ Thesis Writing

Abstract

Drawing on our combined experiences providing thesis writing support, we critically consider the tensions surrounding policies and practices aimed at plurilingual graduate students using English as an additional language (EAL). Our trioethnographic methodology allows us to unpack and explore the ethics framing our individual “editing” practices amid institutional norms, expectations and ideologies. Drawing on relevant literature in the field, our conversations or “trialogues” produce insights and raise questions surrounding the ethical imperative of providing effective thesis writing support for plurilingual EAL writers in an era of increasing internationalization. We conclude with suggestions for flexible, targeted writing support that challenges narrow epistemologies and stale ideologies regarding taboo editing practices of academic and language literacy brokers involved in the production and revision of thesis writing.

Lecturer, Language Tutor, and Student Perspectives on the Ethics of the Proofreading of Student Writing

“…Finally, critics of proofreading worry that students will fail to reflect upon and learn from their proofreader's interventions. Students may want the proofreader to quickly fix their work and may anticipate they will be presented with a polished product that requires no further work or reflection: as one of the proofreaders interviewed by Harwood et al (2012) claimed, "People pay a proofreader to make mistakes go away, not necessarily to learn from them" (p. 577; and see Corcoran et al, 2018, who speak of students who resist attempts to make proofreading educative). Those students buying their way to fluency (Scurr, 2006) may successfully graduate only to run into difficulties upon securing employment in English-speaking workplaces, where they will be without the support of a proofreader and be unable to write to the required standard.…”

French-Medium Instruction in Anglophone Canadian Higher Education: The Plurilingual Complexity of Students and Their Instructors

“…Recent studies from elsewhere in Canada include Chen's (2018) analysis of the relationship between academic language policy and plurilingual practices at a Canadian university and Galante's (2018Galante's ( , 2019 studies of students' responses to plurilingualism-inspired classroom activities in a Canadian English for academic purposes class. Other plurilingualism-focused studies in Canadian contexts have looked at thesis writing processes (Corcoran et al, 2018) and on critical plurilingual pedagogies in English for research publication processes (Englander & Corcoran, 2019).…”

Revisiting Proofreading in Higher Education: Toward an Institutional Response to Editors Canada’s Guidelines for Ethical Editing of Student Texts

“…It is likely no coincidence that a ention to proofreading in research and the media has grown alongside a dramatic increase in international student enrolment in Canada and globally since the year 2000 (Anderson, 2015) and, in turn, that the use of professional proofreading by international students in particular has been a point of focus in the proofreading debate (Corcoran, Gagné, & McIntosh, 2018;Harwood et al, 2009;Shaw, 2014;Turner, 2015a). As the higher education system has become increasingly governed by global market forces (Starfi eld, 2016), public universities in Canada and elsewhere have grown reliant on international students' higher tuition fees as one source to off set decreases in state funding (Anderson, 2015).…”

“…Indeed, many in the proofreading industry, including the tutor whose mistake initiated the SFU controversy, have argued that universities have created the very problem of proofreading they now contend with, as declining admissions standards in response to competition for international students have led to off ers of admission being extended to students whose writing skills do not yet meet the demands of university-level study (Harwood, Austin, & Macaulay, 2010;Lines, 2016;see also Starfi eld, 2016). From this perspective, when universities admit students knowing that they may struggle with academic English upon arrival, they should not then penalize those students for seeking assistance (see also Corcoran et al, 2018). It is worth noting that use of proofreading is not limited to international students; in fact, the majority of participants in my recent study of proofreading at a Canadian university were domestic students who identifi ed as native or near-native English speakers (Conrad, 2018).…”

“…Others charge by the hour or off er a fl at rate for certain types of documents. At rates of a few cents per word, editing services for multiple term papers or an entire thesis manuscript could end up costing a student thousands of dollars (see, for example, Corcoran et al, 2018;Lines, 2016).…”