Academic Writing Difficulties for Indonesian Students in Pursuing Postgraduate Studies Abroad

Abstract

Academic writing skills have become an essential aspect that Indonesian students must focus on, especially for those planning or pursuing their postgraduate studies abroad. The current research investigates the difficulties Indonesian students face who currently pursue or recently completed their postgraduate studies in seven countries with different majors. The subject was seven Indonesian students who studied in India, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Poland. The researcher used the qualitative research method under the phenomenology procedure to collect the data. Two questionnaires in the form of open-ended questions were distributed and fulfilled by all research participants. The findings indicate that Indonesian students who pursued postgraduate study abroad faced difficulties in academic writing practice, for instance, paraphrasing the sentence, assuring coherence, formulating cohesion, and expressing their voice. Besides, some also faced problems choosing appropriate words and relevant topics in their writing. The main factors contributing to the difficulties are less academic writing practice, lack of vocabulary, and unfamiliarity with academic writing structure. Even though the students pursued different majors and countries, they had common difficulties writing academic writing. Moreover, cultural differences also influence students’ difficulties.