Using Metadiscourse to Improve Coherence in Academic Writing

Jones, Jeremy F

doi:10.5746/leia/11/v2/i1/a01/jfjones

Cited by 16 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This act of persuasion is done through the writer's use of logical reasoning in presenting his propositions and also his ability to employ linguistic features that build relationship with his readers. Furthermore, the art of persuasion involves the writer's skill in sequencing his thoughts so that they are well received by his reader (Jones, 2011;Hyland, 2005). These persuasive skills are encapsulated in Aristotle's famed rhetorical strategies which are lagos, ethos and pathos and the employment of the use of appropriate metadiscourse is one of the important strategies in this persuasive act.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metadiscourse Use in the Persuasive Writing of Malaysian Undergraduate Students

Tan¹,

Eng²

2014

ELT

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Metadiscourse is a prevalent linguistic resource that helps writers to manage the flow of the propositional contents and to direct their stance towards their contents and readers. Its dominance in persuasive writings has motivated this study which is to examine the occurrences and forms of metadiscourse use in the writing of both the high (HEP) and low (LEP) English proficiency Malaysian undergraduate writers. Both the quantitative and qualitative findings of the metadiscourse use were obtained using a concordance software (MP2.2). The results indicated that between the two main domains of metadiscourse, both groups of writers exhibited a greater preference for the use of interactional metadiscourse than the interactive. Between the two groups of writers, it was the HEP writers who exhibited a higher frequency of use for both the interactive and interactional metadiscourse. In terms of the forms used, the HEP writers also used a greater variety of metadiscourse forms when compared to the LEP writers. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the HEP writers had a greater awareness of the academic writing conventions, while the LEP writers still lacked this awareness in their writing. Furthermore, variant forms of metadiscourse use were also noted. This finding implies that more instructional help may be needed to raise the LEP writers' awareness on the importance of metadiscourse use in a persuasive discourse.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metadiscourse Use in the Persuasive Writing of Malaysian Undergraduate Students

Tan¹,

Eng²

2014

ELT

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“…In writing, coherence is a sub-skill. Coherence means the connection of ideas at the idea level and is achieved when sentences and ideas are connected and flow together smoothly, (Jones, 2011).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Emoji to Improve Female Students' Coherence in Writing at Qassim University

Qunayeer

RahmtAllah

2020

ALLS

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Writing is considered a very important learning tool for all content areas. There is no doubt that writing skill is essential for any kind of learning either at the school or the university level. Therefore, the present study attempted to explore the possibility of improving university students’ one of writing sub-skills, known as coherence through emoji. Coherence in the students’ writing was measured according to the students ability to a) use repetition to link ideas, sentences, and paragraphs, b)use transitional expressions to link ideas, sentences, and paragraphs, c) use pronouns to link sentences, d)use synonyms to link ideas and create variety, e) use parallel structures to link ideas, sentences, and paragraphs. The sample of this study was randomly selected from the Third Level female students joining the Department of English at one Saudi public university. The selected subjects were assigned randomly into control group and experimental group. After administrating the pretest for the two groups, the experimental group was given a six-week treatment of emoji meant for improving the writing sub-skill, while the control group was taught writing without using emoji. One week after the treatment, a posttest was administered to the two groups. Results revealed significant difference between the students’ scores in writing in favor of using emoji to improve students’ writing skills. Thus, the findings show the effectiveness of using emoji in improving students’ coherence in writing. The results were used to draw some conclusions and to suggest some recommendations for teaching writing using emoji. The results also recommend further researches to be done on using emoji to improve other language skills and sub-skills.

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“…The essays were selected among other essays that the students had produced in the course because persuasive and argumentative essays are most commonly written in many academic disciplines (Schneer, 2013), mainly in social and arts majors. As students are required to express and develop academic knowledge, critical thinking and reasoning skills to some extent in those essays (Hyland, 2009;Jones, 2011), the essays were a fitting instrument for the study.…”

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In higher education, academic writing is one of the essential skills for undergraduate students to learn. Both in L1 and L2 contexts, regardless of the study major that university students choose, most academic assessments that highly influence their academic success are carried out in the form of writing (Jones, 2011), e.g. essays, reports, research papers and theses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring academic identities of EFL novice writers

Juliaty

2019

Indonesian J. Appl. Linguist.

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In academic writing, undergraduate EFL learners are not required only to apply correct L2 writing system, but more profoundly, construct and convey ideas in ways recognised in their discipline as they continuously create and recreate identities as members of their academic community. Such a process of identity construction shapes EFL novice writers’ characteristics and nurture their growth as writers in the academic environment. This study, thus, aims to explore the portrayal of academic identities of undergraduate EFL novice writers. Eight Indonesian undergraduate students of an English Department in a private Indonesian university participated in this study. The data collected included an autobiography journal, a semi-structured interview and two essay assignments. The data were analysed qualitatively by employing Ivanič’s (1998) concept of writer identity, consisting of autobiographical self, discoursal self and authorial self, and Hyland’s (2010) metadiscourse model. The findings reveal that despite numerous writing repertoires applied to display aspects of autobiographical, discoursal and authorial selves in the learners’ academic writing, the portrayal of academic identities in the writing is overall weak due to the struggles that the learners faced in adjusting and engaging themselves in the academic community of their discipline. Some recommendations in relation to L2 academic writing practice for EFL undergraduate students include facilitating students to have more exposure and access into L2 academic writing culture and academic community of their discipline.

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Using Metadiscourse to Improve Coherence in Academic Writing

Cited by 16 publications

References 8 publications

Metadiscourse Use in the Persuasive Writing of Malaysian Undergraduate Students

Metadiscourse Use in the Persuasive Writing of Malaysian Undergraduate Students

Using Emoji to Improve Female Students' Coherence in Writing at Qassim University

Exploring academic identities of EFL novice writers

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