I do agree with your point. Somehow, we don't impart the skills of academic writing directly through our under graduate and post graduate curricula. I think we need to have inputs on academic writing built into the regular curriculum and probably, we can even think of having a taught course on this subject.

IIango, I also think that teaching academic writing is valuable. Writing is how we express ourselves so it is a fundamental part of academic practice. My concern is that it has been side-lined and ignored by some and treated with contempt by others. I would be happy to see academic writing skills taught at graduate and postgraduate level but I also feel it should be something that should be taught to academics working at university. That way, the right skills are covered at each level.

Absolutely, Erik. Here in India, we have Academic Staff Colleges training academics working in colleges and Universities. Quite a few refresher courses and workshops on research methodology are conducted by these ASCs for academics and students pursuing their M.Phil or Doctoral research. But, I am yet to see these UGC sponsored centers offering specific taught courses on scientific writing. Here, at my University (Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, India), we conducted a Three Day Workshop on Scientific Writing and Publication for academics and research scholars in collaboration with the Department of Social Work & Human Service of James Cook University, Australia. Dr.Abraham Francis and Dr.Nonie Harris conducted the residential workshop for a group of about 30 members. As a follow up of this workshop, we are bringing out an edited volume containing research papers prepared by the participants after completing a peer-review process.

I would like to suggest you to join free online courses on technical or academic writings conducted by many universities. Please visit the websites to know further on this:

https://www.edx.org/

https://www.coursera.org/

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/index.htm

https://www.khanacademy.org/

In India, the British Council teaches such courses. But it is very expensive. Sometimes, Universities like Bharathidasan University or University of Madras conduct such workshop on scientific writings as Dr Ilango said.

Erik, that is a lacuna in the curriculum at the UWI. As a librarian who scrutinises theses and dissertations, the paucity in the writing is of great concern. Part of the problem I attribute to students' lack of preparation in writing for academia, lecturer's inability to guide, some level of laziness, and our inability to critique as editors. Writing is communication and unlike a conversation you have the opportunity to revisit your penned essay so that it is as clear as possible. Some persons shy away from the re-writing process. I have sat for hours at consultations explaining the required writing based on a specific style manual; representation of illustrations and tables, and whatnot. For some persons it's illuminating and unfortunately some are still lost. One lecturer has argued, "what is academic writing?" Too often we believe it is using a lot of "big words" to resort to the dialect, but it is not. Academic writing is communicating to peers in your discipline. I am currently working on a project to have my library (UWI Mona) collaborate with the Writing Centre/Language & Linguistics to see if we can improve the situation. I have also been asked to conduct a seminar for the Faculty of Social Sciences. I would be interested in noting some of your specific challenges so we can unearth or confirm the real issues, and at least attempt to address them.

Cherry-Ann, I take your point and agree that writing should be about communication. My interest is in learning how we are 'taught' to write (or not taught to write). I feel that lecturers get to a certain stage without any real formative guidance then feel that they are left in a situation that makes asking for support difficult. I asked the question to try to get some ideas about how people learn to write. We can see that there are problems but I don't get a feeling that people are asking for help/support.

I agree with some of the points expressed in that native English students (Home students) are not taught how to write in a manner that is suitable for academic essays. I teach international students academic writing and presentations and there is a vast amount of literature on how to write academic style and register. There are many differences between normal conversational English and the English expected for academic work but also essay structure, referencing, synthesis of information and critical analysis of sources are not taught to home students. Universities should offer short courses on academic writing to improve the overall standard of writing.

You're correct. People are not asking for help/support. Wouldn't you agree that this behaviour comes because there is an assumption that if you have attained a certain position you should know how to write? Or worse, if you work in a particular field, you can write? Look at the daily newspapers. To be honest, our ego hardly allows us to act differently. When I worked in Acquisitions I received a poorly edited and cited publication from a Fellow at UWISTA. Since the chap came from my neck of the woods, I sent a little email suggesting that he use the services of the library for citation and referencing check. Well, the "tracing" I received was enough to rethink doing something similar (using my authentic info, that is). Gary makes a good point but then while Caribbean students are classed as International, we do not see English as a second-language or ourselves as non-native English speakers, and by association, writers. Note too that there are different types of academic works which even then differentiates the tone the document should adopt. What is standard, or should be, is syntax, grammar, spelling, etc.

To learn to write, to communicate, you must first be aware that you have a problem, and it is at that point instruction becomes relevant. CETL needs to treat with these very real issues since these academics are the ones who grade and must advise future researchers. Workshops in writing are certainly required. However there must be some consensus on common problems so these can be more succinctly addressed rather than the very general way we tend to treat with problems because we do not want to eyeball any particular individual.

Cherry-Ann, I quite agree that we should be learning how to communicate at the appropriate level and that there is a need for workshops. The problem is (as you rightly say) that someone's ego may prevent them from attending such workshops. This seems like a rather ironic cycle where some colleagues extract themselves from the whole self- improvement process.

Gary Stobbs has made a good point. Universities should offer short courses on academic writing. Otherwise it should be one of the parts (or lessons) in research methodology (report writing) at least in Post Graduate level. But without practicing it regularly with proper guidance, one can n't learn it.

I agree with above views, But if writing has to be taught then it needs to be done step by step from the primary classes. Writing always needs to start with simple items of words, simple sentences followed by bigger sentences. Finally before doing any type of writing it is important to get an experience or the child should have heard enough of stories followed by discussions to do a small piece of writing. Unfortunately at primary level language learning emphasis on copying down items written from the board or asked to write something that is abstract.