Writing-for-Publication: Online Pedagogy for Post/Graduate Research Writing

“Publish or perish” pressure is increasing and has been experienced by researchers all over the world, as well as by post/graduate students who are facing the challenge of writing their research papers in highly diverse, multinational and competitive academic environments.
Research studies on writing for publication are grounded in various theoretical frameworks, and focus on such issues as: the importance of English linguistic competence within local contexts (Casanave & Hubbard, 1992), inequality in centre vs periphery scholars’ experiences in the process of knowledge production (Canagarajah, 1996; Curry & Lillis, 2004, 2010; see the chapter by Habibie in this volume), discourse analysis of professional writing (Swales, 1981; 1990; 2004), the intelligibility of a researcher’s community (Flowerdew, 2001, 2008), as well as pedagogies of teaching writing for publication (e.g., Mezek, 2013). Successful approaches of teaching how to write for publication include using “moves” which have emerged from discourse analysis and corpus linguistics; writing guidelines for effective autonomous research writing and independent study; and English-medium text books on academic and scientific writing for classroom-based modes (e.g., “Academic writing for graduate students” by Swales and Feak, 2012). Although the research in the field of writing for publication has been conducted for more than 20 years, and a number of pedagogical models on teaching writing for publication have been developed (e.g., “Writing for scholarly publication”, n.d.; “Writing a scientific research article”, n.d.), the effectiveness of these models has not been established.
This chapter investigates whether effective online synchronous instruction on writing to publish (both at the linguistic and metalinguistic levels) combined with a developed self-regulated learning framework can facilitate the process of writing research at a post/graduate level. The main goal of the study is to develop pedagogy to improve post/graduate students’ research literacies (writing) in relation to their self-regulated learning. To this end, a unique online course was developed combining SRL and writing research in English. Two specific goals of the study are:
• to assess the effectiveness of a five-month online writing course for post/graduate students aimed at improving their research writing competencies (at the linguistic and meta-linguistic levels) and SRL competence;
• to examine if an online course aimed at teaching both writing research, within the framework of self-regulated learning would lead to higher SRL results and better writing for publication skills.