Developing Writing Skills at University Levels: A Book Critique
Bailey (2006) sustains in his work entitled Academic Writing: A handbook for
international students (2nd ed.) that writing academic pieces can result in a major concern for foreign students
studying at colleges and universities where English is the language to be used
for both academic and communicative purposes. It is for this reason that he developed
a handout that students can resort to in order to get trained in the necessary
skills required by most university courses. Published in London in 2006 by
Taylor & Francis e-library, the book is presented as “a practical and
easy-to use guide” (p.2) to writing with explanations, examples, practice
exercises and a few models aimed at helping university students work through
the process of writing academic pieces, respecting formats and conventions
according to which their work will be assessed.
The handout is structured into four
main parts, each dealing with different aspects of writing. At the same time, a
number of sub-sections within the units provide more specific information and
examples on different elements of the writing process. Though comprehensive in
content and practice, Bailey's (2006) work on occasions lacks clarity in the organization
of the contents adding unnecessary confusion to an already difficult issue for
students to tackle. Particularly exemplifying of this is the system of
cross-referencing. It cannot be denied that this system results in a useful way
for “both teachers and students to quickly find the help they need with all
writing tasks” (Bailey, 2006, p.2).
However, cross-references as
presented in this handout seem to serve better for revision purposes, when
students are already familiarized with the concepts, processes and
interrelations involved in writing but only need to review them. For
inexperienced students, cross-referencing leads to a sense of never grasping a
topic fully as there is always something else to learn or read about. Instead, it
would have been more clarifying if the elements common to all writing types had
been presented at the beginning, before dealing with the writing process.
Additionally, recognizing these common elements in the different writing types models
might have given students a good panorama before deconstructing a text for its
internal analysis. The inevitable outcome would have been students that do not
have to read backwards and forwards and get lost in a cloud of fragmented, and
at times repeated, ideas.
Following this line of analysis, students
with little or no previous experience in writing skills might find themselves
at a loss when facing activities such as the one on page 14. In this simple
activity, students are requested to produce certain knowledge they might not
have at this stage. A more satisfactory activity would have been to provide a
chart with the information together with short models for students to match with
the information. In this way, it would be presented as a recycling exercise,
which seems to be the purpose here.
In direct relation to this flaw, it
can also be added that even though Bailey (2006) states that the handout goes
well with “students of all subjects and levels” (p.8), not all students might
be familiarized with the terminology used in the activities. A clear example of
this appears on pages 29 and 161, where specific terminology is expected to be defined
by students with no prior explanations. A better option would have been to
provide the students with a definition alongside with a clear, short example
rather than having students guess meanings. This could also apply to
terminology common to all writing styles such as reference, cite, register, key words among others, for which an
explanatory definition at the beginning of the work would have been more than
helpful for students.
Having carried out an
analysis of Bailey's (2006) work, it is possible to conclude that the handbook
contains an important number of examples as well as questions that help
students organize ideas while they see them in context. Nevertheless, it simultaneously
deals with more information than students might be able to cope with, being
this particularly noticeable in students just initiating their university
studies. In addition, the system of cross-referencing does not contribute with a
better understanding of the interrelation between writing concepts because it is
just too much information to grasp at the same time. If these issues are taken
into account, the handbook does provide good practice for students aiming at
developing their writing skills, becoming resourceful material that university
students might wish to have on their bookshelves.
References
Bailey, S. (2006). Academic Writing: A handbook for international
students (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis e-library. Retrieved from http://npu.edu.ua/!e-book/book/djvu/A/iif_kgpm_t27.pdf.
