Writing a Book Critique

 Developing Writing Skills at University Levels: A Book Critique

             Bailey (2006) sustains in his work entitled Academic Writing: A handbook for international students (2^nd 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 (2^nd ed.). Taylor & Francis e-library. Retrieved from http://npu.edu.ua/!e-book/book/djvu/A/iif_kgpm_t27.pdf.