e-book review

The Academic Writing for College Students

There are five e-books that the reviewer has read for mid-term presentation. All of them talk about writing course which focus not only to the academic essay or writing, but also the technology, the media of teaching writing, and the persuasive writing. The first book is about academic writing in the first year of a university education by Otto Kruse, a professor at University of Applied Sciences, Erfurt, Germany. He outlines some typical problems that university students face when they start to work on their first writing assignments without being taught to understand the differences between writing at the high school level and the university level. The writing skills required will be discussed as something to be taught at the university, not in high school, as they are inherently connected to the traditions, forms of thinking, modes of communication, and research methods of the academic world itself.

Kruse’s brief explanation about non-language major student who struggle to write and learn an academic writing teaches me a great deal that as an English Student which focuses the study on the language the reviewer has been learning all about the writing from the non-academic to the academic ones. Therefore, the reviewer is one of the lucky students whom most of them do not get special lessons about writing an academic paper at the beginning of their study. But, something came in mind when the author states that American college students are taught about the academic writing at the beginning whereas the European students are not nor the Indonesian college students. So, how is it different? There must be reasons for that; however Kruse does not state them in this book. Furthermore, the reviewer strongly advises to put the academic writing lesson as a mandatory subject in the college curricula so that every student from outside of English major can make a good academic writing too.

Kruse’s book is quite different from the second book the reviewer wants to emphasize the importance and the structure of the academic writing as the reviewer first explained about the girl who struggles to acquire the academic writing skill while the next book which entitled ‘tecnique for college writing’ by Kathleen Moore and Susie Cassel (2011) which mainly talks about the fundamental elements of the academic writing. The first chapter of this book briefly explains about the basic elements of the academic writing in which the brief history of the academic writing is also cited in the book. This related introduction of the academic essay is actually the pivotal aspect of writing as academic purposes because the deeper knowledge that is acquired by a student the better the results or application the latter. So, producing a good academic essay does not always mean a flawless explanation about how to write, but going into a deeper intercourse will do the work for the better understanding a student can have, the better the writing product will be created.

Therefore, this knowledge should be distributed to the students, especially the college students, at the second year of their terms. They are being introduced to the academic essay within that year, so it will be like hitting a jackpot if the lecturers briefly explains the fundamental aspects , the introduction, the brief history of the academic essay so that when they are assigned to make an academic writing there will be less confusion and of course a good academic writing is just the matter of putting the ideas in the correct places rather than what has been our problems-how to begin, and how to indicate a good writing, from which these problems have been rooted at the introduction of the academic essay.

            While in the second chapter, the author clearly defines the importance and the method of making a good thesis statement for essays. The C-S-C method which stands from the broad to the narrow scope makes writing a thesis statement is much more fun than before. Therefore, the reviewer must say that every writing teachers or lecturers should distribute this method to their students in order a good writing composition can be made. However, teachers should not be too frigid about this method that other methods can be as fun or easy for other students who have different approaches that can work on them. If this method cannot work on your students teachers or lecturers may find other approaches that suit them best. Even so, the reviewer does not agree that a thesis statement should be put together in its three parts that there might be a condition that a thesis statement can only state the claim which is the most important part of a thesis statement. So, the reviewer thinks the writer should also clarify the core or the most important part of a thesis statement.

Well, the idea of the third chapter is to make the students become more critical about the usual things that they see. The more they contemplate about them in which they calculate the repetition, the uniqueness of things then try to generalize them into something simpler and rational, indicates that the students already understand their function as the academicians. Does it have something to do about writing an academic essay? Indeed, since the students, especially at the higher education are obliged to create an academic writing that will be useful for the society. By training their critical thinking with these methods-observation and abstraction, lecturers may set higher hopes to his/her students because they are made to be more critical which make them think, and that is the education is all about. And, you see, writing is not going to be something as difficult as what it is. So, the reviewer strongly recommends the observation-abstraction method to be applied not only at the higher level education but it should be started at the secondary school. Even so, the input should be relevant to their studies so that they will not be overlapped.

The fourth chapter of the book which talks about burden of proof is indeed an interesting topic at the writing course because we are not used to with this term. Actually, the basic requirement of writing for academic purposes or not, this matter is the most important part of writing. Whenever the idea holds in our mind we need to find additional information about it or else the idea will be left as an empty phrase; therefore, we need to find the other elements of that idea that their compilation is called as the burden of proof whose function is as the supporting aspects which make an idea becomes rational and acceptable. Lecturers or teachers can create the same analogy when teaching how to make a good thesis statement of an essay. The first thing to do is to boost the students’ critical thinking by stating a provoking or controversial topic, if this works the students will find the remained information about it and create some arguments that will support their ideas. This can be a basic approach for teachers or even lecturers in teaching writing which focus on creating a thesis statement. Therefore, I think, the burden of proof can be used at any level of education, but teachers should remember that any input that will be delivered to the students has to be appropriate with their study.

In conclusion, those chapters are related to each other and the major topic is creating a good academic essay by providing a good thesis statement which the methods of creating it is already written in this book. So, teachers or lecturers should highlight the significance or importance of a thesis statement that the core of an academic essay is based on it. Furthermore, the explanation of the academic writing will be explained structurally as the thesis statement cited. Therefore, the first thing that requires in teaching writing is the lecturers or teachers’ understanding about the thesis statement and the fundamental aspect of academic writing so that when this study is delivered there will be no overlap or confusion among the students.

The third book is written by Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli (2008). The writers deliver their ideas along with some details that can support their arguments clearly. The book is quite interesting that it talks about persuasive writing instead of the academic one which I want to focus on. Even though the topic of this book, lets say, is not quite related with an academic essay, the persuasive writing which stands out for having the art of arguing with the reasonable facts or arguments, lists the ways of stating your arguments so that it will be accepted by people. In other words, it is the art of winning your opinion or arguments. And, that is what we do in the academic writing which means that to soften our arguing skill we can adopt these persuasive methods to gain the nods of many people. The reviewer believes that this method can be applied to all grades of students because this method is various enough started from the easiest one until the more complicated one.

Unlike, the persuasive writing that lists the useful methods of supporting our arguments, the fourth book emphasizes the use of technology as the media of teaching writing for it is one of the effective ways to gain students attention during the learning and teaching process. Coffin, Curry, Goodman, Hewings, Lilis, and Swann (2003) suggested that it is important for the lecturers to support the use of the technology because technology does not replace the lecturers, but provides great resources which have great effects if it is incorporated thoughtfully.

The reviewer does agree with this book that suggests the use of technology to help both lecturers and students to simplify their work. Furthermore, the use of time will be more effective that technology is not limited by the space or even time. In addition, the technology provides many kinds of devices that can be useful for students, for example is using the computer conferencing as media in developing students’ argument skills. Students can also share their writing to correct by other students. As a result, teaching writing process will run well and effectively. The internet is also can be used to improve students’ writing skill for it provides numerous writing resources.

However, another technology development, the Wikipedia, which is believed by Robert E. Cummings can improve students writing skill by assigning them to post their writing in the Wikipedia is not an effective way of teaching writing. The reviewer learns that a Wikipedia assignment for the composition classroom is a debatable topic in the writing course for its increasing difficulty and complexity. If we talk about the higher education in this country, the reviewer does not think that it is not applicable that many of college students have great competencies in writing for academic purposes. However, we need to be smart on this. The success of posting a student writing in Wikipedia is indeed something that can be proud of. Even so, we are afraid that a student with low-self motivation will inhibit their writing desire for having been rejected by the Wikipedia judges because of the level of competition is not only among Indonesia’s students or academicians, but people from across the globe which includes the English native speakers that have more probability to have their writing posted in Wikipedia. In addition, instead of couraging the students to gain confidence in writing, they will become aware that writing is too difficult and complicated.

Therefore, the reviewer suggests the teachers or lecturers to have the students post their writing in the writing forum of Indonesia academicians so that they are able to post what they have created and still can be seen by people all around the world, but the scope of the competition is still local. When the students can read what they have written in this forum they will be motivated to create a fresh and better academic writing which can compete with other International academic writings even the one’s in Wikipedia. So, there is a kind of filtering in this process that the lecturers have to select his/her students who are competent enough to put their writing in International academic forum like Wikipedia.

Even though, the reviewer still doubts about the effectiveness of using Wikipedia for this writing assignment, the reviewer agrees with Cummings who also wrote ‘Wiki Writing: Collaborative Learning in the College Classroom’. That in an integrated writing course gives advantages through the four major stages for the student writers-the orientation, invention, negotiation, and reflection which help students to develop their critical thinking that make the composition process become more meaningful. In conclusion, this assignment is still applicable for Indonesia college students, but it will be better if the lecturers do not directly assign their students to post their academic writing in Wikipedia, instead they have them post their writing in the local forum, and select the best one to compete in Wikipedia.

From all of the e-books, it can be concluded that academic writing should be taught completely and clearly to the higher education students because it will be a mandatory task for them as a part of the academic environment. So, they have to master the basic of the academic writing, especially the composing of the thesis statement which is the core of an essay. Then, organizing the supporting details or the burden of proof that make their arguments acceptable by understanding the art of arguing. The use of technology can also help them to improve their academic writing like using the computer or internet; however, exposing their writing to an international forum directly is not recommended for it might inhibit their writing motivation.