Abstract:

For students academic writing frequently presents challenges. Academic writing modules designed to support students in developing good practice, focus on the avoidance of plagiarism, yet inspire fear of the scrutiny of Turnitin. As part of the process, referencing conventions are discussed in detail; how a citation should be laid out, how to construct a bibliography, where the commas should be placed, and when something should be in brackets. Small details. Lots of details. Opaque, complex, seemingly incomprehensible conventions, and to students simply designed to ‘catch them out’.

Students, already lacking in confidence develop the position that academic writing is a combative exercise. The possibly unpopular question we ask in our session, is if this is really *still* necessary? Why is it that for students we focus on the minutia of referencing? Producing endless documentation and examples to demonstrate, but technology, and the tools which are part and parcel of staff practice to automate and ease the process are introduced as an afterthought. For staff, technology is integral to writing practice, the idea of not utilising it unthinkable; yet we still promote outdated methods of academic practice to our students that complicate and confuse.

This paper documents the progression of work over a 2 year period. The first part of the process was an initial research project examining student misunderstandings of academic writing and associated plagiarism. The second was to redesign entirely an academic skills module to address these issues, with emphasis on the effective use of technology to support academic writing and digital literacy. The outcome was to demystify academic writing, develop students transferable skills and digital literacy, allowing them to focus on purpose rather than practice of referencing.

Keywords:

Academic writing, transition to university, digital literacy, assessment.