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A Counselors’ Workshop
Facilitator
Zeenath Reza Khan
Organised by
• Provide insight into Academic Writing and Integrity
• Help develop understanding of the need to focus on
academic writing and integrity
• Shed light on status of academic writing and integrity in
the UAE
• Brainstorm
Agenda:
• What is Academic Writing?
• Why is Academic Writing
important?
• And the real reason?
• A Sad but True Example
• 10:45am - 11:00am
Coffee/Tea break
• What is Academic Integrity
• Why is Academic Integrity
important?
• Shocking statistics
• What’s the next step?
• 11:45am Open Forum
• 12noon Workshop Concludes
with Lunch at Empty Quarters,
Block 15, Third Floor
Writing for academic purposes
“any writing done to fulfill a
requirement of a college or
university”
“has one central point or theme with
every part contributing to the main line
of argument, without digressions or
repetitions… objective is to inform
rather than entertain…in the standard
written form of the language”“read by teacher and
researchers or presented
at conferences”
Please work in pairs to answer the following question:
What is Academic Writing?
You will be given 5 minutes to discuss this with your partner after which time we
will discuss it with the rest of the group
• Books and book reports
• Translations
• Essays
• Research paper or research article
• Conference paper
• Dissertation and Thesis - These are written to obtain an advanced degree at a college or university.
• Abstract - This is a short summary of a long document.
• Explication - This is a work which explains part of a particular work.
Please work in pairs to answer the
following question:
Why is Academic Writing important for
high school students?
You will be given 5 minutes to discuss this
with your partner after which time we will
discuss it with the rest of the group
Enhance
Intellectual Capacity
of Students
Increase Student’s
Knowledge base
Enhance Critical
Thinking Skills
Increase Research
Skills
Enhance Student’s
Writing Skills
Teach Time
Management SkillsAcademic Writing
Prepare Students
for good
University/Career
“Many freshmen lack the most basic
skills to write clearly, effectively, and
coherently because their working
knowledge of grammar, punctuation,
spelling, and paragraph structure is so
poor”
“About 60 percent of first-time freshmen
enrolling at the CSU each year do not
show entry-level proficiency in [college-
level English] assessments, even though
they have earned at least a B average in
the required college preparatory
curriculum. As a result, many students
must attend remedial classes, which do not
count for college credit and add cost and
time to earning a degree” – California State
University
“44 percent of university faculty
members say their students are
simply not ready for the rigors of
college-level writing” -Chronicle of
Higher Education
“Faculty members from various
private institutions in the UAE
have voiced their concern over
poor levels of freshmen
students’ academic writing
skills”
“Technology is eroding students’
understanding of and ability to
write coherently, using formal
language, specially social
networking sites and tools such as
Facebook, BBMs, etc”
A student’s essay on William Blake’s “The Tyger” is riddled with errors such as:
• Un-capitalized proper nouns such as god and greek
• Missing punctuation, including periods
• Casual language (“…it is actually about more than just a tiger and stuff.”)
• Slang (“Allusion is all over the freekin place.”)
• Misplaced apostrophes and more slang (“Tyger’s have four feet. Cool, huh?“)
• Use of second person (“If you look at Blake’s history…”)
• Use of Internet-English (“u”, want “2 b”)
• Run-on sentences and sentence fragments
• Absence of transitions
• Lack of organization
• Use of numerals instead of words (“…5 years ago…”)
• Use of Wikipedia as a “credible” source
a drop in the bucket – thousands such students accepted to Universities around the globe with less
than satisfactory writing skills
Tea/Coffee Break
Integrity and Ethics
Please work in pairs to answer the following question:
What is Academic Integrity?
You will be given 5 minutes to discuss this with your partner after which time we
will discuss it with the rest of the group
Academic integrity is the moral code
or ethical policy of academia. This
includes values such as avoidance of
cheating or plagiarism; maintenance of
academic standards; honesty and
rigour in research and academic
publishingDemonstrating the values of honesty,
trust, fairness, respect and
responsibility in all academic
endeavours, including preparing and
presenting work for assessment as
part of coursework or research.
Please work in pairs to answer the
following question:
Why is Academic Integrity important for
high school students?
You will be given 5 minutes to discuss this
with your partner after which time we will
discuss it with the rest of the group
Presence of
Academic
Integrity
Teaches responsibility and
accountability
Teaches ethical practice and moral
behaviour, honesty
Absence of
Academic
Integrity
Creative block
Individual Growth stunted
Hampers growth of society
45,000 caught cheating
at Britain's universities Harvard Investigates
"Unprecedented" Academic
Dishonesty Case :Nearly half of
more than 250 students
Deakin University, Australia has
suspended a student over copied
work, and has had to investigate
more than 100 cases of suspected
cheating
Thirty-four students have been
expelled for cheating at Abu Dhabi
University
Bluetooth earphone
Blackberry cheating
Rampant use of other technologies
Start young
• Learn to identify your student’s unique grammar, spelling, and writing
issues.
• Tailor curricula and writing lessons to address those needs.
• Make sure you are covering the basics.
• Expand instruction to include more college prep work.
• Offer your student what a lecture room teacher of 150 cannot: one-on-one
instruction, frequent writing assignments, and detailed, consistent
feedback.
• Have an Honour Council that pledges students to remain honest in all
endeavors.
• Make sure you are stressing on the importance of integrity and honesty,
not just in exams, but while writing essays and reports
Three-phase outreach program for high schools in the UAE
Phase I - Training
Help interested and registered schools develop
policies, honour codes and practices,
assessments and train teachers in academic
writing and integrity
Phase II - Cascading
The school and teachers will be expected to
train their students, educate them and test them
in their understanding
Phase III – Competition
Essay writing competition which will be conducted first
intra-school for each participating school and the
winning essays will then compete with each other for
the top spots
Have your say…
