Key Resources on Academic Writing - Canagarajah and Hinkel

  In over 13 years of blogging, the 3+ months since my last post is the longest I have ever gone without a post. Then again, I've never written a master's thesis before. Since the final version of my thesis got submitted last night, I can now begin sharing some of my thoughts here again.

  My thesis was on academic writing, and I developed a curriculum and the accompanying materials for a course that can take learners from the earliest stages of learning English writing up to being ready to start university in English. My studies ranged all over, but two books proved particularly critical to my understanding and expression of academic writing - Eli Hinkel's Effective Curriculum for Teaching L2 Writing and Suresh Canagarajah's Critical Academic Writing for Multilingual Students. Neither of them sounds like much fun, but they are both fantastic - if you are interested in academic writing!

 Hinkel has written a number of other books, but Effective Curriculum is a masterpiece. It is packed with the practical resources that any English academic writing teacher can use, but especially those who teach English as an additional language for the learners. Not only does she show the research behind her assertions, Hinkel also supplies the details that are needed to implement it. As a minute example, we learn not only about the importance of the passive voice in academic writing, but we are also given the particular passive verbs that are most commonly used. This is an extraordinary resource!

 Canagarajah, on the other hand, designed a masterpiece on how to think about academic writing. Critical Academic Writing provides a philosophy of teaching and of writing that is mindful of the competing needs of respecting and preserving cultural diversity and individuality while also integrating learners into academic conventions to give them maximum opportunities for success. Again, extraordinary!