SLWIS Newsletter - September 2014 (Plain Text Version)

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In this issue:
Leadership Updates
•  LETTER FROM THE CHAIR
Articles
•  HELPING STUDENTS BY PREPARING TEACHERS
•  PROVIDING FEEDBACK TO JUNIOR AND SENIOR MULTILINGUAL STUDENTS AT A STEM UNIVERSITY
•  CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: A RESEARCH AND PRACTICE PERSPECTIVE
Brief Reports
•  NEW AND EXCITING RESEARCH ABOUT THE RAMIFICATIONS OF LANGUAGE POLICIES IN THE CONTEXT OF SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING
•  TALKING ABOUT THE P-WORD: A BOOK TEASER FROM FOSTERING INTERNATIONAL STUDENT SUCCESS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
•  SCHOLARSHIP ON L2 WRITING IN 2013: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
•  STUDIES REFERENCED IN SCHOLARSHIP ON L2 WRITING IN 2013: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
•  CCCC CONTROVERSY: ARTICULATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN L2 WRITING AND TRANSLINGUAL WRITING
Book Reviews
•  REVIEW OF ACADEMIC WRITING FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS: ESSENTIAL TASKS AND SKILLS
•  REVIEW OF A COMPLETE GRAMMAR GUIDE FOR ELL & ESL WRITERS
•  REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC WRITING IN A SECOND LANGUAGE
ABOUT THIS COMMUNITY
•  SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING INTEREST SECTION CONTACT INFORMATION
•  SLW NEWS: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC WRITING IN A SECOND LANGUAGE

Jennifer Wilson, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

Hanauer, D. I., & Englander, K. (2013). Scientific writing in a second language. Anderson, SC: Parlor Press. 194 pages, paperback.

Because I work on a daily basis with linguistically diverse graduate students and faculty members in science and engineering fields, I was intrigued to read this recent addition to the Parlor Press Second Language Writing series, edited by Paul Kei Matsuda. While writing teachers looking for practical classroom activities may be disappointed, this volume will be useful for program administrators designing new services for linguistically diverse scientists or for scholars conducting research on this topic.

According to the authors, this book has three goals: (1) to synthesize previous research about this topic, (2) to share what the authors have learned from their own research into this topic, and (3) to share relevant pedagogical principles and approaches developed from their study of these writers.

Chapters 1–3 correspond to the first goal of this book. In these chapters, the authors explain the general purpose of scientific writing; portray the socioeconomic function of scientific publishing; describe structural and linguistic features of scientific articles; and illustrate the context of scientific publishing around the world, with a focus on the challenges of publishing from/in “periphery” countries.

The focus shifts in Chapters 4–7 from providing an overview of related topics and past research to reporting on a particular study conducted by the authors in Mexico. Chapter 4 describes the background and methods of the project, while the next two chapters report on the findings of the quantitative survey of 148 native-Spanish-speaking scientists and the qualitative interviews with 16 of those scientists. Chapter 7 provides cross-case analysis based on the 16 interviews.

The final two chapters aim to fulfill the authors’ third goal, and, for me, were the most valuable chapters in the volume. In Chapters 6 and 7, Hanauer and Englander delineate multiple types of support that the interview participants either listed receiving or requested as needed during their previous studies and current work. Chapter 8 expands on this information by providing a list of principles that should undergird any program for linguistically diverse scientists and describing multiple pedagogical and programmatic ways to provide relevant support. Chapter 9 reiterates the claim that creating such well-designed programs is crucial to the health of scientific inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge, as well as to the careers of multilingual scientists themselves.

My overall reactions to this text are mixed. According to the back cover, this book is designed to be a “central resource for professional scientists whose first language is not English and for those applied linguists, second language writing specialists, and compositionists who work with them”—however, in attempting to create a resource for multiple groups of readers, the authors run the risk of frustrating these readers. For example, the material on scientific publishing and writing presented in the first section might be illuminating to “professional scientists” seeking to learn more on these topics, but instructors or administrators working with linguistically diverse scientists may be familiar already with much of that information. Likewise, the dissertation-like detail about the minutiae (e.g., the actual wording of the survey questions and the MANOVA [multivariate analysis of variance] results) of the study conducted in Mexico may be of interest to fellow L2 writing researchers, but it seems irrelevant or overwhelming to classroom instructors or to professional scientists expecting a self-help guide.

The book hits its mark, however, as a resource for both decision-makers and researchers. As a writing program administrator (WPA), I gained a better sense of the types of support my center and institution can provide to our faculty members who are writing about their research in a language that is not their home/primary/first language. For example, WPAs will find suggestions for faculty-oriented initiatives that they can personalize to their own campuses and then pitch to a provost or faculty support office. As a scholar, I was intrigued by the findings presented in Chapters 5–7, and other researchers will be motivated by the data from the Mexican scientists to investigate similar questions in various contexts.

In short, this book is not the practical handbook that the back cover implies, and in places excess detail obscures the authors’ claims. Nonetheless, this book will be interesting to researchers in second language writing, WPAs who are working to create (and justify) programs to support linguistically diverse scientists, and teachers of scientific writing who wish to better understand their students.