Academic awareness in students' papers : An investigation of information packaging and subjective projections in student papers at university level

AbstractIn this thesis, emphasis was situated around the development of academic awareness among students studying to become teachers of English. To enable such investigation, a limited number of students were requested to submit written papers, conducted within two particular English courses provided at Linnaeus University. The courses concerned are named Academic writing – provided during the first semester of English studies – and Academic writing and rhetoric – provided during the second semester of English studies –. By investigating papers written within these two courses, conclusions could be drawn regarding the students’ development in academic writing. Twenty-five students decided to share their material, and submitted two productions each. Hence, the amount of written work to investigate was delimited to fifty papers. The investigation was conducted through a qualitative study where certain features, connected to the formal genre of academic writing, were analyzed. Information packaging and subjective projections were found to be valid measures of such investigation. The results showed that there was an overall improvement. In fact, all calculations conducted within these measures, indicated that the students had developed their academic awareness