Transcript EXPLORING, READING AND WRITING SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE IN ENGLISH THE NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS’ PERSPECTIVE Adriana Popescu, Princeton University ASEE 2008, Pittsburgh.

EXPLORING, READING AND
WRITING SCIENTIFIC
LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
THE NON-NATIVE
ENGLISH SPEAKERS’
PERSPECTIVE
Adriana Popescu, Princeton University
ASEE 2008, Pittsburgh
Do you ever hit the hay
or hit the ceiling? Horse
around or smell a rat?
Pay through the nose
or stick your neck out?
“If you understand every word in a text and still
fail to grasp what the text is all about, chances
are you are having trouble with the idioms”.
Adam Makkai, PhD.
Professor of Linguistics
University of Illinois at Chicago
In a nutshell…
• Many expressions and words remain
unfamiliar for non-native speakers
• Library terminology is still mysterious
– 11% of international students don’t know
what a Reference Librarian does and 17.1% of
international students don’t know what
Interlibrary Loan is.
Yan Liao, Mary Finn, and Jun Lu,
“Information-Seeking Behavior of International Graduate Students
vs. American Graduate Students: A User Study at Virginia Tech 2005”,
College & Research Libraries 68, no. 1 (Jan. 2007): 5-25.
By the hundreds (2006-2007)
• International undergrads - 9.2% (442)
• International grads - 38.6 % (896)
• Engineering grad enrollment - 21.7%
• International grad enrollment in
Engineering - 55%
• The largest concentration of
international students:
1. Electrical engineering
2. Economics
3. Chemistry
Information Fluency and
International Students at Princeton
University Library:
The Bottom Line
• Reach a solid level of
knowledge of services
and collections
• Efficient use of the
research collections
• Draw on the expertise of
the subject librarians and
bibliographers
We are all in the same boat
Frustrations on all sides
• Engineering faculty
(Advisors)
• International students
Can we help each other?
• The Writing Program
• School of Engineering (SEAS)
• The Library
Writing in Sciences and
Engineering (WSE) courses…
You don’t need to be an Engineer
to learn about Engineering
• Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering
Education created in 2005
– Mission: prepare all students, engineers and
non-engineers “to be leaders in an increasingly
complex, technology driven society”
• New courses
– “Engineering in the Modern World”
– “Reading and Writing About the Scientific
Literature in English” WSE-1 (6 weeks)
– “Writing an Effective Scientific Research
Article” WSE-2 (6 weeks)
2006: WSE is making an entrance
Course Goals
• Increase participants’ experience with writing in
English
• Deepen understanding of scientific writing
• Develop strategies for collaborating in writing
• Write critically and effectively about scientific
articles in area of research
International doctoral students in Computer Science,
Electrical Engineering, Environmental Engineering,
Physics, Molecular Biology, Materials Science –
varies each semester (max. 12)
WSE-1 “Reading and Writing About
the Scientific Literature in English”
Course format
•
Weekly reading assignments,
followed by writing assignments
•
Informal writings are posted to a
message board
•
Writings express students’
reactions and thoughts about
the writing style and about the
content
•
Formal writing: ~1500 word
review of the scientific literature
in each participant’s field of
study
Course Topics
• Week 1: What additional
resources are needed to develop
as effective scientific writers?
• Week 2: What makes for a
quality paper in your field?
(discuss readings, library
research survey)
• Week 3: Where does your field
conduct its business? (library
instruction)
• Week 4: How do you identify a
good problem in your field?
• Week 5: How do you develop a
line of argument?
• Week 6: How do you revise
effectively?
Engineering Library’s
Involvement: Training the Trainer
Course Topics & Syllabus
• Humanities vs. Engineering
– Organization and structure of
engineering information
– Publishing and scholarly
communication trends
– Reading lists
– Plagiarism (examples speak volumes)
• Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement
on Best Practices, Council of Writing Program
Administrators
http://www.wpacouncil.org
• Academic Integrity at Princeton: A Guide to Campus
Resources
http://www.princeton.edu/writing/integrity
And they spoke…straight from the
shoulder
Week 1: assigned readings
Diane Belcher, “The
Apprenticeship Approach to
Advanced Academic Literacy:
Graduate Students and Their
Mentors,” English for Specific
Purposes 13, no. 1 (1994):
23-34.
Yu Ren Dong, “Non-native
Graduate Students’
Thesis/Dissertation Writing in
Science: Self-reports by
Students and Their Advisors
from Two US Institutions,”
English for Specific Purposes
17, no. 4 (1998): 369-390.
Week 2: discussions + survey
Week 2: In their own
words…
Students agreed with the findings of the studies
done by Belcher (1994) and Dong (1998):
– International students tend to take less advantage of the
resources available to them such as the library, labs, and
other social networks and they are less likely to ask for
help or be open about their needs with their advisors or
peers, unless they belonged to the same cultural group.
– It is much easier for domestic students to take
advantage of these resources because they are so
familiar with this education system.
Week 2: In their own words…
(continued)
– For international students, these resources might be totally
new and even if they would know about them, they hesitate
to try using them because of fear that it will not be done “in
the right way”.
– International students have more limited social networks
than domestic students and their information sources tend to
be found by communicating with fellow students in their
home countries.
– Significant difference between the social
experiences of students from Asian countries
and those from European countries, in the
sense that students from Europe don’t share
the same feeling of isolation as their colleagues
from Asia and they tend to create larger social
networks than Asian students.
How much do international
engineering grad students know
about library research? Very little…
• Week 2: After
discussions, the survey
– Results reviewed and
discussed with writing faculty
– Library session planned to
address results of survey and
be specific to students’
research
Straight from the horse’s mouth…
• How do you keep current with what is new
in your field?
– Paper that my advisor forwards to me, search on
internet if I have some problems with my experiment,
check web once in awhile to look at the new papers.
– Conferences, Google, Web of Science.
– Look at the major conferences in the field.
– Get info from my professor, people whom we collaborate
with, friends working in the same field, conferences, etc.
– Lab mates, advisor.
– I will Google first with the topic and some key words
related to my interest. Web of Science is the best
choice, since it’s very poor in key word searching.
– Google Book/Scholar. Library.
Straight from the horse’s mouth…
(part 2)
• You have just found a citation to a paper
that looks interesting; describe the process
you would follow to get a copy of that paper.
– Google Scholar!
– Google the source of that citation. See if the source has an
online database. If not, try searching through the library’s
collections
– Google it  so far all papers I needed were available for
free so I didn’t have to use any special Princeton benefit
account
– First, search it on Google. Second, if it’s downloadable,
download it. If not, try some special like IEEE Xplore, ACM
Digital Library. If still not, then go to the library to find a
hard copy
– Hook up the title on Google, or go the library database
Week 3: You think you know the
LIBRARY?
“Where does your field conduct its
business?”
• Unique group dynamic
• Support the goal of the course
• Task oriented, specific tools
• Practicalities: news from the homeland,
job hunting and interviewing
• Regular individual consultations continued
for WSE-2
In the end…
• Cultural and language differences will remain an
important factor in the process of adjusting to the
North American educational system
– Thin dividing line between isolation and alienation
– Internationals seek primary help from their co-nationals when their
spoken English proficiency is limited, and only approach academic
support systems when their English competence and self
confidence is higher
• Clear role for mediation services of various kinds
– Effective discussions need to be conducted in a supportive
environment!
• Research skills and effective use of informational
resources are valued
Bibliography
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Mary Beth Allen, “International Students in Academic Libraries: a User
Survey,” College & Research Libraries 54 (July 1993):323-333.
Diane Belcher, “The Apprenticeship Approach to Advanced Academic
Literacy: Graduate Students and Their Mentors,” English for Specific
Purposes 13, no. 1 (1994): 23-34
Yu Ren Dong, “Non-native Graduate Students’ Thesis/Dissertation
Writing in Science: Self-reports by Students and Their Advisors from
Two US Institutions,” English for Specific Purposes 17, no. 4 (1998):
369-390..
Yan Liao, Mary Finn, and Jun Lu, “Information-Seeking Behavior of
International Graduate Students vs. American Graduate Students: A
User Study at Virginia Tech 2005”, College & Research Libraries 68, no.
1 (Jan. 2007): 5-25.
Nancy Moeckel and Jenny Presnell, “Recognizing, Understanding, and
Responding: A Program Model of Library Instruction Services for
International Students,” Reference Librarian no.51-52 (1995):309-325.
Kwasi Sarkodie-Mensah, “In the Words of a Foreigner,” Research
Strategies 4 (Winter 1986): 30-31.
C.-I., Sung, Investigating rounded academic success: the influence of
English language proficiency, academic performance, and socioacademic interaction for Taiwanese doctoral students in the United
States (2000). Unpublished PhD dissertation. Ann Arbor: The University
of Michigan.