Therefore, the rhetorical and grammatical patterns of academic writing here in the United States in an environment of higher education are most likely different from the rhetorical and grammatical patterns of your first culture and language. Writing at the graduate level at an American university demands many skills that even many native-English speakers don't have since the graduate level environment is a new communicative environment to most students. First of all, professors expect more than simple recall or restatement of facts. Student scholars are expected to demonstrate a higher level of critical thinking. These thinking skills of comparison, analysis, synthesis, and creativity are expected in such assignments as a semester research paper or a Ph.D. dissertation.
Professors also expect a more formal style of language, both in sentence structure and word choice.
The good news is that these skills can be learned with clear understanding of the concepts and with lots of practice and feedback. All of these writing skills are taught in English 407 by an ESL academic writing specialist who understands the needs of the students and the expectations of the readers here in academia. For further information, refer to Course Description and Required Assignments. English 407a presents the most common writing tasks and language patterns for composing academic research papers, i.e., reporting, comparison, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, citation, graphics, sentence definition, and process description. Students also learn awareness of audience and purpose, strategies to attain focus and flow , strategies to achieve precise and concise diction and syntax, and strategies to reduce grammar errors.