Talking Academic Communication

Last month I gave a virtual conference presentation at the 17th IATED Conference in Valencia, Spain. The topic was written communication apprehension experienced by accounting students. It focussed on essay writing by the students in their first few weeks at university. Most previous research has been quantitative, using versions of the Daly and Miller Written Communication Apprehension (WCA) questionnaire. I also use a version, the adaptation by Hassall et al 2000, in this research to assess overall WCA but the main purpose of the study was to analyse the reasons for apprehension given by students in reflections that they wrote immediately after the essay tasks were completed. The questionnaire data shows that there is a small fall in the average apprehension felt by each of the three cohorts towards writing during their first year of study at university. However, for each cohort the highest score, indicating the highest apprehension, increased, meaning that for some apprehension felt

  Conclusions in Academic Writing The conclusion to a piece of academic writing should show the reader that the main discussion or argument has finished. For a coursework assignment it will probably be no more than two paragraphs long, for writing of less than 3000 words it usually just a paragraph (University of Canberra, 2012), while for a dissertation or extended project it is likely to be more complex and longer (Morley, 2010). It is generally around 10% of the whole piece of writing University of Southern Queensland (n.d.). It often opens with a signpost indicating that it is indeed the conclusion, followed by a summary of the main points made. Signposts such as ‘To sum up,..’, ‘To conclude,..’, and ‘In conclusion,..’ are common ways of opening this section. Morley (2010) states that conclusions in academic writing are generally brief and that they serve two general functions. He categorises these functions as a summary which “bring[s] together the main areas covered in the writin