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    ROMANO MIGUEL ABALOS
    The document summarizes and compares two studies on academic writing proficiency. The first study by Mcdonald and Murtagh evaluated students' writing in terms of readability, lexical density, coherence, and grammar complexity. The second study by Ofte also examined these linguistic elements but additionally considered students' metalinguistic awareness and adaptation to new academic conventions. Both studies assessed higher education students in English foreign language settings. While the studies differed in their assessment approaches, they both found that evaluating academic writing proficiency is complex, requiring consideration of various language factors and cognitive processes.

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    Sample Comparative Summary

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    ROMANO MIGUEL ABALOS
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    The document summarizes and compares two studies on academic writing proficiency. The first study by Mcdonald and Murtagh evaluated students' writing in terms of readability, lexical density, coherence, and grammar complexity. The second study by Ofte also examined these linguistic elements but additionally considered students' metalinguistic awareness and adaptation to new academic conventions. Both studies assessed higher education students in English foreign language settings. While the studies differed in their assessment approaches, they both found that evaluating academic writing proficiency is complex, requiring consideration of various language factors and cognitive processes.

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    The document summarizes and compares two studies on academic writing proficiency. The first study by Mcdonald and Murtagh evaluated students' writing in terms of readability, lexical density, coherence, and grammar complexity. The second study by Ofte also examined these linguistic elements but additionally considered students' metalinguistic awareness and adaptation to new academic conventions. Both studies assessed higher education students in English foreign language settings. While the studies differed in their assessment approaches, they both found that evaluating academic writing proficiency is complex, requiring consideration of various language factors and cognitive processes.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    22 views3 pages

    Sample Comparative Summary

    Uploaded by

    ROMANO MIGUEL ABALOS
    The document summarizes and compares two studies on academic writing proficiency. The first study by Mcdonald and Murtagh evaluated students' writing in terms of readability, lexical density, coherence, and grammar complexity. The second study by Ofte also examined these linguistic elements but additionally considered students' metalinguistic awareness and adaptation to new academic conventions. Both studies assessed higher education students in English foreign language settings. While the studies differed in their assessment approaches, they both found that evaluating academic writing proficiency is complex, requiring consideration of various language factors and cognitive processes.

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    ACADEMIC WRITING PROFICIENCY: A COMPARATIVE SUMMARY

    Kleene Benedicto Sison

    ______________________________________________________________________________

    Writing, as explained by Villanueva (2008), is a complex process that needs several simultaneous

    activities which are to generate, to organise, and to review data. In addition, academic writing, as defined

    by Hartley (2008), is a manner of expression that people in the field of research use in discussing concepts

    in the areas of their expertise. Academic writing observes a formal tone, a third-person point of view, and

    carefully chooses accurate words to include. Furthermore, academic writing, as used in the academe, uses

    a straight-forward language so that ambiguity and confusion may be avoided in presenting and discussing

    concepts such as in research papers. On the contrary, proficiency, as discussed by Villanueva (2008), is a

    vague concept to define. In the 70’s, the concept of writing proficiency is “equal to grammar and lexical

    competence” (Villanueva, 2008). However, a study conducted by Cummings, in 1990 to American students

    who spoke Spanish and were immersed in the all-English classroom suggests that even though these

    students are competent with grammar and vocabulary they still encountered linguistic difficulties. This only

    shows that writing proficiency is not only more than mastering the syntax of the language but also taking

    into consideration the other aspects of language such as sociolinguistic, communicative, cognitive skill.

    With the concepts discussed, two studies about academic writing proficiency will be compared and

    contrasted. The two studies focused on the proficiency of students in the higher education, and both studies

    are in the English as a foreign language (EFL) setting. Mcdonald and Murtagh focused on the linguistic

    and writing competency, whereas Ofte concentrated on the metalinguistic awareness and metalinguistic

    competence.

    Mcdonald and Murtagh raised a question about the manner of assessing students’ writing ability.

    According to them (n.d.), the assessment of students’ writing ability is often inadequate and arguably biased
    because teachers tend to use their instinct, even the use of rubrics and checklists does not suffice. In the

    study of Mcdonald and Murtagh, the researchers focused more on the following aspects: readability, lexical

    density, coherence, grammar complexity. On the other hand, Ofte (2014) highlights students’ new social,

    cultural, and academic conventions which involve adaptation to new ways of understanding: interpreting,

    and organising knowledge. Mcdonald and Murtagh emphasise the type of instruments instructors of English

    use in evaluating students’ writing skills, while in the study of Ofte, the students’ adaptation to new

    academic environment affects their proficiency, thinking process, metalinguistic awareness, and

    metalinguistic competence. Interestingly, the study conducted by Ofte also included the aspects mentioned

    by Mcdonald and Murtagh in his latter discussion of metalinguistic competence.

    Both studies’ respondents were students in the higher education during the implementation of the

    study. Mcdonald and Murtagh’s participants were students from Koc University in Turkey. The researchers’

    aims were to identify the quality of student compositions after accomplishing the English Language Centre

    (ELC) program and to identify whether the data will suggest about the preparedness of the students after

    graduating from the program. On a similar note, Ofte’s participants were university students in Norway.

    However, Ofte’s focuses in identifying the metacognitive skills of the students and how these “discoursal

    choices” affect the writing process which include the thinking process and linguistic ability of the

    participants.

    Notably, Ofte utilised survey questionnaire to elicit responses from the students for self-assessment

    and asked them to create academic journal entries for analysis. The researcher analysed the participants’

    entries according to their lexicon/semantics, content, structure, and meta-level thinking. Analogous to Ofte,

    Mcdonald and Murtagh, the researchers evaluated the participants’ outputs from their academic English

    class. The analysis of the study was based on the readability, lexical density, coherence, and grammar

    complexity. Both of the studies evaluated the language competencies of the participants. However, Ofte

    also included the metacognitive process of the participants and how it affects the participants’ linguistic

    abilities.
    The studies may have different approaches in evaluating the data, but more similar qualities, factors,

    and approaches are observed by both. Ofte’s study may somehow deviate because of the inclusion of the

    cognitive aspect, however both studies showed that evaluating the academic writing proficiency of the

    students is a complex task to accomplish because researchers must choose and consider factors of language

    and for some, the psychology of learning. Lastly, both of the studies are done in an EFL setting; one must

    note that English is not the native language of the students. Thus, both of the srudies’ participants learned

    English as a foreign language, not as a second language.

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