Academic writing in Iranian universities: the lost ring of the chain

This paper reports the results of a grounded theory investigation into academic writing in an Iranian institution of higher education. It particularly focuses on academic writing practices of a group of graduate students as well as the importance their advisors attached to such practices. Interview data were collected from 19 participants. The data were then transcribed, coded, and analysed using the QSR.NUDIST software. Overall 108 codes were identified. In the present paper the seven major categories related to academic writing practices of graduate student participants will be elaborated on. The results show that academic writing is not given a merit value in the institution under study. Many advisors in graduate schools do not require writing assignments. Furthermore, the little amount of academic writing the graduate students do, is often not examined by advisors. The result is that graduate students often do not receive sufficient feedback from their advisors to learn the world view and discipline specific rhetorical features. Nevertheless, in some science based disciplines, joint papers written by graduate students and their advisors are sent to journals for publication, and the feedback received by journal reviewers to a considerable degree compensates lack of feedback from advisors.