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Salazar Gaviria, C. A., Abad Olaya, J. V. (2023). Contributions of tutoring to the development of academic writing in graduate
education, 19(1), 149-172. https://doi.org/10.17151/rlee.2023.19.1.8
Abstract
Earning a master’s or doctoral degree often requires writing scientic articles, a challenging task
for graduate students. A review of existing literature on writing in higher education underscores the
need to learn more about the strategies tutors use when teaching their tutees how to prepare their
theses and academic articles. Objective: Explore the contribution of tutoring to the composition
of academic articles as graduation requirements and thereby to the development of academic
literacies among master’s degree students. Methodology: Descriptive case study following the
interpretive paradigm. This qualitative study was conducted in a master’s degree program in
education at a private university in Medellin, Colombia. The data were collected through semi-
structured interviews with three tutors, two students, and one graduate student. The content was
analyzed by utilizing open and axial coding. Results: The study revealed three pivotal functions
performed by tutors in fostering academic literacies during their support for article writing: adept
management of the tutor-tutee relationship concerning co-authorship, skillful guidance in navigating
interactions with external agents who regulate publication, and proactive promotion of the tutees’
relationship with writing and research, thereby fostering the conguration of their identity as authors
and researchers.
Keywords: Tutoring, Graduate Education, Academic writing, Academic Literacies, New Literacy
Studies
* This article stems from the research project entitled “Acompañamiento de tutores en la formación de literacidades
académicas para la escritura y publicación de artículos cientícos de estudiantes de maestría en educación.” The author,
Salazar-Gaviria, wrote the article as part of the requirements for obtaining the master’s degree in education at the Universidad
Católica Luis Amigó, under the guidance of Abad, who is also a co-author.
** Master in Education, Universidad Católica Luis Amigó. Full time teacher, High School English Teacher, Institución
Educativa Las Palmas, Envigado, Antioquia, Colombia. carlos.salazarga@amigo.edu.co
orcid.org/0000-0003-4543-7794 Google Scholar
** PhD-in-Education Candidate, Universidad Ponticia Bolivariana (Medellín, Colombia). Assistant Professor, Bachelor’s
degree in Foreign Languages Teaching, Universidad Católica Luis Amigó, Medellín, Colombia. jose.abadol@amigo.edu.co
orcid.org/0000-0002-1548-9043 Google Scholar
Recibido: 18 de marzo de 2022. Aceptado: 11 de diciembre de 2022.
latinoam.estud.educ. Manizales (Colombia), 19 (1): 149-172, enero-junio de 2023
ISSN 1900-9895 (Impreso) ISSN 2500-5324 (En línea) DOI: 10.17151/rlee.2023.19.1.8
Contributions of tutoring to the development
of academic writing in graduate education*
Carlos Andrés Salazar Gaviria**
José Vicente Abad Olaya***
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Carlos Andrés Salazar Gaviria, José Vicente Abad Olaya
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Formación en escritura académica de estudiantes de posgrado
A través de la tutoría
Resumen
Obtener una maestría o doctorado a menudo requiere escribir artículos cientícos, una tarea
desaante para los estudiantes de posgrado. Una revisión de la literatura sobre escritura en
educación superior señala la necesidad de aprender más sobre las estrategias que los tutores
despliegan cuando enseñan a sus estudiantes cómo preparar sus tesis y artículos académicos.
Objetivo: Explorar cómo la tutoría contribuye a la redacción de artículos académicos como requisitos
de graduación y, por lo tanto, al desarrollo de literacidades académicas entre los estudiantes de
maestría. Metodología: Estudio de caso descriptivo siguiendo el paradigma interpretativo. Este
estudio cualitativo se realizó en un programa de maestría en educación en una universidad privada
en Medellín, Colombia. Los datos fueron recolectados a través de entrevistas semiestructuradas
con tres tutores, dos estudiantes y un graduado. El contenido fue analizado utilizando codicación
abierta y axial. Resultados: Los tutores realizan tres funciones esenciales asociadas al desarrollo
de literacidades académicas durante el apoyo proporcionado para la redacción de artículos: gestión
de la relación maestro-estudiante en torno a la coautoría; manejo de la interacción con los agentes
externos que regulan la publicación; y promoción de la relación de los estudiantes con la escritura
y la investigación, lo que aporta al desarrollo de su identidad como autores e investigadores.
Palabras claves: Tutoría, Educación de Posgrado, Escritura Académica, Alfabetización Académica,
Nuevos Estudios de Literacidades
Introduction
Interest in literacy education at the university level has grown signicantly over
the last decade. Difculties in developing academic literacy skills are directly
tied to the dropout rates of university students (Olave-Arias et al., 2013; Patiño
& Cardona, 2012; Villabona, 2018). In fact, the biggest challenge for students
to graduate involves conducting research and writing the required thesis or the
associated articles derived from it. Many graduate education students fail to earn
their degree after completing all their coursework, a phenomenon known as All
but Dissertation (ABD) (Hanson et al. 2022). The graduation bottleneck is often
related to meeting the demands of academic writing (Villabona, 2018). Academic
performance is a warning factor: students with literacy deciencies are less likely
to persist in completing their thesis and, hence, are more likely to abandon their
studies (Patiño & Cardona, 2012).
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Contributions of tutoring to the development of academic writing in graduate education
Program administrators and faculty should pay attention to the development of
students’ reading and writing skills (Carlino, 2005; Vargas, 2020). After all, learning
to read and write continues after completing elementary and secondary education
(Carlino, 2013). To write research articles and theses, university students need
sophisticated skills that include critical academic literacies (Zavala, 2009), digital
literacies (Castillo-Martínez et al., 2023; Caverly et al., 2019), and research
literacies (Abad & Uribe, 2023; Mendoza, 2014). However, these literacies are not
learned in isolation (Cruz, 2014); tutoring plays a key role in their development.
In fact, tutors are essential in helping students write academic texts as they do
not learn to do so on their own. They need someone to guide them because their
difculties with academic writing are not resolved with generic or remedial courses
(Carlino, 2003).
The study herein presented focuses on the role that tutors play in helping master’s
degree students complete their written graduation requirements and, therefore, in
the development of their literacy skills. For this study, tutoring is the one-to-one
guidance that students receive through their graduate studies from an experienced
research educator to conduct research, write the thesis or articles derived from it,
and join the academic community. Tutoring is essential for master’s degree students
due to their limited appropriation of the writing skills required to complete their
research project and produce the articles associated with it (Bakhou & Bouhania,
2020; Flores, 2016).
However, little attention has been paid to tutoring as a social practice through which
graduate students learn to write academically. In fact, there is no consensus about
the role of tutors in the development of literacy (Flores, 2016; Bejarano & Esteban,
2022), so it is essential to learn more about the strategies tutors deploy when
they teach their tutees how to write their thesis and academic articles (Núñez,
2020; Núñez et al., 2021; Thompson, 2009). To help overcome this gap, this article
reports on a case study that sought to explore how tutoring contributes to the writing
of academic articles as a graduation requirement and, thus, to the development of
academic literacies among master’s degree students
Theoretical base
Over the last two decades, studies about academic literacies in higher education
have been conducted under two different approaches. The rst one responds to
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a traditional notion of academic literacy that conceives reading and writing as
cognitive skills (Trigos-Carrillo, 2019). The second one corresponds to the New
Literacy Studies (Barton, 1994; Street, 1984), which advocates for the existence of
multiple literacies and sees reading and writing as socially and culturally situated
practices occurring at all levels of education (Lea & Street, 2006). These two
models, which informed our data collection and analysis, are characterized in the
paragraphs below; afterwards, we supply working denitions for two essential
concepts; namely, tutoring and academic articles.
Traditional Literacy Education
The concept of literacy is related to both the teaching of reading and writing and
the appropriation of the written culture (Moreno & Sito, 2019). Academic literacy
refers to the discursive practices habitually learned in tertiary education (Sito &
Moreno, 2021). From the academic socialization model (Trigos-Carrillo, 2019),
these practices are conceived as being linguistic, cognitive and rhetorical; further,
they include the acts of reading, writing, speaking, and thinking of a particular
disciplinary community (Hernández-Zamora, 2016).
It is no secret that college students often show low levels of academic literacy
development when they enter the university. This situation led the higher-education
system across the United States of America to offer remedial courses to improve
students’ reading and writing skills (Carlino, 2003). Traditional remedial courses
are intended to teach academic writing by having students develop mechanical
skills such as grammar and spelling (Vargas, 2020).
The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID)
movements emerged from the socio-cognitive model of academic literacy that
nurture such courses. These movements required experts in the elds of linguistics
and discourse analysis to collaborate with teachers from disciplines such as
biology, chemistry, and history to promote the development of students as readers
and writers within a specic area (Carlino, 2013).
Studies based on these instructional models claim that the acquisition of academic
literacy skills helps students obtain better grades and guarantees their permanence
in higher education through effective reading comprehension and the adequate
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Contributions of tutoring to the development of academic writing in graduate education
command of expository and argumentative writing (Olave-Arias et al., 2013).
Studies in Latin America about how students learn to read and write in academic
settings have treated reading and writing as cognitive skills due to the inuence of
the studies under the academic socialization model (Trigos-Carrillo, 2019).
The New Literacy Studies
The New Literacy Studies emerged from the discussions of scholars such as Gee
(2000) and Street (1993), as literacy studies took a social turn (Moreno & Sito, 2019;
Vargas 2020). The traditional approach, restricted by psycho-cognitive views, was
not broad enough to include discussions that belonged to a sociocultural and critical
approach. Consequently, proponents of the New Literacy Studies were inuenced
by disciplines such as history, sociology, and anthropology, as they argued that the
written culture is more a sociocultural phenomenon than a mental one (Gee, 2015).
From this perspective, a literacy practice is anything that a person does with
literacy (Barton et al., 2000) to learn, build, and communicate in life. Literacy
practices are not static or isolated; they are social practices that vary according
to context, culture, and genre (Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Street, 1984; 1995). All
literacies are integrated, so they can be seen as a compendium. Consequently,
the written culture is the result of these socially situated literacy practices (Vargas,
2020). From this approach, literacy practices depend on how people participate
of the written culture within a given context (Moreno & Sito 2019; Vargas 2020).
Therefore, literacy practices belonging to specic academic disciplines go beyond
a simple decit model that assesses students’ writing according to xed levels of
competence (Moreno & Sito, 2019; Vargas, 2015; 2016; 2020).
Essential Concepts
Tutoring
Professors often assume that when students start their college training, they are
prepared to meet the academic literacy demands of this educational level (Zavala,
2009). However, literacy scholars have warned that the university should continue
to support the students’ appropriation of reading and writing competencies (Carlino,
2003; 2013; Zavala, 2011). In this task, tutors are key in helping students develop
research and academic writing skills through their guidance and support.
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In graduate education, a tutor is a designated teacher who guides, supervises, and
provides feedback to students as they complete their research projects (Bayona-
Oré & Bazan, 2020; Bejarano & Esteban, 2021; De Kleijn et al., 2013). Tutors
help students by originating processes of reection and promoting their autonomy
(Flores, 2016). Their actions are intended to help graduate students systematically
access knowledge and develop skills, habits and attitudes concerning research
and writing practices (Flores, 2016). In sum, tutoring is a multifaceted instructional
endeavor aimed at preparing new researchers within specic disciplines.
Academic Articles and Theses
Academic articles are original material related to research, practice, and reection
from different disciplines or areas of knowledge. In order to be accepted by indexed
journals, academic articles have to be written with academic excellence and
advanced theoretical knowledge. In addition, they should address cutting-edge
topics and contribute to current discussions in a particular eld. Articles often derive
from graduate research that students embark on to accomplish requirements for
graduation such as review articles, research study articles and theses.
Review articles offer a critical perspective that points out to contradictions and
gaps in the literature on a particular theme and gives suggestions to guide future
research (Belcher, 2010). Research study articles, on the other hand, disclose
the results of a study and include a review of the literature, description of the
methodology, presentation of the results and their discussion (Belcher, 2010). A
master’s thesis or a doctoral dissertation are academic texts that often cover more
than one hundred pages; they address a problem related to studies through which
a student seeks to obtain a graduate education degree; and normally they have to
be defended before a doctoral tribunal (Eco, 1983).
Method
Research Design
Under the interpretative paradigm (Pham, 2018), we conducted a descriptive single
case study with embedded units (Baxter & Jack, 2008; Yin, 2009) to analyze the
contribution of tutoring to the learning of academic literacies. Data collection was
carried out in the second semester of 2022 and the rst semester of 2023, within
the master’s degree in education at Universidad Católica Luis Amigó, which was
the case and, therefore, the unit of analysis.
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Contributions of tutoring to the development of academic writing in graduate education
Luis Amigó is a private Catholic university based in Medellin, Colombia, with other
four campuses across the country. The university has six schools in the areas
of business administration and economy, social communication and media,
law, education, engineering, and psychology. At the graduate education level,
the institution offers 12 master’s degrees, 19 specialization degrees, and three
doctorate programs.
Since its inception in 2016, the master’s degree in education established graduation
requirements directly tied to the writing and publication of academic papers.
Instead of submitting a thesis, candidates to the master’s degree have to write
four academic papers to graduate. In the rst semester, students are expected
to write a research proposal. In the second semester, they have to write a review
article and submit it to an academic journal. In the third semester, students have
to publish the proceedings derived from their participation in an academic event.
Finally, in the fourth semester, students have to write a research report article and
submit it to an academic journal.
Tutors are assigned to the master’s degree students from the beginning of the
program. They are expected to guide students through both the planning and
implementation of their research study and the preparation and publication of the
academic papers associated with it.
Three tutors and three students from the master’s degree in education were selected
as key informants (Marshall, 1996), and they were subsequently interviewed to
help identify the difculties that students have when writing academically, describe
the writing process between tutors and students, and characterize the tutor’s role
throughout the writing of academic articles.
Before conducting the interviews, participants signed an informed consent,
whereon they were informed that the data was going to be used for research
and publication purposes. They were also informed that researchers had made
provisions to ensure condentiality and protection of their identity. In addition,
participants authorized the recording of the interviews, which were carried out over
the month of November 2022 and lasted about 35 minutes each. Tables 1 and 2
provide an overview of both tutors and tutees respectively.
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Table 1.
Socio-Demographic Description of Tutors
Participant Age Gender Academic level Role Years of experience
P1 38 Female Ph. D. Tutor (1) 4 ½
P2 58 Male Master Tutor (2) 5
P3 51 Female Ph. D. Tutor (3) 4
Source: data collected from interviews.
Table 2.
Socio-Demographic Description of Tutees
Participant Age Gender Academic level Role Number of written articles
P4 26 Female Professional Student (1) 5
P5 27 Female Professional Student (2) 1
P6 22 Female Master Graduate (3) 7
Source: data collected from interviews.
Data Collection and Analysis
The semi-structured interview (Bell, 2010) was framed around three categories
that resulted from the literature review, which in turn was conducted in light of
the research objectives. The three categories are the linguistic and sociocultural
writing difculties, the process of writing academic articles, and the role tutors play
in guiding their tutees’ academic writing. The narrative data emerged from the
transcription of the interviews.
Following Savin-Baden and Major (2013) and Taylor-Powell and Renner (2003),
we completed the data analysis in four steps as follows. First, for open coding, the
transcripts were assembled and color coded. A start-up list of categories based
on the literature review was used to establish some pre-established categories.
This step was done for each interview in a Word document. Second, for axial
coding, the codes were organized into categories in an analysis matrix in Excel.
New categories that emerged during the analysis led to data reduction and to the
reconguration of the category scheme. Thirdly, we proceeded to identify themes
and patterns through constant comparison and contrast between the codes and the
data. This led to the writing of analytic and interpretive memos to describe what the
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Contributions of tutoring to the development of academic writing in graduate education
data showed and to establish connections within and between categories. Finally,
the ndings were consolidated and validated with the community in academic
colloquia. They were organized and linked to the literature, to be shared through
different written and oral media. Table 3 below shows the category scheme.
Table 3.
Category Tree
Difculties with
academic writing
Linguistic and discursive
Spelling, grammar and punctuation
Textual structure
Documentation*
Sociocultural Abilities to read and write in the university*
Related to the tutoring program
Academic writing
process
Steps Planning and writing
Pre-publishing and edition
Academic texts
Research proposal*
Literature review
Research article
Tutors’ role when
writing articles
Managing relationship with the
tutee
Writing together*
Trusting each other*
Managing relation with external
agents of writing process
Choosing the journal to submit papers
Helping in the process of publishing
Giving students support to control emotions*
Suggesting writers and coauthors
Promoting students’ relation to
research and academic writing
Modeling writing*
Giving feedback
Sponsoring students’ conceptual acquisition*
Helping students’ writing learning
Encouraging students to become authors
Note: Categories are based on the research objectives and literature review
*Emerging categories
Findings
Students’ Writing Difculties
Students’ difculties with writing were divided into discursive-linguistic and
sociocultural. Contrary to initial expectations, linguistic difculties, such as spelling
and punctuation, did not represent a serious difculty for the master’s degree
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students when writing their academic articles. However, tutors encourage students
to rene certain grammatical features.
Regarding the appropriation of disciplinary discourse, students often lack
knowledge of textual structures and stylistic conventions required for each type of
article. Therefore, tutors have to guide students in the recognition and appropriation
of micro and macro textual structures depending on the type of article they are
preparing. One of the tutors expressed the difculties students face when they
begin to write, and tutors have to correct the rst drafts:
Everything is corrected! From the writing tone, the way the student
cites sources, to the way two and three authors are combined. In
addition, the student’s rst draft is always very rigid, report-like, so
what I do is that I correct wording (Tutor 1).
Documentation, citations, and references from external sources can also be
problematic for most students. For this reason, tutors nd it necessary to reinforce
technical skills such as searching in databases, using documentary analysis
matrices, and adequately citing and referencing sources. One tutor commented:
As a tutor, I have to start suggesting and showing strategies to
systematize the information they are reading (Tutor 2).
Besides acquiring these specialized technical skills, students need to overcome
sociocultural difculties such as the acquisition of reading habits. The three
tutors stated that reading is essential for the writing process. For them, it is not
possible to advance in writing without having done previous readings that serve
as the basis for appropriating the theoretical and methodological knowledge that
scientic writing demands. One of the students explained her difculties with
reading in the following terms:
I think that the most difcult thing is to read. (…) Let’s say, I didn’t nd
a great motivation to develop a reading habit since I was little, so it
has been quite an important internal job because of my personality
traits (Student 2).
Furthermore, tutors agreed that academic writing, especially in graduate studies,
requires mastery of specic skills that students have not yet acquired. According
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Contributions of tutoring to the development of academic writing in graduate education
to one of the tutors, this has led some professors to complain about their students’
writing. However, it is necessary that all program faculty get involved in the writing
development of their students by providing elements that may help improve their
literacy skills. It became clear that the level of sophistication and specialization
of writing increases as students advance in their formal education. One tutor
commented:
Many professors believe that their job when a student enters the
university is to teach them, but not to worry about their writing. A
professor who believes that the student already knows how to write
is a decontextualized one. (..) We nish a doctorate and start a
postdoc, but we do not know how to write for a postdoc; each level
requires a new learning process (Tutor 1).
Article Writing Process
Findings related to the writing process were divided into the phases of writing an
academic article and the type of articles written within the program. The rst phase
is planning and writing the academic article. Two tutors said that they take into
account journal requirements to guide their students’ writing. In addition, tutors
have to guide the documentation and analysis of the data obtained through the
literature review. Although this is an essential task, they emphasized how hard it
is for students to process such high volume of information as the one that must be
read at this stage. According to tutors, students also nd it difcult to start writing.
For that reason, tutors have to model writing for their tutees and encourage them
to keep at it. One participant commented:
In the initial phases, well, it’s quite tedious because there is also a lot
of reading that must be done by the students to establish their own
ideas based on the previous readings (Tutor 3).
The second phase is related to the actions taken before the publication of the
article. According to the tutors, submission to the journal plays a fundamental role
in getting the manuscript published. Although it has already been written, it does not
mean that it is in its nal version. In most cases, journal reviewers request changes
to the manuscript to continue with the publication process. Editing the manuscript
implies that the student has to adjust it to the requirements of the journal and to its
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style. According to one of the tutors, at this stage it is necessary to cut, expand, or
eliminate some sections or ideas from the manuscript.
Authors have to be strategic in choosing the journal to which they will
send the manuscript and make sure they publish the topic they are
writing about. (…) That is kind of tedious, and it is a job of reviewing
databases and journals (Tutor 2).
For the participants, each text that is written for the master’s degree represents a
certain degree of complexity. However, the more students write, the better they get.
Tutees improve their level of literacy appropriation progressively every time they
write an article, as it provides them with strategical knowledge that scaffolds the
writing of the following ones.
Although the research proposal is not an academic article, the participants agree
that it was a difcult text to write since, being the rst, the tutees did not yet have
the necessary skills. According to the tutors, the difculty in writing this type of text
lies in the complexity of materializing the initial ideas to prepare the proposal and
justify it. Once again, by modeling writing and jump-starting initial drafts, tutors help
tutees overcome their rst writing challenges.
To write the review article, three tutors shared with their tutees a matrix of analysis
to plan the text and analyze the selected bibliographic sources. According to the
tutors, the greatest difculty in preparing this manuscript was the lack of knowledge
of the methodology of the review article. Tutors stated that tutees nd it difcult to
talk about the theoretical tensions between the authors, limit themselves to writing
a summary of each research on the topic, and often fail to interpret and discuss
the studies.
After writing two previous articles, students show progress in reading and writing
that leads them to face the research study article with a higher level of literacy.
This progress is related to the conceptual appropriation of the tutees. Regarding
the evolution of students in the appropriation of their academic literacy skills, one
tutor commented:
These changes that occur in students’ writing are directly related to
changes in their way of thinking; that is, in their cognitive maturation
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Contributions of tutoring to the development of academic writing in graduate education
process as a result of a lot of reading and a lot of discussion with the
tutor. Their way of writing is reecting their way of thinking and their
way of thinking is changing (Tutor 2).
Roles of Tutors in the Development of Students’ Writing and Literacy
The data showed that tutors engage in at least eleven different actions when
guiding their tutees in the process of writing their academic articles. These actions
were classied in three groups. In the rst group are the actions that tutors carry
out to manage their relationships with the tutees. Within the master’s degree,
tutors usually end up co-authoring the articles with their tutees. According to the
participants, two aspects must be considered in this collaboration. The rst one has
to do with the way in which each of the parties undertakes the writing of the article.
For tutors this is a part of their job, which is done during their working day. For
tutees, writing the articles is a requirement to graduate from the master’s program.
The second aspect has to do with the bonds that are built between both parties.
When writing together, tutors and tutees have to be open to letting the other
person review and discuss what they have written individually. As the relationship
progresses, writing and publishing the articles becomes a common effort.
Furthermore, not only do tutees learn from their tutors, but tutors also learn from
their tutees.
The articles (…) generate something between the student and the
teacher. The article becomes something that belongs to both of
them; it is research that both of them are conducting. So they both
{end up} working on it and giving it their heart and soul (Tutor 1).
Writing together becomes not only an end but also a means to strengthen the
pedagogical relationship. One student commented:
When you read the other and let them read you, that is when these
different bonds between the tutor and the tutee begin to be built. It is
no longer that I send a draft and the tutor review it and sends it back
to me, but rather I ask myself: what does this, that I am reading, say
about the other person? or what does this say about their story? In
addition, what I wrote, what does it say about me? (Tutee 1).
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This academic relationship is possible when the tutor generates an environment
of trust. According to the participants, trusting each other helps reduce writing
tensions, which can arise from the constant process of corrections and generates
feelings of frustration and dissatisfaction due to the non-compliance with the quality
demanded by the tutor. However, as trust is built between tutor and tutee, the latter
learns that following the tutor’s instructions and paying attention to their feedback
will improve the text. Likewise, the tutor also has to trust in the abilities of the tutee
and in the quality of the manuscript that they both are writing.
When I question what tutees write, they get frustrated, and that kind
of tension is interesting. They may think that nothing works for me.
However, there is a kind of trust because they already know that I am
going to return everything commented in red, but if they accept the
feedback, the text will improve (Tutor 1).
The second group of tutors’ roles has to do with managing the interactions with
external agents that regulate the writing and publication of articles. Before being
published, manuscripts are reviewed by two types of external agents. First,
manuscripts are read and reviewed by peers, experts in the area or in writing who
are chosen by the authors in order to improve it. Only then are the manuscripts
submitted for journal editors and peer reviewers to assess them. Tutors often
suggest who the most appropriate “friend reviewers” may be. Two tutors and two
tutees mentioned having received such valuable contributions from external agents
that, in some cases, became co-authors of the article.
Journal rejections and corrections of the manuscripts usually delay the publication
and, in some cases, discourage the student from publishing the manuscript, a
process that often extends beyond graduation. One tutor said that she continues
the process of publishing the article even after the students have graduated from
the master’s degree and may be not interested in publishing at that time.
For the rst student I tutored, who has already graduated, was
very, very difcult to nd the journal. For that reason, students lose
motivation after graduating, and I have to take charge of publishing
(Tutor 1).
The writing of manuscripts involves great work and dedication from both tutors
and tutees. Participants expressed satisfaction with the quality of the product they
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Contributions of tutoring to the development of academic writing in graduate education
submitted to journals. However, their manuscripts were not always accepted in the
rst submission, and journals have always asked for corrections in order to publish
their articles. Tutors and two tutees expressed frustration and discomfort when this
happened, as they thought their manuscripts had the quality required. On these
occasions, tutors should call tutees to calm and motivate them not to give up until
the manuscript is published. In addition, tutors helped tutees to nd a solution to
this situation.
We wrote the review article, and we thought it was very well written
[Laughs]. However, the rst journal answered the article was too
specic and for other two journals, without reading the manuscripts,
the topic was not of their interest. We felt frustrated, but for the
students it is worse because they do not have experience in the
world of scientic publications. (Tutor 1)
The third role of tutors consists in promoting the student’s relationship with both
writing and research. To that aim, the tutor’s modeling of writing is an important
function carried out throughout the entire tutoring, from the writing of the proposal to
the submission of the last research article. According to the participants, when the
tutors write some fragments, they show the tutees how they can do it. As a result,
tutees adopt features of the way in which their tutors write. One tutor described the
modeling process in the following terms:
Pedagogically, I take two things into account. We need to write with
the students to be able to model for them. I show you how an idea is
developed scientically speaking and now you do it: I do it, and you
see. Now you do it, and I see. (Tutor 2)
In addition, the tutor’s feedback is key for the tutee to learn the necessary elements
in each of the stages of academic writing. Feedback is present throughout the
tutoring process and its importance lies in two main aspects. First, feedback helps
students correct discursive and linguistic errors they make due to carelessness,
inexperience, or ignorance. Second, feedback provides the necessary elements
to write the text in its different stages. Despite progress made in the manuscript,
it is always subject to improvement; hence, tutees learn that excellence in writing
comes as a result of constant revision. One tutor commented:
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Tutors sometimes believe that the tutee is going to learn to write
by giving them a lot of writing assignments. However, if there is no
feedback (…) the matter does not materialize. (…) I do not think
that you learn to write by writing alone, but you learn when you are
corrected with feedback about the mistakes you make. (Tutor 3)
Tutoring promotes the tutees’ formation of conceptual knowledge (Chen & Li,
2021), which results from the readings suggested by the tutor and the discussions
during the tutoring sessions. It is important that tutees achieve the appropriation
of dominant concepts within the eld in which they carried out their research since
knowing about the topic under research facilitates the writing of the academic
articles. On this matter, tutors often become references and role models. One
student who was researching about children’s literature commented about her
tutor:
I would say that learning from her, as she knows about literature and
enjoys it very much. I also like literature, but I never had a reference
to learn from or someone to guide me. (Student 1)
Tutoring, nonetheless, goes beyond training students in specialized reading
and writing skills: it also has an impact on the way they build their identities as
researchers and authors. Among the goals of the master’s in education is for
candidates to learn how to both conduct a research study and write academically.
For this reason, a central aspect of the tutor’s role is to improve the tutees’ writing
competence level and their appropriation of academic literacy. This requirement
has a deep pedagogical implication: the tutor has to take the tutee as a student and
turn them into an academic peer. A reconguration of the pedagogical relationship
and of the students’ identities emerges from the improvement in writing as they are
recognized as academic peers by their tutors.
Tutees expect from me a text with many comments and a lot of
editing in the margins. However, after a lot of tutoring sessions, the
comments and editing in red are decreasing. It is a job that I like
because it is a peer job in which the student’s progress is seen.
(Tutor 1)
Completion of a master’s program does not guarantee that students will readily
identify as researchers and writers. However, their academic literacy skills develop
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Contributions of tutoring to the development of academic writing in graduate education
throughout the course of their studies, largely as a result of the way in which they
are tutored. Furthermore, their own writing is inevitably inuenced by their tutor’s
writing style and pedagogy. Consequently, tutoring becomes a key element for the
development of the tutees’ identity not only as researchers but also as writers, as
it gives them the possibility of studying in detail a research object about which they
can read and write extensively, and to do it under the guidance of an instructor who
often becomes a mentor and a role model for both doing research and enacting
academic literacy practices. In this regard, a tutor reected:
Behind the identity as writers, there is an identity as researchers. He
who writes well, researches as well. (Tutor 1)
Discussion
Students at the master’s in education experience difculties in appropriating the
academic literacy skills necessary to produce the academic articles required
for graduation. These difculties are not only linguistic and discursive but also
sociocultural. Linguistic mistakes, nonetheless, are not preeminent at this level.
The most salient difculties of students regarding academic writing can be divided
into three areas: knowledge of the text structures corresponding to the types of
articles required; appropriation of discursive norms for the use of citations and
references; and articulation of their own voice as authors, so as to put it in dialogue
with the referenced studies (Rey & Gómez, 2021).
Sociocultural obstacles in academic writing relate to how students perceive reading
and writing and how they integrate them into their academic routines. Students must
reconceptualize reading and writing as epistemic practices that play an essential
role in learning (Carlino, 2003) and developing conceptual knowledge (Chen & Li,
2021). Recognizing the interdependence of reading and writing is crucial. Therefore,
improving writing habits requires the cultivation of new reading habits, both of which
should be recognized as integral components of academic life beyond merely
obtaining a degree. Additionally, academic writing in graduate studies requires
the mastery of specic skills. It is important for faculty and administration to move
beyond the decit model, which assumes that students lack writing skills, and instead
acknowledge that students are in the process of learning to write at their current
academic level. Writing is an ongoing task that becomes increasingly complex as
students progress through their academic life (Lillis, 2013).
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Furthermore, writing scientic articles is a highly sophisticated literacy practice;
to complete it successfully, graduate education students require guidance to
overcome the difculties described above and appropriate the academic discourse
of the discipline (Hernández-Zamora, 2018; Yu & Lee, 2013).
While completing the master’s program, students’ successive writing of different
academic papers under the tutor’s supervision leads to the progressive improvement
of their literacy skills. Moreover, collaborative writing serves a pedagogical function
that unites tutors and tutees; for that reason they often become co-authors of
the required articles. During the accompaniment of the writing and publication
of scientic articles, tutors perform at least three macro functions that aid in the
development of the tutee’s academic literacy: managing the tutor-tutee relationship
around collaborative writing; guiding the interaction with external agents who
regulate publication; and promoting the relationship of the tutee with writing itself in
light of the epistemic role it plays in research development.
Regarding the management of the tutor-tutee relationship, it depends on the
degree of trust that can be established between both parties as a result of their
communication quality, particularly during the long periods dedicated to reviewing
the manuscripts and providing feedback (Nurie, 2018). Trust is crucial in achieving
a co-authored publication as it implies a vote of condence in the other author and
the quality of the work they can produce together (Tan, 2016).
Concerning the management of the interaction with external agents, the work of
the tutor begins with the suggestion of expert friends who can read the manuscript
and continues with all the actions taken with the tutee to improve the manuscript
after receiving the feedback from the journal’s editors and reviewers. Scientic
knowledge is not built in isolation: academic dialogue is necessary for researchers
to receive contributions that help improve their writing and, consequently, their
research (Belcher, 2010). Nevertheless, the support of the tutor in this nal stage
is essential since students are exposed to manuscript overcorrection and rejection,
which could lead them to lose motivation and give up publishing. Hence, tutors play
a key role in helping students navigate the stormy waters of the publishing world
and manage the negative emotions resulting from writing and publication setbacks.
Finally, to promote the relationship of the tutee with writing and research, tutors
perform at least ve actions: modeling writing, providing feedback, scaffolding
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Contributions of tutoring to the development of academic writing in graduate education
conceptual appropriation, promoting literacy development, and fostering
conguration of the tutees’ identity as writers and researchers (Hajar & Mhamed,
2021). Effective feedback is essential towards ensuring the tutees’ appropriation of
conceptual knowledge, literacy development, and construction of their identity as a
writers. In addition, the quality of written production at the graduate level increases
through the tutor’s modeling and explanation of the writing process, the systematic
strategic training in academic genres, and a set of a consistent evaluation criteria
established by the tutor (Bosio, 2018).
Reviewing the students’ writing, providing responsive and informative feedback,
modeling literacy practices, and discussing their signicance for academic
development are not merely technical actions done by the tutor; they are continuous
functions that promote the conceptualization of what writing really is and the
appropriation of writing as an academic and epistemic activity.
As a result, tutees create a different relationship with writing that goes beyond
being reviewed by experts and complying with publication requirements. They
understand that writing quality academic texts involves a constant negotiation of
form and meaning. Therefore, manuscripts are continually revised and corrected,
feedback is given and processed, and things do not always go as planned.
Effective tutoring in graduate education involves making solid contributions to the
development of students’ academic literacies. Tutors’ functions in relation to this
goal refer to the management of their relationship with their tutees around writing,
of the relationship that they establish as co-authors with external agents, and of
the relationship that tutees establish with research and writing. These functions
help the tutee understand how research works and its relationship with writing. As
a result of performing these functions, tutors help tutees change old conceptions
about academic writing, which, as a social practice, is not done in isolation but
through meaningful yet tense interactions with others that are necessary to produce
new knowledge.
Conclusions
By examining the role of tutoring in promoting academic literacy, this study
underscored the inherent complexity of academic writing, particularly for students
embarking on graduate programs, and emphasized the importance of tutors in
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guiding students through the challenges of producing and publishing academic
articles.
The tutoring experiences explored in this study were regarded as successful.
However, it is imperative to also investigate negative tutoring experiences and their
impact on students’ writing.
All the same, by recognizing that academic writing is a complex literacy practice
whose mastery requires continuous improvement, tutors at the graduate level
should provide ongoing support for their students literacy development throughout
their academic journey. Along those lines, this study showed that tutors who
proactively address writing difculties, guide article writing through a collaborative
stance, and foster a healthy relationship with both writing and research through
effective modeling and feedback signicantly contribute to the their students’
literacy development and identity construction as researchers and writers.
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