| While writing in the disciplines scholarship has studied undergraduate and graduate student journeys through degree programs, actual writing tasks and responses to those tasks, and the discursive features defining disciplines, studies that compare faculty and graduate students' expectations about academic writing are not as prevalent. In particular, the degrees to which faculty and graduate students compare in terms of how they define what constitutes effective writing in their disciplines have not been extensively explored. Although writing in the disciplines scholarship highlights the need for explicit discussions about writing in undergraduate programs, these same points are not always made as strongly in terms of advocating that explicit writing instruction be infused into graduate education---a scene where the consequences of tacit knowledge can impact graduate students' socialization into their disciplines (Lave & Wenger, 1991). In light of scholarship supporting the idea that writing demands shift for students as they move from community to community and that students need to be socialized into these different communities, this dissertation research is predicated on the belief that graduate education must provide direction as students navigate expectations of their departmental and disciplinary communities. This writing in the disciplines research was conducted within the context of one Master of Science degree program at a large Research I university in the American southwest. Drawing from questionnaire and interview data, this study describes how faculty and graduate student participants defined effective writing in their discipline, what expectations they had about the learning and teaching of writing within their degree program, and how faculty communicated expectations of writing to their graduate students. The data suggests that the participants had differing definitions and expectations of writing, that these differences were not always communicated clearly, that the timeliness and substance of faculty and graduate student communication about writing could be strengthened, and that graduate students' nonacademic work experience affected their attempts to satisfy faculty expectations. This study recommends ways that master's and doctoral degree programs can build supportive departmental cultures of writing that help graduate students identify, analyze, and apply discursive expectations so that they can become recognized members of their disciplinary communities. |
