Finding Your Academic Voice

Academic writing isnt taught in school. It isnt even taught explicitly in universities, but students are expected to develop their academic voice through undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD studies, by absorbing the conventions through what they read. What is accepted and what isnt accepted in academic writing differs drastically across different disciplines and specialisations. While these conventions may be something domestic students can develop throughout their years at university, international students who come to Australia having completed their undergraduate studies in their home countries, often find it difficult knowing what is expected of them. Michelle Picard, Director of Researcher Education at the University of Adelaides School of Education, conducts research designed to support international students in this transition. Im focusing on ESL and ESL as it relates to recycling academic literacy, and Im interested in internationalisation and how academic literacies and researcher education impart on that, Picard explains. And working with research students supervisor relationships, and how it is part of our cultural communication. Cultural as in Aussie, but also culture as in the so-called Western tradition, and culture as in disciplinary culture and in relationships and how we work. Picard describes the different academic disciplines as different tribes and explains that each disciplinary tribe has its own acceptable way to write academically, and that this is very much a part of the culture of each field. When this isnt explicitly taught, students have trouble knowing what is acceptable and what isnt within their discipline. Picard conducted a study where students used text-matching software and concordancing to help them identify aspects of their writing which may be plagiarised or which doesnt adhere to the accepted way of writing within that particular discipline. This helps the students to see which parts of their assignments are okay, and which parts need to be reworded. Using the concordancing in conjunction with TurnItIn (a program Adelaide Uni students can use to check their work for plagiarism) works quite easily, because theyre saying, okay, is this acceptable intertextuality, or, is this how we speak in my tribe, or isnt it? Another major part of Picards work is concerned with researcher communication, and communication between research students and their supervisors. Often these students are required to head up a research team with much more established researchers, Picard explains. Were trying to empower these students to empower themselves, and seek questions, not answers. Picard undertook a study with some postgraduate students at the University of Adelaide, where they created an online space where students could communicate with their supervisors. This proved to be very effective, as students were more comfortable communicating with their supervisors and speaking up in an online environment, and the online chats created a record of what was said for further reference later on. At the end of the day, it all about the researcher telling their story, and this is what Picard really tries to instil in her students. Tell people your story, Picard says. Tell people your story over and over again until it is redundant. Because it does so many things. It makes your language so much clearer, and it also gives you that ownership. Then you can put in the references. Using references

is like saying my story has a context, and my story has a gang behind it to support it. Each students individual research is an individual story, and Michelle Picards story is all about helping research students to communicate their stories in the most effective way possible.

This article gives an overview of Director of Research Education, Michelle Picard and her work into research communication, with a focus on international students and the relationship between research students and their supervisors. For more information about Michelle Picards research, publications and the School of Education, please visit The University of Adelaide.