Research Based Article of English for Academic Purposes

English Graduate Program of IAIN Tulungagung

May, 2019

EFL GRADUATE STUDENTS’ WRITING ANXIETY IN ACADEMIC WRITING

PRACTICES

Pipit Nugroho
pipitn991@gmail.com
Graduate Program of English Education Department of IAIN Tulungagung

Abstract
Students in a high level of education must have been familiar with academic writing.
It must be accomplished for EFL students to fulfill their academic needs at the university. In
line with this case, EFL learners cannot avoid the writing anxiety as a matter in their
academic writing practices. It makes students unable to enjoy the writing
process. Therefore, the writing products of the anxious writers are
sometimes disappointing. This study aims to investigate the academic writing
components which raise EFL students writing anxiety of 18 EFL graduate students of English
Education Department at IAIN Tulungagung they experienced in writing research article. In
line with this issue, the causes of EFL students’ writing anxiety and the strategies used by the
students to minimize their academic writing anxiety will also be studied. The method
employed in this study is descriptive with qualitative approach. The data were collected
through participant observation in the classroom during the students’ process of writing
research article as their project of the semester. To get more detail information, interview was
conducted to 9 students who were selected through purposive sampling. The findings shows
that introduction and literature review were the most difficult sections in academic writing
that raise the students’ writing anxiety. Then, time constraint and high frequency of
assignment were the main causes the students’ writing anxiety. Meanwhile, affective strategy
such as looking for the examples of relevant previous articles and asking students or lecturers
about academic writing composition and organization were the most strategies used by the
students to reduce their writing anxiety in academic writing practices.
Key Words: EFL graduate student, writing anxiety, academic writing practices

INTRODUCTION
English plays an essential part in educational activities. Instructing and learning of
English can help the students to get their academic disciplines requirements effectively and
their learning contexts productively (Adams and Keene, 2000). Writing is an essential
language skill and it is really an essential part of academic success. Academic writing for
university students appears to be one of the most important and challenging. It insists the
students to deal with a research. Graduate level writing practices across disciplines have
gained increasing scholarly attention in recent years. Academic writing is essential basic
competence to be accomplished for English as foreign language (EFL) students to fulfill their
academic needs at the university level. In line with this issue, Indonesian universities
accommodate and foster this competence using courses related to academic writing. It aims

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May, 2019

the students would be able to write various academic genres in English, such as research
proposals, conference papers, research journals, articles, theses, or dissertations that has been
one of the most important competences for graduate students in many disciplines (Casanave,
2002). It is proven by some universities that require the students to write academic writing for
publication even in accredited academic journals as their final compulsory requirement.
Academic writing is commonly characterized as scientific writing which is portrayed
as organized research practiced and utilized by researchers at higher education level. It is
written to report, discuss, and synthesize a research conducted by the writer or others (Bailey,
2011). However, writing anxiety is a matter that cannot be avoided by the students in their
academic writing practices. Therefore, writing academic papers even in English is demanding
for Native English Speakers (NES) and can be even daunting for English as a Foreign
Language Learners (EFL). Academic writing deals with several components in its writing
that might raise the students’ writing anxiety. Research article as one of the academic writing
has several writing components are; topic, research questions, introduction, literature review,
method, results and discussion, and conclusion (Edgar Meng and Lydia Tseng, 2013).
Anxiety refers to general feelings of uneasiness and distress about an unspecified,
diffuse, uncertain, and often formless form of threat or danger (Zeidner and Matthews, 2011).
Anxiety is able to block and interferes the process of learning. Dealing with writing practices,
anxiety has been widely known as one of main obstacles for the learners when they are in a
process of writing. Anxiety can contribute negative impact on the writing product. According
to Cheng (2004), writing anxiety is divided into three types. The first is cognitive anxiety that
refers to the cognitive aspect of anxiety experience including negative expectations and
concern about others’ perception. Then, somatic anxiety that refers to one’s perception of the
psychological effects of the anxiety experience, such as nervous and tension. The last is
avoidance anxiety as a type of anxiety where the students avoid writing.
Writing anxiety or writing apprehension is defined as a psychological construct
related to the students’ tendency to avoid certain writing. It occurs due to some causes. Based
on previous studies, there are some possible causes of writing anxiety (Rezaei and Jafari,
2014). The causes are fear of negative evaluation and fear of test, language difficulties, lack
of topical knowledge, time pressure and high frequency of assignment, low of self-
confidence, insufficient writing technique, lack of experience or insufficient writing practice,
and pressure for perfect work. Therefore, feeling anxiety in writing is something that cannot
be avoided by the students. They must need appropriate strategy to minimize their feelings of

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May, 2019

anxiety in their academic writing practices. Mu (2005) developed the writing strategies for
EFL/ESL students. There were 5 categories of writing strategies that were used to minimize
writing anxiety. They were: (1) Rhetorical strategies; (2) Meta-cognitive strategies; (3)
Cognitive strategies; (4) Communicative strategies; and (5) social/affective strategies.
Writing anxiety has been studied by a number of researchers. However, the studies
mostly concerned about the levels, types, factors of students’ writing anxiety and few studies
investigated strategy of reducing writing anxiety among EFL learners. Also, most of the
studies of writing anxiety were conducted quantitatively. Based on the experience of the
researcher, it is found that the students of EFL graduate students of IAIN Tulungagung were
required to write research reports and articles as their final projects for some courses. To
fulfill a good academic writing assignment, they mostly discussed with their lecturers and
classmates about constructing good introduction section, the research design, and research
instrument they should be employed, even what should be exists in every sections of
academic writing. However, the students were mostly anxious about presenting their research
reports or articles. They usually ask to their classmates to make sure whether the research
reports or articles they wrote have been correct or not, especially the research design they
employed. As a result, there were still many students who got some evaluations and
feedbacks toward their academic writing practices. But, most students admitted that getting
feedbacks from the lecturer is important for them to develop much better their academic
writing practices. It is in line with Atay and Kurt (2006) stated that peer feedback group
experienced significantly less writing anxiety than teacher feedback group.
One of the previous studies conducted by Atay and Kurt in 2006 related to the level
and causes of writing anxiety among Prospective Teacher (PT) in Turkey found that the
participants’ feelings of average to high anxiety. Participants with high writing anxiety suffer
from nervousness caused by fear of getting low marks. Furthermore, Rezaei and Jafari (2014)
conducted a study entitled “Investigating the Levels, Types, and Causes of Writing Anxiety
among Iranian EFL Students” which concluded that there was a high level of anxiety among
Iranian EFL students with cognitive anxiety as the dominant type. Meanwhile, the three main
causes of writing anxiety; fear of teachers’ negative feedback, low of self-confidence and
poor of linguistic knowledge. In addition, Hassan (2001) found that students with high levels
of writing anxiety wrote shorter composition and their writing quality was less than the low
anxious students did.

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In the same case, Tuppang’s study (2014) revealed that cognitive anxiety was the most
common type of writing anxiety, and there are four main factors of writing anxiety; the
students never experienced writing class before, afraid of their own writing, pressure from
teacher, and writing under time constraint. Furthermore, Ningsih’s study (2015) found that
cognitive anxiety was the dominant type of writing anxiety for the first year students of
STAIN Kediri. The three major factor of writing anxiety among the students are insufficient
practice, language difficulties and insufficient writing technique. Then, Edgar Meng and
Lydia Tseng (2013) examined the thesis proposal writing process of two Taiwanese EFL
master’s students in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) to identify
possible causes of their writing anxiety. They found that writing the literature review section
was a major cause of anxiety due to students’ perceived lack of ability to logically synthesize
a plethora of prior research to make an argument. Then, based on the interview, the findings
of four Thai EFL doctoral students in applied linguistics, Rungruangthum (2011) also
identified several sources of graduate-level writing anxiety, such as time constraints, pressure
of getting good grades, professors’ expectations, and self-expectation regarding publishing in
academic journals.
Eventually, after elaborating the results of some previous studies, the current study
will be conducted in descriptive method with qualitative approach by providing a deeper
description of EFL graduate students’ writing anxiety in the context of the academic writing
practices. Thus, based on the research background, this study is conducted to picture out: 1)
the writing components that raise EFL graduate students’ writing anxiety in academic writing
practices; 2) the causes of EFL graduate students’ writing anxiety in academic writing
practices; 3) the strategies used by EFL graduate students to minimize writing anxiety in
academic writing practices.

LITERATURE REVIEW
To conduct this study there are some underlying theories that become the basis of
academic writing (Bailey, 2011) and (Casanave, 2002), research article (Edgar Meng and
Lydia Tseng, 2013) and (Hall, 2017), foreign language writing anxiety (Gkonou, 2011),
(Hassan, 2001) and (Takahashi, A., 2009), possible causes of writing anxiety (Hassan, 2001),
(Rezaei and Jafari, 2014) and (Cheng, 2004), and strategies used to reduce the students’
writing anxiety (Mu, 2005).

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Academic writing
Academic writing is commonly characterized as scientific writing which is portrayed
as organized research practiced and utilized by researchers at higher education level. It is
used to report, discuss, and synthesize a research that has been conducted by the writer or
others (Bailey, 2011). It means that academic writing deals with specific rules in its
composition. A general definition of academic writing is any writing done to fulfill a
requirement of a college university. Academic writing is also used for publications that are
read by teachers and researchers or presented at conferences. It is also including any writing
assignment given in an academic setting. There are various academic genres, such as research
proposals, conference papers, research journals, articles, theses, or dissertations that have
been one of the most important competences for graduate students in many disciplines
(Casanave, 2002). In this study, the researcher focuses on research article as one of the kinds
of academic writing for university students.

Research Article
A research article reports the results of original research, assesses to the body of
knowledge in a given area, and is published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Here are the
components of research article that also might raise the students’ writing anxiety according to
Meng and Tseng (2013); abstract, topic, research questions, introduction, literature review,
method of research, results or findings, discussion, conclusion, reference and appendices .

EFL Students’ Anxiety

Anxiety is able to block and interferes the process of learning. Gkonou (2011) argued
that foreign language learners tend to feel anxious because the students try to use a foreign
language successfully but they have not fully mastered the language. Anxiety as a matter of
fact, they rarely use it in the real world. In some cases found that even their instructional
language uses English, anxious EFL students will still use their first language.

Writing Anxiety
Writing anxiety is more of a fear of the writing process that outweighs the projected
gain from the ability to write (Takahashi, A., 2009, 14: 39-48). Writing anxiety also defines as
a label for one or a combination of feelings, beliefs, or behaviors that interfere with a person’s
ability to start, work on, or finish a given writing task that he or she is intellectually capable
of doing. In short, writing anxiety is the psychological predisposition faced by an individual

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in the course of a writing task due to tendencies of overwhelming fear arising from a
combination of feelings, beliefs, and behaviors affecting the individual’s ability to write in.

Types of Writing Anxiety

Similar to foreign language anxiety, anxiety from specific skills as language, writing
anxiety is also divided into some sorts. According to Cheng (2004), writing anxiety is divided
into three types, namely: 1. Cognitive anxiety (the cognitive aspect of anxiety experience,
including negative expectations, preoccupation with performance and concern about others’
perception. How the students make their writing can be highly influenced by expectation
from other students or teacher). 2. Somatic anxiety (one’s perception of the psychological
effects of the anxiety experience, such as nervous and tension). 3. Avoidance anxiety (type of
anxiety where the students avoid writing)

Causes of writing anxiety

Writing anxiety occurs due to some causes, based on Rezaei and Jafari (2014) in their
Causes of Writing Anxiety Inventory (CWAI), there are some possible causes of writing
anxiety. They are: 1. Fear of negative evaluation and fear of test, 2. Time pressure, 3. Low of
self-confidence, 4. Insufficient writing technique, 5. Language difficulties, 6. Lack of topical
knowledge, 7. Lack of experience or insufficient writing practice, 8. Pressure for perfect
work, 9. High frequency of assignment.
In conclusion, there are two roots that cause students to feel anxiety in writing. The
first is from the students itself, such as low self-confidence, insufficient writing technique,
language difficulties, lack of topical knowledge, and lack of experience or insufficient writing
practice. These problems can be solved by the students itself. Others or environment may
help the anxious students but it does not help a lot. The second is from environment, such as
fear of negative evaluation, time pressure, pressure for perfect work, and high frequency of
writing assignment.

Strategies to reduce the students’ writing anxiety

Raoofi et.al (2017) state that writing strategies refer to the techniques and operations
which students employ to write more effectively or to produce better writing. Writing strategy
has correlation with the students’ writing anxiety. Using appropriate strategies in writing
might help the students to reduce their anxiety. In the other hand, the lack of strategy in
writing makes students feel difficult and try to avoid it.

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Mu (2005) found a broader categories of writing strategies used by EFL students: (1)
rhetorical strategies refer to the strategies that writers use to organize and to present their
ideas in writing conventions acceptable to native speakers of that language; (2) metacognitive
strategies refer to the strategies that the writers use to control the writing process consciously;
(3) cognitive strategies refer to the strategies that writers use to implement the actual writing
actions; (4) communicative strategies refer to the strategies that the writers use to express
ideas in a more effective way; (5) social/ affective strategies refer to the strategies that the
writers use to interact with others to clarify some questions and to regulate emotions,
motivation and attitudes in their writing.

METHOD
Research Design
The study is intended to investigate the EFL graduate students’ writing anxiety in
academic writing practices. Referring to the purpose, the method used in this study is
descriptive with qualitative approach.

Data and Data Sources

The data of this study selected information, statements, and descriptions about the
components of academic writing that raise writing anxiety, the causes of writing anxiety in
academic writing practices, and strategies used to minimize the EFL graduate students’
writing anxiety in academic writing practices. Meanwhile, the data sources of this study are
34 EFL graduate students of English Education Department of IAIN Tulungagung.

Subjects of the Research

The subjects of this study are the students who conduct final projects of some courses
to do mini research. Then, they must report it in the form of academic writing, in this case is
research article. They are 34 EFL graduate students of IAIN Tulungagung in academic year
2018/2019 which are divided into 2 classes. Accessibility becomes the reason of the
researcher in selecting the subjects.

Technique of Data Collection

Observation: The researcher conducts the participant observation in the students’
discussion activity dealing with academic writing projects until get saturated data. The
purpose is to know how the students’ discussion activities during the class related to their
final projects of writing research articles. In addition, it is to find out the possible causes that

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can influence students’ writing anxiety, and possible strategies employed by the students in
reducing writing anxiety.
Interview: After conducting observation, the researcher chooses 9 students randomly
to be interviewed with criteria that have been finishing their research article and presenting it
in the classroom. The subjects are not only as EFL students but also have become teachers in
school. It means that whoever students who meet the criteria can be selected as the subjects
of interview.

Technique of Data Verification

The trustworthiness or credibility of the data is checked by using triangulation. The
researcher employed methodology triangulation by using different techniques such as
observation and interview. It means the data to answer the research questions of the study are
collected by using more than one data collection method or instrument.

Technique of Data Analysis

The researcher employs three procedures of data analysis technique designed by
Miles and Huberman (1994:23):
Data Reduction: selecting the needed information. It appears in the process of writing the
field notes and transcription of the interview. In this case, the irrelevant data are discarded
and the relevant data are included.
Data Display: compressing of information that permits conclusion drawing and action. After
collecting and reducing the data about writing anxiety, the researcher displays those selected
data in the form of narrative and description.
Conclusion Drawing: The final analyzing the data of the study. Since the beginning of the
study, the researcher makes temporary conclusion. Furthermore, it must be final conclusion.

FINDINGS
After gathering information through observation and interview, the researcher
discarded the needed information that relevant to the three research problems as follow:
Academic Writing Components which Raise the Students’ Writing Anxiety
After interviewing 9 students who have already presented their result of academic
writing in the form of research article and conducting participant observation, found that:

- Finding section is difficult part of academic writing such as research article. I have to
analyze the result and its relation to the theory. It will need deep understanding about the

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theory and the sharpness of our mind in order to find the needed information that relevant
to my research problems. Besides, the method section makes me not sure whether they
are relevant with my research or not. (Int. ZI)
- Introduction and relevant theories are confusing me, when I have to write the theories as
citations, my ideas, and etc. … Sometimes, there are similar topics to be discussed in both
sections. Moreover, I have to show the previous studies and state the gap and the
difference with my study. (Int. RR)
- We have to broadly explain what we think about the research and combine theories and
experts’ thoughts with ours in the introduction. It also happens in the discussion section.
(Int. NS)
- Arranging introduction is something challenging because I need to gather some
information, previous studies, etc. in a good way (Int. KS)
- Sometimes I felt anxious about relevant theories and method, when writing relevant
theory, we are required to the latest references. Sometimes I feel difficut for certain
references. (Int. KN)
- I doubt with my research method whether it is suitable with my research or not. (Int. AB)
- Relevant theories section is difficult because I am lazy to review the existing theories,
then discussion section too, since I have limited theories reviewed. (Int. DA)

Most of the students in interview said that they felt difficult to write introduction and
literature review sections. They feel confuse to construct the connectivity among paragraphs
smoothly. It makes them anxious with their own writing product. It was proved by the result
of observation that during the process of academic writing, they mostly got evaluation related
to these sections. In introduction section, their evaluations were about organizing for each
paragraph in detail, stating the gaps between previous studies and the researcher’s study.
Meanwhile, the evaluation got from the lecturers dealing with the literature review
section were the references of theories that they used were not up to date, they only cite what
the experts or theories said without paraphrasing or giving their own ideas, and the relevant
literatures or theories that must be discussed and must be omitted in the section to support
their studies. Those are in line with Meng & Tseng (2013) which argued that literature review
section is hard for students since they cannot decide to what extent he is allowed to cite
others’ works or completely use his own words to describe the context. It also indicates the
level of difficulty in making sub-headings for categorizing the previous studies.
Then, the other sections that raise the students’ writing anxiety are method section,
finding, and discussion. Based on observation, the students were mostly difficult to differ

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what should they discuss in finding section and discussion section. In findings, they should
discuss their findings with the relevant theories. While in discussion, the students are required
to discuss their findings with previous researchers’ findings. Then, method section also raises
the students’ anxiety. Sometimes, the students only tended to determine their research
approaches by looking at the form of data they gained by data collection techniques. They
also felt confused to differ between approach, design, and method of study.

Causes of Students’ Writing Anxiety in Academic Writing Practices

The students in interviewed said that:
- Limited time provided in the process of academic writing is challenging for me. Preparing
mini research to write research based article will take a long time. I need to check my
writing, find relevant theories, and collect the data which need a long time for the
beginner like me. (Int. ZI)
- I think very limited times and lack adequate of experience in academic writing practices
and knowledge about academic writing itself causing me worried. (Int. RR)
- I confuse the rules to conduct mini research since I don’t have enough knowledge about
the composition of writing research article. It makes me doubt with my research
procedure (Int. IY)
- I don’t really like writing. Thus, it will be hard for me to conduct mini research and
making a research article. Moreover, it is hard for me to paraphrase the theories or quote
from experts into my own sentences. (Int. NS)
- It’s hard for me to make a research article when the topic is not suitable with my interest.
(Int. KS)
- In my opinion something that influence my writing product is about time, because lot of
work/job or courses must be completed in the same time. (Int. KN)
- As a teacher and student of magister program, I hardly manage my time. Unfortunately,
several lecturers obligate similar tasks. (Int. AB)
- I think time is money, so I am not interesting to write something that in my opinion it
does not give impact to my career. (Int. DA)

Those are supported with the results of observation that most of students were anxious
about their writing projects due to the time constraint. Most of the EFL graduate students that
the researcher observed are those who have job. Mostly, they are not only EFL graduate
students but also teachers. Thus, managing time is something hard for them. Moreover, all the
final projects that the lecturers acquired are similar, it is academic writing such as research
report and research article. Then, the students also mentioned the causes of their anxiety in

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academic writing practices were lack of academic writing composition, lack of practices, the
topic of research that they should conduct was not their interest, even their perception on
academic writing that does not affect their career.
Writing in English for EFL/ESL students is needed more time than writing in their
first language. They need extra time to plan, write, and revise to make sure that their writing
can good writing (Rezaei and Jafari, 2014). However, most anxious writers find that the time
available for academic writing is never sufficient. Then, high frequency of assignments is one
of the sources of writing anxiety. They also argued that the students who rarely practice when
they are writing will give excessive concentration on the forms that they write, not on the
content of essay.

Strategies Used by the Students in Minimizing Writing Anxiety in Academic Writing

Practices
The students need appropriate strategies to minimize their anxiety in academic writing
practices. Based on interview and observation, the results show that:
- I will try to look for articles with the same object or the same method as the examples to
find inspiration. Then I try to compose my own research article following some examples
that I have read. (Int. ZI)
- Asking to the friends and looking for the examples of article. By asking friends, I want to
know their understanding, opinions and suggestions and get the direct feedback or
answer. Then, I also need more knowledge and inspiration by trying to look for some
articles with the similar topics. So that, I can try to arrange my own research article based
on the examples I have read. (Int. RR)
- I will look at the previous project. Then I look at the examples. (Int. IY)
- I have to do it and never judge something before understanding and deeply learning about
it. Thus, I prefer to read more journals or articles that related to mine, so i can find more
inspirations and more references. (Int. NS)
- Reading some relevant research articles might help, then books. (Int. KS)
- I browse some sources from Google Schoolar, Pdfdrive.com, or ejournal. (Int. KN)
- I will look for examples and then ask for suggestions from anyone capable. (Int. AB)
- I will look for the examples. Then, I will make my article as what the article I got. (Int.
DA)

During the observation, the researcher found that students were usually asks their
friends about the organization and composition of academic writing. They also often look for
the examples or their previous task both from journals or articles related to their studies and
examples from the lecturers and did the task as similar as the existing examples. Those are in
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line with broader categories of writing strategies proposed by Mu (2005) that one of the
strategies used by the students to reduce their anxiety in writing is social / affective strategies.
It refers to referring to the existing sources and getting support or evaluate from peers or
teachers.

DISCUSSION
Academic Writing Components that Raise the Students’ Writing Anxiety in Academic
Writing Practices
According to the findings, this study shows that the students often got evaluation as
feedbacks from their lecturers toward their academic writing task, in this case is research
based article. The most evaluation given by the lecturers were about how the students
organized their paragraphs and correlated it in a good order especially in introduction section.
In the interview, a student said, “Introduction and relevant theories are confusing me, when I
have to write the theories as citations, my ideas, and etc…..” Then another student also said,
“We have to broadly explain what we think about the research and combine theories and
experts’ thoughts with ours in the introduction. ….”. A student also argued, “Arranging
introduction is something challenging because I need to gather some information, previous
studies, etc. in a good way.” Those all show that introduction section is difficult for the
students to arrange.
Based on the findings, the students’ difficulties encountered in writing introduction
become the causes of their anxious feelings in academic writing practices. A study on
academic writing difficulties of ESL learners conducted by Badi (2015) found that students
who follow a clear outline and plan find it easy to organize their ideas and relate them to each
other. The respondents responded that the reason of this difficulty could be ascribed to the
fact that they do not have enough knowledge about cohesive devices, paraphrasing the
academic words, the structure, and the organization of the academic writing. In other word,
the students of EFL graduate feels anxious in writing introduction section because some
difficulties such as organizing paragraphs, stating their own ideas, and so on.
Meanwhile, the students mostly agreed that findings and discussion sections were
components of academic writing that raised their anxious feelings in academic writing
practices. In those sections, the students must correlate their findings with the existing
relevant theories. They also must discuss their findings with the previous findings from the
previous studies in the discussion section. Based on the observation, the lecturers said that the
problem was the students could not differ between what should be elaborated in finding

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section and discussion section. In line with this issue, the students argued that their anxious
feelings rose when they must write those sections of academic writing task due to the
difficulty they encountered in writing literature review section. As the result of observation,
the lecturers often reminded the students to search for the recent relevant theories.
The students argued that, they felt difficult to look for the recent theories or literatures
dealing with their topic. Thus, they had lack of relevant literatures in literature review section.
This affected to their process of writing in findings section and discussion section in which
they had to combine it with the existing relevant theories and previous studies. It means that,
if the students had limited material or relevant theories in literature review section, they will
be difficult to correlate, analyze, and discuss their findings and the theories. Talking about
literature review section, Edgar Meng and Lydia Tseng (2013) examined the thesis proposal
writing process of two Taiwanese EFL learners to identify possible causes of their writing
anxiety. They also found that writing the literature review section was a major cause of
anxiety due to students’ perceived lack of ability to logically synthesize a plethora of prior
research to make an argument.
Besides, some students also said that determining research method was anxious case
for them in writing. They claimed that they were lack of knowledge about kinds and certain
characteristics of research. Looking at the result of observation, the students always asked to
their friends before presenting their research article especially about the research method. The
lecturers explained that a research title describes its research method even its research
questions. However, the students tended to determine their research method by looking at the
form of data.
Dealing with this case, a student said, “Finding section is difficult part of academic
writing such as research article. I have to analyze the result and its relation to the theory. It
will need deep understanding about the theory and the sharpness of our mind in order to find
the needed information that relevant to my research problems….”. Another student also said,
“…..relevant theories are confusing me, when I have to write the theories as citations, my
ideas, and etc.….I have to show the previous studies and state the gap and the difference with
my study”. In addition, a student claimed, “Sometimes I felt anxious about relevant theories
and method, when writing relevant theory, we are required to the latest references.
Sometimes I get difficut for certain references” and also “I doubt with my research method
whether it is suitable with my research or not”. Then, one of the students said, “Relevant

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theories section is difficult because I am lazy to review the existing theories, then discussion
section too, since I have limited theories reviewed.”

Possible causes of Students’ Writing Anxiety in Academic Writing Practices

This study showed that time constraint was the most affecting factor caused students’
anxiety in their academic writing practices. According to them, time is something difficult
thing for them to manage since most of them are not only as EFL graduate students but also
as teachers. In the interview, a student stated, “Limited time provided in the process of
academic writing is challenging for me.” Then, another student also argued, “In my opinion
something that influence my writing product is about time, because lot of work/job or courses
must be completed in the same time.” Dealing with the problem of time, in another interview
also found a student who said, “As a teacher and student of magister program, I hardly
manage my time. Unfortunately, several lecturers obligate similar tasks.” These can be
concluded that, time is not only a problem that makes anxiety in their academic writing
practices, but also a high frequency of assignment they attained from the lecturers.
The students also mentioned other causes of writing anxiety, such as lack adequate of
experience in academic writing practices, lack of knowledge about academic writing. These
findings are in line with Ningsih’s study (2015) found that cognitive anxiety was the
dominant type of writing anxiety for the first year students of STAIN Kediri. The three major
factor of writing anxiety among the students are insufficient practice, language difficulties
and insufficient writing technique. Thus, according to the previous study conducted by
Ningsih (2015), lack of experience or practice and lack of knowledge about academic writing
belong to cognitive anxiety. Greenleaf and Katz (2004) also found that the first major
difficulty was having a limited experience in writing a research paper. He was challenged by
issues of content and organization of his paper.
The finding is also the same with the findings of four Thai EFL doctoral students in
applied linguistics, Rungruangthum (2011) also identified several sources of graduate-level
writing anxiety, such as time constraints, pressure of getting good grades, professors’
expectations, and self-expectation regarding publishing in academic journals. It seems that
when the time for writing for the students is limited and their writing are supposed to be
published, they will encounter another problems which are possible to be causes of their
anxiety such as lack of practice and knowledge while they have to try to fulfill the lecturers’
expectations toward their writing products. Besides, some students elaborated other causes

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May, 2019

such as the student do not really like writing, the topic of writing is not a topic of the
student’s interest, and even the student consider that academic writing does not give any
impact in their recent career.
Generally, talking about the importance of academic writing for the future career, the
findings from previous studies of EFL students (Evans & Green, 2007; Cai & Kong 2013)
stated that academic writing is an important skill for their study, graduation requirements, and
future career yet they lacked interest. They strongly agree with the statements on the
perceptions of the importance of academic writing both to the current study and future career.
However, their high awareness of its importance is not in line with their interest or inner
pleasure of academic writing perceptions of the importance of academic writing for a future
career, especially related to the Indonesian government demand for research publication as
part of the teacher or lecturer certification and professional development. In addition,
educating teachers are required to do research about their classes and publish academic
articles via seminars, workshops, and journals. On the other hand, students assumed that the
teachers did not give much interest in academic writing because it was difficult and needed
extra effort, especially dealing with diction, grammar, and technical problems. Also, it was
such an unusual activity to be implemented in their daily life.

Strategies to Minimize the Students’ Writing Anxiety in Academic Writing Practices

Looking for examples of academic writing became the frequent strategy selected by
the students to help them minimizing their anxious feelings during their academic writing
practices. Two students in the interview also said, “Reading some relevant research articles
might help, then books.” and “I browse some sources from Google Schoolar, Pdfdrive.com,
or ejournal.” .It was supported by the previous findings of previous studies. (Gordon, 2008)
stated that reading such as books, journals, articles, and even some websites are invaluable
source on which learners could rely to enrich their lexicon with academic vocabulary and
expressions. Therefore, they will be able to effectively express their views and ideas in their
own voice. Olness (2005) also argued that appropriate reading material could play an
essential role in improving learner’s writing. In other words, the students would be more
familiar with the different writing styles, the structures, and elements of various genres.
Another strategy used by the students was asking to their friends or lecturers. A
student said, “By asking friends, I want to know their understanding, opinions and
suggestions and get the direct feedback or answer.” Amin and Al-Amin (2012) in their study

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May, 2019

suggested that instructors can give out samples of excellent assignments written by other
students and hold guided discussion with the students in order to assist them develop the
sense of critical thinking and how to transfer other's work into their own words. In addition,
The result of study conducted by Masriani, Mukhaiyar, and Wahyuni (2018) about writing
anxiety and writing strategies used by English Department Students of Universitas Negeri
Padang found that the least used writing strategy was social strategy. They include the actions
learners choose in order to interact with their colleagues or to help them overcome learning
difficulties. This result showed that the students still needed peers to correct their writing, to
help them in solving writing problems and to discuss the ideas in their writing. These actions
helped them to be more confident in writing because their writing was evaluated by other
people. Morson (2004) stated that consulting to a senior student and asking for her feedback
and guidance. He also suggested that we not only learn, we also learn to learn, and we learn
to learn best when we engage in a dialogue with others and ourselves.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

This study shows that introduction and literature review section are the most difficult
for the students to write. It is caused by the students’ difficulty in finding the recent relevant
theories, synthesize and paraphrase of the sentences, and combine the existing theories or
previous studies with the students’ own ideas in good order paragraphs. As results, it makes
them difficult in writing finding and discussion sections since they have to be able to
correlate and discuss their findings with relevant theories or previous studies. Thus, it raises
the students’ writing anxiety. Actually, the problems they encountered in academic writing
practices are due to lack of knowledge of cohesive devices and lack of readings the relevant
sources.
Then, time constraint becomes the major cause of the students’ writing anxiety in
academic writing practices. As graduate students and teachers in school, it is hard for them to
manage their time to do the writing assignments. Moreover, all lecturers gave the similar
writing assignment for the students. In addition, other causes were lack of practice and lack
of knowledge about academic writing. Those causes indicate the students belong to the
students with cognitive anxiety. In short, since the time given was limited, the students had
not enough time to practice and deeper their knowledge and the techniques about academic
writing practices. Thus, it also makes the students difficult to fulfill the lecturers’ expectations
toward their writing products. In addition, anxiety also happened when they have to write a

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English Graduate Program of IAIN Tulungagung
May, 2019

topic that was not their interest. They also felt anxious to write because writing was activity
that they really do not like enough, even perception that academic writing does not have any
impact toward their career.
Meanwhile, affective strategy such as looking for the examples of relevant previous
articles, looking at the previous writing projects, and asking friends and lecturers about
academic writing composition and organization were the most strategies used by the students
to reduce their writing anxiety in academic writing practices. By looking at the composition
and organization of various genres of academic writing, it might help students improving
their proficiency of writing. Then, they can compose their own academic writing as good as
the example that they read.
Investigating the EFL students’ writing anxiety in academic writing practices will help
the students and the lecturers to know what makes the students feel anxiety in writing that
cause them are not able to produce their own best writing. It is also beneficial for both
students and lecturers in selecting appropriate strategies to reduce the students’ writing
anxiety in academic writing practices. The results of this study can also be useful as the basis
to conduct similar further study on the students’ types, level and causes of writing anxiety, the
students’ challenges in developing academic writing skill, teachers and students’ strategies in
minimizing writing anxiety in academic writing practices, and teachers and students’ beliefs
or perceptions toward academic writing.

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