Research Supervisors’ Perceptions of PhD Scholars’ Writing Difficulties across Engineering Disciplines: A Qualitative Study
Dr. R. Kalpana
Professor(CAS), Dept of English, PSG college of college, Coimbatore.
Dr. R. Senthil Kumar
Assistant professor (Sr.Gr), Dept of English, PSG College of Technology Coimbatore.
Keywords: Writing skills, difficulties, engineering research reports, PhD Theses, Supervisors’ perceptions
Abstract
This study reports the writing difficulties of 54 PhD scholars in the field of engineering, as reported by a pool of research supervisors from three engineering colleges in Tamilnadu. The data has been collected through semi-structured interviews and themes and patterns have been identified and analysed quantitatively. Specific difficulties in the areas of grammar, vocabulary, cohesion and coherence and other features of style have been highlighted with examples. It also proposes recommendations for improving the writing skills of PhD scholars.
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