Problems In Academic Writing

ABSTRAC:

The aim of these papers is to determine the issues and difficulties that Saudi students encounter when learning to write in an academic way and to explore writing mistakes and errors that student make while they are writing.

Introduction:

Academic writing is an important for students who learning English as a second language.

When it comes to the teaching and learning of language skills, writing comes at the end, according to the natural order hypothesis of language learning, but this does not make writing skill insignificant. Rather, its significance increases manifolds in the academic contexts in which students are required to apply this skill as a main tool to show what they have learnt. According to Fageeh (2011), “many EFL

Writing is defined as ".... the logical organization and arrangement of the written sentences within a paragraph and paragraphs within the units of discourse ............and the expression of the ideas" (Abu-Ghararh, 1998, p. 87). like any second language learning ,Saudi learners face many problems in academic writing , like, they do not know how to organize their ideas or how to use punctuation...etc.

Types of academic writing:

There are different types of academic papers students are expected to write. They each serve a different purpose while helping students build writing and analytical skills. Research may be necessary for different types of papers and others you may be required to share personal opinions or experiences.

Academic writing is used in more than one form and we will go through each one of them to ensure which types we use in the correct place or situations

1-essay:

argument text ,usually short (1.500 to6.000 words).

2- research paper: longer essay involving library research (3.000 to 6.000

Cases of writing problems:

Chou (2011) has listed a number of reasons why international students studying in an English-speaking country encounter a lot of stress and obstacles when writing their assignments.

Firstly, students might come from different cultural backgrounds where they are fully dependent on teachers. They also have not been trained to be critical thinkers and they might have lower expectations than those of their teachers as they consider themselves second language learners.

Al-Khsawneh (2010) indicated that the students identified that the teaching method and the environment are the main causes of their weaknesses in English. Their Weak qualification in

English is either related to the lack of student motivation, or the teacher’s interest. Many learners use their mother tongue because of the isolated culture. Yet, methods of teaching

English included the medium of instructions, using Arabic in English classes, writing done in

Arabic, teachers’ low proficiency in English, and lack of writing practice in educational institutions. The cases are different among student we cannot determine a specific case , but according to what we observed among learners we can basically give a few