A Conversation about “Editing” Plurilingual Scholars’ Thesis Writing

Drawing on our combined experiences providing thesis writing support, we critically consider the tensions surrounding policies and practices aimed at plurilingual graduate students using English as an additional language (EAL). Our trioethnographic methodology allows us to unpack and explore the ethics framing our individual “editing” practices amid institutional norms, expectations and ideologies. Drawing on relevant literature in the field, our conversations or “trialogues” produce insights and raise questions surrounding the ethical imperative of providing effective thesis writing support for plurilingual EAL writers in an era of increasing internationalization. We conclude with suggestions for flexible, targeted writing support that challenges narrow epistemologies and stale ideologies regarding taboo editing practices of academic and language literacy brokers involved in the production and revision of thesis writing.

proficiency in English which do not seem to be a reliable indication of the level of academic English required to be successful in a thesis program. We have witnessed many situations where even high grades on TOEFL, IELTS, or in a university-based English for Academic purposes program do not translate into success in the graduate program. Similarly, even three consecutive years studying in an English-speaking institution does not guarantee the required level of English to write a thesis independently.
James: Antoinette, I can imagine it would be difficult to judge whether such students are capable of achieving satisfactory writing outcomes when being considered for admission. Having gone through the arduous process myself, I can see that thesis writing is challenging for all those attempting it, regardless of their L1 (Casanave, 2014;Hyland, 2016). I have come to view thesis writing as a distinct literacy practice, one socially-situated (Lillis, 2013;Starke-Meyerring, 2011) and with its own genre-and discipline-specific codes and conventions (Aitchison, Kamler & Lee, 2010;Simpson & Matsuda, 2008;Swales & Feak, 2012). It is difficult to measure students' potential or capability of tackling such an enormous task by traditional admissions requirements, particularly when the academic learning trajectory or socialization spans over several years (Okuda & Anderson, 2017).

Megan: Antoinette, in my recent doctoral study, plurilingual EAL writers and their advisors suggested
admissions policies that rely on TOEFL or IELTS scores do not accurately measure the writing ability required by graduate programs. Moreover, as you suggest, James, the contextual and disciplinary nature of writing that students are asked to undertake require far more than English writing proficiency as graduate writers often come to writing centres due to lack of clarity around what constitutes "good" writing in this new context. While illuminating the hidden expectations of academic writing may help, the ability to explain features of good writing is challenging and may even evade faculty (Lea & Street, 1998).
Antoinette: You both point to the need for faculty to consider approaches for supporting plurilingual EAL students navigating writing in graduate programs including the creation of forums for discussions among faculty about feedback practices for plurilingual EAL writers (Séror, 2009). One such discussion was undertaken at a recent faculty meeting: a senior colleague was invited by the chair to share his knowledge by presenting a PowerPoint about how to support writing development among linguistically and culturally diverse master's students. His suggestions were excellent and reflected the most up-to-date research on teaching writing across the disciplines. However, this presentation was the last item on the agenda, and to my regret, many of my colleagues left as they did not feel that the topic was pertinent to their work with graduate students.

Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie
Volume 28, 2018 http://journals.sfu.ca/cjsdw James: Antoinette, I think you point to a reality that I have encountered wherein faculty support for plurilingual EAL thesis students' writing at OISE and the University of Toronto is uneven at best. As a writing tutor, I often found that students were unsure as to their supervisors' or instructors' expectations for their academic writing. In addition to one-on-one support over the course of the 2014-15 academic year, I ran bi-weekly thesis writing group workshops. These sessions were attended by students of varying academic English writing proficiency, including many plurilingual EAL writers. Following such sessionsfocused on everything from managing the supervisor-supervisee relationship to section by section content expectations for theses-students reported increased confidence in navigating the thesis production process. Providing this type of ongoing, institutional support could be a way of providing the genre-specific writing support broadly required by all research degree-seeking graduate students, including plurilingual EAL students (Grav & Cayley, 2015). However, such support may be insufficient in addressing plurilingual EAL students' language-specific needs, including surface-level ones that impede clarity of expression. This is where individual writing support provided by language literacy brokers with L2 writing expertise could be particularly beneficial, especially if done in collaboration with thesis supervisors. Rather than viewing this as a "deficit" approach, I see this as an equity measure aimed at providing the conditions for plurilingual EAL students to better develop academic literacies (Badenhorst, Maloney, Rosales, Dyer & Ru, 2015).
Megan: James, as you suggest deficit discourses often circulate around student writing and support in academia (Hallett, 2010;Graves, 2016;Lea & Street 1998;Turner, 2011). Such discourses often imply writing is easily "fixed" at the surface level, which acts to overlook the complexity of academic writing.
Secondly, such discourses often implicitly posit that students simply need to learn generic writing skills in