The purpose of this project was to consolidate a number of instructor-compiled Word documents and PDFs into an easily decipherable, well-organized open textbook. In doing so, students currently enrolled in GR ST 536 would continue to have access to the course materials, students not enrolled in the course would be able to use the book, and instructors across the university would be able to use this book in class and/or alert their graduate students to this resource as they learn research writing skills.
The content of the Pressbook, Preparing to Publish, presents instructional strategies for students to learn research writing skills. The intent of the book is to raise students’ awareness of the norms and expectations of high-quality research writing in their field that will help them more thoughtfully approach their own writing with the intent of matching disciplinary standards.
Assessment
After the Pressbook was created, the text was piloted in the Spring 2022 offering of GR ST/ENGL 536. Feedback was gathered from the students and the instructor both pre- and post-course in such dimensions as research writing familiarity, ease of understanding taught strategies, comprehensibility of strategy descriptions provided, accessibility of the strategies, and degree of helpfulness in prompting application of strategies. All surveys included both close-ended and open-ended response items.
At the start of Spring 2022 semester, the GR ST/ENGL 536 students completed a pre-course survey that gathered their perspectives on awareness of goals or strategies used by research writers in each section of the research article, current level of familiarity with research writing strategies used in their disciplines, perceived degree of knowledge about language choices common of research article sections, and overall comfort level writing a research article.Students remarked they were either “very knowledgeable” or “somewhat knowledgeable” about identifying quality research writing in their discipline, understanding research article structures in their discipline, but “not knowledgeable” or only “somewhat knowledgeable” about developing a strong argument for their research, using appropriate language to write up the research, planning/outlining of the research article, and writing the Introduction through Discussion/Conclusion sections of the research report.
At the end of the semester, a post-course survey was administered. This evaluative measure included not only the same questions as the pre-semester survey, but also included questions gauging students’ ease of understanding presented content in the Pressbook, comprehensibility of descriptions provided, and degree of helpfulness in prompting application of strategies. This post-course assessment from students revealed that all students were either “very knowledgeable” or “somewhat knowledgeable” about identifying quality research writing in their discipline, understanding research article structures in their discipline, developing a strong argument for their research, using appropriate language to write up the research, planning/outlining of the research article, and writing the Introduction through Discussion/Conclusion sections of the research report after having taken the course. All students (100%) believed that the course’s Pressbook contributed to them learning research writing skills in the course.
Reflection
As the PIs recounted in their final report,
"This Pressbook will allow instructors of this course and other graduate faculty instructing courses at the university to access and apply these resources, potentially replacing any commercial materials those instructors presently use as they assist graduate students in building their research writing skills. Graduate faculty across the disciplines will have the ability to reference the content in their graduate-level courses, labs, and mentoring of graduate students as a reliable, go-to resource for enhancing graduate student research writing skills."
Citation: Huffman, S., Cotos, E., & Becker, K. (2023). Preparing to Publish. Iowa State University Digital Press. https://doi.org/10.31274/isudp.2023.132