Reasons and Mechanisms of Academic Writing Mistakes Made by Native Russian Speakers

Abstract

Yana Akhapkina, Ph.D., senior researcher at the Linguistic Laboratory for Corpora Research Technologies, National Research University — Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russian Federation. Email: yana.akhapkina@gmail.com 

This is an analysis of long-term and contextual reasons for academic writing mistakes made by native speakers.
The author proves that difficulties associated with academic writing are caused not only by requirements that are higher in universities than in schools, but also by poor comprehensive reading skills. She claims that indifferent, or shallow, reading and writing in university trace their roots back to school or even pre-school years. Akhapkina determines stages of language personality development, studies the factors that influence the development of reading competencies at each of these stages, and reveals the major killers of interest in reading.
Proper development of comprehensive reading skills may be achieved, first of all, by balancing belles-lettres with scientific and educational texts, and balancing duration and frequency of active reading with those of passive listening and watching. The author discusses how comprehensive reading motivation and level of understanding depend on the text selected and on whether it is self-sufficient or not.
Markers of an academic text are identified, as they are seen by high school and university students. The most important ones are redundant terminology, complex syntax overload, and conformance to the methodical model. The author describes the major features of student reading and writing experience and reading interests.
Mechanisms of typical agrammatic features are revealed; a classification of frequency errors is given, and some methods are proposed to expand stimulus material expansion through correcting academic writing skills gradually.