Doctoral writing in the natural sciences: the texts and contexts of mentoring by co-authorship

Abstract

The present study described and analysed the co-authoring practices of doctoral students and their supervisors in natural science disciplines as they prepared a research article (RA) for submission to an academic journal. Three pairs of students and supervisors from different science disciplines (Environmental Sciences, Neurosciences, and Computational Chemistry) were recruited and their co-authoring practices were observed and described by means of an ethnographic case study methodology, with a particular focus on their interaction with each other and with their developing text in meetings. To observe and describe the situated writing and learning practices of the participants, a wide range of textual and contextual data was obtained: RA drafts and their written feedback were collected, meetings between the participants were observed and audio-recorded, and interviews were held with the students and supervisors. Data analysis was performed thematically and iteratively, drawing on existing theoretical frameworks from doctoral writing and research writing. The findings are developed in three themes. First, the dynamics of interaction between the participants and their RA drafts in these meetings are characterised, suggesting three modes of interaction, each of which has implications for text ownership, student autonomy and learning. Secondly, the situated practices by which students learn to write for peers are described, finding that supervisors verbally modelled expected reviewer and reader responses in great detail and tended to base their own authority on their greater understanding of these social communities, rather than on abstract scientific arguments. Finally, by juxtaposing an ethnographic approach with methods and findings from discourse analysis, the present study sought to establish how participants manipulated personal pronouns for self-promotional and other purposes, and how participants verbalised and manipulated moves and steps to shape and reshape their RAs. In conclusion, based on a thick description of writing-focused meetings in science doctoral supervision, this study supports and further develops the notion that research writing in the sciences is both performed and acquired by means of social interaction, and that the ethnographic study of co-authoring practices can serve as window into the usage and learning of genre structures and features.