Academic writing and the experience of graduate students and supervisors/advisors: The case of educational studies

This study questions quality and experiences of graduate writing in the field of educational studies. A typical graduate work has three basic components; the writer, the advisor and the text. By using two-phase research, the present study investigates all three components. The first phase of the research examines the quality of graduate theses written in the field of education studies. The quality examination is done by using a plagiarism detection software with respect to two parameters; similarity and plagiarism. 600 theses and dissertations written in the field of educational studies are analyzed. Findings show that the mean similarity index of the sample is 28.58%, which is significantly higher than the mean threshold. The rate of theses and dissertation having high-level plagiarism is 34.5%. The second phase of the study deals with the experiences and perceptions of academic writing among graduate students, and advisors' perceptions of academic writing and their advising practices by conducting in-depth interviews. 12 advisors and 24 graduate students are included as participants. MAQXDA, a qualitative data analysis program, is used for the content analysis of interviews. Findings show that advisors and students have a difficulty in grasping requirements of academic writing. Participants regularize and understand from academic writing an epidemic conception of writing, which repeats itself across different cases while making limited contribution. It has been suggested that the genre qualities of academic writing in the field of educational studies can explain the theses and dissertations plagiarized and having originality issues.