title: Strategies for successful academic writing - institutional and non-institutional support for students.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Students develop better academic writing skills as they progress through their higher education programme, but despite recent continuing monitoring of student satisfaction with their education in UK, there has been relatively little research into students' perceptions of the active support that they need and receive to succeed as academic writers.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To examine the strategies that university students on health or social care courses utilise to develop as writers in the face of many pressures and demands from different sources.
  Qualitative research conducted at a British University into undergraduates' writing practices in the field of healthcare. Ten participants took part in semi-structured interviews, half of whom were international students. The data was analysed by the researchers from the field of writing development using thematic analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The main findings are that certain students struggle as academic writers if they do not receive tuition on appropriate and effective academic writing through institutional provisions, or through non-institutional strategies, that can promote success with the writing process. There is also uncertainty over the extent to which nurse educators are expected to teach academic writing skills, alongside their discipline-specific subject areas.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Both institutional provisions for academic writing development, such as a dedicated writing support department, and non-institutional factors such as peer-collaboration should be fully recognised, supported and resourced in tertiary education at a time when students' satisfaction and performance are high on the agenda.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, United Kingdom. Electronic address: n.gopee@coventry.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Neil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gopee
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Deane
mesh_terms: D006281:Health Occupations / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D009042:Motivation; D010379:Peer Group; D036301:Qualitative Research; D066270:Social Capital; D006113:United Kingdom; D014956:Writing
keywords: Academic writing; Barriers to writing; Motivation to write; Peer support; Peer-collaboration; Social capital; Writing enablers; Writing in genres