An Investigation of Taiwanese Doctoral Students’ Academic Writing at a U.S. University

Abstract

The United States has always been the top choice of Taiwanese university students who want to study abroad.Consequently, English writing is especially vital for doctoral dissertation; insufficient research deals with academicwriting of such students, despite its importance to their success. This paper aims to fill the gap by analyzing thecourse syllabi as well as interviews with Ph.D. students at a university in New York State. Task analysis and verbalreports of these students yielded significant insights that may contribute to more effective guidance for bothacademic writing instructors and curriculum developers in Taiwan.