Writing groups in Ecuador as support for academics on the road to publication

RODAS BROSAM, ELISABETH; COLOMBO, LAURA

Pucara

Facultad de Filosofía, Letras y Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de Cuenca

Lugar: Cuenca; Año: 2018 vol. 29 p. 147 - 167

Writing groups where authors get constructive feedback to improve their drafts are quite innovative in South America, especially for those not used to sharing their work in progress with academic readers, even more so when texts are produced in English as a second language. This paper presents the experience of a writing group in English which took place at a public Ecuadorian university. The participants revised and sent for publication a conference paper. To determine the usefulness of this initiative, group meetings were recorded, a short anonymous survey was administered, and a semi-structured focus group was conducted with the participants. Results show that, in line with previous research, this writing group presented benefits to help support academics on the road to publication such as experiencing and learning how to give and receive written feedback and learning literacy practices in a situated manner through dialogue.