Constituent Characteristics of Academic Research Writing: A Structured Literature Review

Academic research writing (ARW) continues to be at the center of teaching and learning in higher education institutions (HEI’s). However HEIs lack in commitment towards preparing novice postgraduate students in academic writing. Research writing is a requirement for successful graduation of students at the postgraduate level. In an effort to contributing to solving this problem, a research is currently conducted and this paper reports a part of the research project by highlighting the constituent characteristics of academic research writing that essentially need to be considered while training and preparing novice researchers (NRs) to become members of the academic research community. The constituent characteristics were identified through an extensive structured literature review. This paper concludes that due consideration should be given to the constituent characteristics of academic research writing while designing curriculum aiming to prepare NRs. In addition, addressing their anxiety to establish their identity as members of academic research communities.