The challenge of academic writing for Chinese students within ...

in conjunction with an intention to seek understanding; and that memorisation can be
used to deepen and develop understanding (Marton et al., 1999; Kember, 2000).
Dahlin and Watkins (2000) highlighted the distinction between rote learning and
repetition for deep memorising (‗creating deep impression on the mind‘), and argued
that repetition can help deepen or develop understanding by discovering new
meaning.
Some research also explored the motivational intentions of Chinese students in
learning, which are associated with a deep approach to learning. The conventional
view sees Chinese students as motivated by extrinsic factors of obtaining a
qualification for a better job perspective, which is related to a surface approach.
However, Kember‘s (2000) study shows that career motivation often occurred in
conjunction with intrinsic motivations: students tend to expect courses to be both
interesting and career relevant. The finding is also in correlation with Confucian
understanding of learning as self-cultivation.
Academic writing
Grabe and Kaplan (1996) differentiate writing in academic settings from telling or
retelling, which involves recalling and reiterating. They understand academic writing
as transforming, which involves, according to Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987, p. 5),
‗the complex juxtaposition of many pieces of information as well as the weighing of
various rhetorical options and constraints;‘ such types of writing as expository,
argumentative / persuasive, and creative writing involve transforming. The majority
of students, both L1 and L2, have little or no experience of writing as transforming
before they enter university. Learning to write academically in higher education
settings for L1 writers is difficult, and is even more challenging for writers of English
as a second language (L2).
Academic writing, as Torrance et al. (1994, p.379) remark, involves
a complex combination of generating ideas, selecting the ideas that are
appropriate to the writing task, translating these into text and polishing the
text to produce a presentable document. In doing this the writer has to
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