Harwood, N. orcid.org/0000-0002-9474-4865 (2023) Lecturer, language tutor, and student perspectives on the ethics of the proofreading of student writing. Written Communication, 40 (2). pp. 651-719. ISSN 0741-0883
Abstract
Various forms of proofreading of student writing take place in university contexts. Sometimes writers pay freelance proofreaders to edit their texts before submission for assessment; sometimes more informal arrangements take place, where friends, family, or coursemates proofread. Such arrangements raise ethical questions for universities formulating proofreading policies: in the interests of fairness, should proofreading be debarred entirely or should it be permitted in some form? Using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, this article investigates where three university stakeholder groups stand on the ethics of proofreading. Content lecturers, English language tutors, and students shared their views on the ethics of various lighter-touch and heavier-touch proofreader interventions. All three parties broadly approved of more minor interventions, such as correcting punctuation, amending word grammar, and improving sentence structure. However, students were found to be more relaxed than lecturers and language tutors about the ethics of more substantial interventions at the level of content. There were outliers within each of the three groups whose views on proofreading were wide apart, underscoring the difficulty of formulating proofreading policies which would attract consensus across the academy. The article concludes by discussing the formulation and dissemination of appropriate, research-led proofreading guidelines, and issues for further exploration.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 SAGE Publications. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | academic writing; university writing; editing; tutoring; higher education policy |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of English (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 30 Jan 2023 16:30 |
Last Modified: | 03 Apr 2023 15:34 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/07410883221146776 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:195783 |