Academic writing as an academic discipline: problematic issues

Abstract

The paper studies peculiarities of introducing the course of “Fundamentals of Academic Writing,” into the Ukrainian education and scientific process. The integration of the Ukrainian science into the European space caused the necessity of including “Academic Writing” into the Ukrainian curricula. Fundamentals of a new academic discipline are represented through the prism of world and national achievements, which determine such concepts as “academic communication”, “academic etiquette”, “academic integrity”, “the quality of academic text”. This research focuses on the following major issues: What is the essence of “Academic Writing”? Is it a brand new course? How does it affect the ranking of higher education institutions? How should intertextual tools be used to keep the academic integrity? How does the level of English proficiency affect the quality of the Ukrainian scientific products? Is the course of “Academic Writing” a tribute to fashion or a vital necessity? It also investigates the peculiarities of academic fundamentals required for development of certain knowledge, skills and abilities of the Ukrainian language academic writing. The latter aims not only to promote academic integrity by following ethical principles and statutory rules that should guide the participants of the education process while studying, training and conducting research activities, but also to represent the concepts, strategies and tactics of organizing the processes of academic text creation, analysis and editing.