Erik Borg
My research vision
I am fascinated by the work that students and academics do in academic writing—the difficulties and successes that novices and experts experience in this artificial but vital context. I’m particularly interested in the innovations that emerge in academic writing, brought on in part by the increasing inclusion of visual expression in an area that has traditionally been dominated by verbal expression. In addition, intertextuality and the related social phenomenon of plagiarism engross me: I want to understand why academics focus on this area in a particular fashion, highlighting certain types of behaviour as misconduct and others as acceptable.
Biography
After a twenty year career as a free-lance still photographer, I was drawn back to the area of my undergraduate and Master’s degree in Literature to teach English for academic purposes in China. After a period there, I took first a Master’s degree in teaching English as a second language at the University of Leeds and then a Ph.D., where I observed doctoral candidates in Art and Design writing their theses. This study brought together my career as a visual artist and my interest in academic writing. While undertaking my research, I published on the inclusion of writing (and Ph.D.s) in Art and Design study, on the process and difficulties that participants faced in writing their theses, and on how lecturers conceptualise transgressive intertextuality.
Since completing my thesis, I have continued to work with multimodal communication, having been involved in a seminar series leading to a book on digital dissertations and theses. I am currently studying MOOCs as a platform for teaching academic writing.
Selected outputs
- Borg, E. (2009) 'Local plagiarisms'. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 34 (4), 415-426.
- Borg, E., and Boyd-Davis, S. (2012) 'The Thesis: Texts and machines'. In Sage Handbook of Digital Dissertations and Theses. Ed. by Andrews, R., Borg, E., Boyd-Davis, S., Domingo, M., and England, J. Los Angeles: Sage, 13-30.
- Borg, E. (2012) 'Writing differently in Art and Design: Innovative approaches to writing tasks'. In Writing in the Disciplines: Building Supportive Cultures for Student Writing. Ed. by Clughen, L., and Hardy, C. Bingly: Emerald.
- Borg, E., and Deane, M. (2011) 'Measuring the outcomes of individualised writing instruction: A multilayered approach to capturing changes in students' texts'. Teaching in Higher Education16 (3), 319-331.
- Borg, E. (2007) 'Writing in fine arts and design education in context'. Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 1, 83-89.
- Borg, E. (2003) 'Key concepts in ELT: Discourse community'.English Language Teaching Journal 57 (4), 398-400.
- Borg, E. (2007) 'Academic writing in Fine Arts Practice'. In New approaches to materials development for language learning. Ed. by Alexander, O. Bern: Peter Lang, 27-36
