Kimberly De Vries writes about the differences in writing between Chinese students and American students and the expectations of Western academic institutions. She compares Western writing to "mathematical plainness" and argues that there is a cultural bias that exists. De Vries writes, "My experience with American writing practice has led me to conclude that in America, clarity depends not so much on using a particular form, but rather using the form expected by the reader. Thus clarity is entirely dependent on cultural expectations..." (1). This article was interesting to me because I have several Asian students in my workshop. I'm trying to understand the motives behind some of the errors they make while writing. It's difficult because much of the research deals with wether they're using their L1 to help organize their thoughts and simply translating them into L2 (which usually results in a complete lack of clarity. In fact, at times I didn't know what whole sentences meant) or writing by using L2 only. De Vries also relies on research by Robert Kaplan who has documented the effects of culture on writing practices. De Vries writes, "Kaplan contended that writing teachers needed to understand that culture produces different styles of argument, rather than flawed thinking. If we are not looking for it, we may miss an unfamiliar pattern of argument just as we may miss an unfamiliar sound in a foreign language" (3). De Vries believes that American scholars value a certain "style" of academic writing -- a style that represents only a small part of all the writing that goes on in the world today. "As this work goes on, we now begin to see that many characteristics of 'good' writing that were once perceived as universally true, are actually very much influenced by culture" (6).

After much searching, I was able to find a book that was written by an educator from England about her varying experiences with excellent writers that had a difficult time adapting their writing style to the expectations the West. Helen Fox, author of "Listening to the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing, analyzes the effects of culture and the problems this cultural influence causes when students try to adapt their writing styles and personas to that of Western academia. Problems include; focusing on a group instead of emphasis on self, a mindset geared toward a focus on the past instead of a focus on the future and a circular approach to writing instead of a linear approach. Fox investigates these issues and other cultural effects on the writing process.

This article is geared more towards translation but I've found that many of the same principles of translation can be applied when trying to write academically. We are doing nothing more than trying to translate our thoughts and complex ideas and put them into the language of academic writing - usually a foreign language to us. Because I am writing on cultural barriers to academic writing, I thought it would be useful to see how other minds work. In this way we might be more empathetic to our students and it might aid our diagnostics as well. The author, Dirk Siepmann, compares the academic writing of English, French and German. "For a long time the idea has been around that the 'spirit' of a language exerts a formative influence on its speakers and writers" (Siepmann 1). This influence is something that educators need to be aware of when teaching writing. How can you help transition students into a different academic writing culture without making them give up their own? Siepmann also discusses what he refers to as "Intellectual Styles." He calls these the "Saxon", the "Teutonic", the "Gallic" and the "Nipponic". He has derived these terms based on writers' ability to organize thought, target audience, relationship of writer to audience and other criteria. The author also talks about the differences in learning systems and what is expected in those learning systems.

This article by Caleb Corkery analyzes the use of literacy narratives as a technique to help transition students who aren't from our culture. Corkery argues, and I agree, that storytelling gives students a chance to change their identities. He cites an example given by Betsy Rymes, "Rymes claims that former high school dropouts can re-script themselves through narratives that eliminate their past identities" (51.) Also through literacy narratives, students can gain insight into their own cultural identities and through this awareness understand how one is "culturally scripted" or how their culture affects how they see writing and the writing community which they are attempting to join. One of the hindrances that Corkery mentions in his article is the difficult transition for writers who come from an oral tradition. A different consciousness accompanies oral thought. Citing two researchers who study the Athabaskan culture in Alaska, Corkery writes, "Because learning to read and write in the essayist manner is in fact learning new patterns of discourse, literacy for an Athabaskan is experienced as a change in ethnicity as well as a change in reality set" (61). While we might not have the opportunity to teach writing to an Athabaskan, we do have students that come from a oral culture. The African American community has a very deep oral tradition. While it may not be as extensive as the native tribe in Alaska, it still deals with a certain amount of ethnicity change.