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Metalinguistic awareness contributes to effective writing at university.
Writing is a meaning-making process where linguistic, cognitive, social and
creative factors are at play. University students need to master the skills of
academic writing not only for getting their degree but also for their future
career. It is also significant for lecturers to know who our students are, how
they think and how we can best assist them. This study examines first-year
undergraduate Australian and international engineering students as writers of
academic texts in a multicultural setting at the University of Adelaide. A
questionnaire and interviews were used to collect data about students’ level of
metalinguistic awareness, their attitudes toward, expectations for, assumptions
about and motivation for writing. The preliminary results of the research show
that students from different cultures initially have different concepts about the
academic genres and handle writing with different learning and writing styles,
but those with a more developed metalanguage are more confident and
motivated. The conclusion can also be drawn that students’ level of motivation
for academic writing positively correlates with their opinion about themselves
as writers. Following an in-depth multi-dimensional analysis of preliminary
research results, some recommendations for writing instruction will also be
presented.
Study some more examples of abstracts
This paper presents a two-way comparison between a stitched
transmission line constructed with a copper wire and conductive thread, and a
stitched transmission line constructed with conductive threads only from Light
Stitches®. The stitched transmission lines which are both 150 mm long consist
of a copper inner conductor surrounded by a tubular insulating layer made up of
polyethylene. For shielding purpose, the structure is stitched onto a 150 mm ×
150 mm denim material first with a copper wire and a conductive thread and
secondly with conductive threads only, with stitch lengths, thread tension and
stitch width at 2, 4 and 2 mm, respectively. The direct current (DC) resistances
of the stitched transmission lines were measured to compare DC losses, while
the scattering parameters were investigated through simulation and experiments
within a frequency range of 0.04 to 4 GHz with results demonstrating an
improved transmission characteristic and less DC loss with the stitched
transmission line with copper wire and conductive thread.
Key words: Stitched transmission line, conductive thread, copper wire,
direct current (DC) resistance, S-parameters, stitch length, thread tension, stitch
width.
