Christine Feak will lead the course the Training course for early-career researchers

Christine Feak will lead the training course for early-career researchers

Christine Feak is a faculty member at the English Language Institute, University of Michigan, where she has been teaching for over 30 years and serving as the lead lecturer writing for publication courses. Christine also holds a faculty appointment in the African Studies Center, University Michigan, in which she serves as the writing mentor for the University of Michigan African Presidential Scholars, a program that supports the development of the next generation of African scholars from sub-Saharan Africa. She is co-author (with John Swales)  of the widely acclaimed textbook entitled Academic Writing for Graduate Students, and also the new English in Today’s Research World book series focused on the writing of research genres and subgenres. In addition to teaching and textbook writing, she serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of English for Specific Purposes, an international peer-reviewed journal focusing on topics relevant to the teaching and learning of discourse for specific communities. Her editorial work extends to the University of Michigan Press where she is an editor of the Michigan Series in English for Academic & Professional Purposes.

Christine has conducted writing for publication workshops for students, faculty, researchers, and practitioners in disciplines ranging from Applied Linguistics to Thoracic Surgery and in a variety of countries, including Germany, Spain, Japan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Ghana and Ethiopia. Her current research interests include academic writing in education, medicine, and business; the academic writing and writing for publication needs of scholars in developing countries; and the development of effective academic writing curricula.

What excites her most about her project in Russia is the opportunity to learn more about EAP writing instruction and research in Russia. Specifically, she hopes to understand the unique challenges and strengths of both Russian-speaking EAP writing instructors and Russian-speaking authors who need to write journal articles and other genres in English as part of their research activities. She is also curious about how current research on writing for publication in English might be relevant for research writing in Russian.

The writing genres related to research activities have been expanding and evolving over the past decade. It was once enough for EAP writing instruction to focus primarily on articles for publication. However, these days, authors in many fields may also need to produce such new genres as video abstracts and summaries of the their research papers for non-expert audiences. To promote their work they also even benefit from writing short texts for social media. Given these developments, she believes it is important to be aware of the changing research writing landscape and offering instruction on new, emerging genres. To develop a good understanding of this topic she recommends reading Research Genres Across Languages: Multilingual Communication Online written by Carmen Pérez-Llantada and published by Cambridge University Press.