A escrita acadêmica na formação em Ciências Biológicas: práticas e desafios

Abstract

Academic writing has been viewed as a problem in universities. Teachers and university students alike have underlined the difficulties that students face when writing academic papers. The vast majority of studies on writing in higher education focus on the Portuguese language (grammar and linguistics fields), with the biological sciences playing a minor role. Therefore, this work seeks to investigate the reading and writing habits and the difficulties related to writing of university students in the context of teacher training in Biological Sciences. We collected data using a questionnaire geared at undergraduate students in biological sciences at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), as well as research projects written by the students in the Project in Biology I discipline at UERJ's Faculty of Teacher Training (Faculdade de Formação de Professores). This is qualitative research with a descriptive-analytical focus, in which Bardin's content analysis methodology was used. The results obtained through the questionnaire revealed that university students participating in the research read more than they write, both in terms of texts circulating in academia and on social networks. However, academic writing and reading are not carried out frequently. The main difficulties highlighted by students in developing writing are related to the lack of mastery of scientific language and this is related to the little dedication to academic writing, highlighted by the students themselves. The lack of practice in such genres throughout the course, as well as the lack of guidance for preparing the required textual genre, were the main reasons given by students to justify the problems encountered. Despite the declared difficulty, the majority claim to have already written some text with a view to publication. Regarding the students' relationship with writing, they indicated aspects that relate to the affective dimension, both positively and negatively. The analysis of the research projects revealed that the students presented some deviations in the adequacy of the aforementioned academic gente, in terms of structure and the adequacy of the style to scientific writing. Regarding the structure of the genre, the bibliographical references, methodology and objectives were the sections in which the difficulties were most evident. Grammatical and spelling correction, and clarity were the most compromised elements regarding style. The data point to the importance of academic writing receiving a prominent role, as well as the deserved attention from students, professors and researchers within universities.