Unlearning, uncovering and becoming: experiencing academic writing as part of undergraduate research

Increased specialisation of disciplinary cultures creates barriers for students who may not understand the genre, style and conventions of disciplinary writing. Academic literacies research recognises that literacy is a social practice where writing is inextricably linked to knowledge construction. Learning to write, therefore, requires meaning-making by students as they engage with the nature of questions asked and arguments constructed within a discipline. We have examined the proposition that immersive and dialogic environments promote learning of disciplinary writing by analysing students’ lived experience during a science undergraduate research project. We adopted an academic literacy framework for a qualitative analysis of students’ reflective journals as they wrote a critical review. We show that (i) students initially struggled with assessment requirements, terminology and writing conventions; (ii) constructing the critical review was coupled to epistemological changes as they understood scientific argument; and (iii) they gained confidence in themselves as participants in the scientific community.