ABSTRACT
Honest use of data and sources is the fundamental expectation of academic work. The mechanics of grammar and the style of prose affect the perception of a work’s quality. Many faculty believe that unclear writing reflects unclear thinking, and that a good researcher is also a competent writer. Although some graduate students, domestic and international, have problems with grammar, many also have problems with composition—basic structure and rhetoric. Use the process of writing the dissertation to develop colleagues for the future. Many disciplines publish style guides, with instructions for everything from charts and tables to citation format and manuscript preparation. The faculty in the study spoke candidly about the surprising amount of poor writing they see among their graduate students, and some even suggested that writing should be among the essential tasks of the dissertation.
