ACADEMIC WRITING CHALLENGES: PERSPECTIVES OF MASTERS AND DOCTORAL STUDENTS

Abstract

The ability to write and communicate in English is a crucial skill for the academic success of students. Therefore, improving one's command of vocabulary knowledge is essential for advancing English language skills. Despite the importance of English academic writing, many students in Pakistan struggle with this skill at postgraduate level. Thereby, this study was undertaken to address the challenging areas of academic writing among postgraduate students by using a qualitative technique and to provide recommendations based on them. All of the master’s and doctoral students who were enrolled in the universities of Multan City were included in the population of this study, and 18 students were chosen using convenient sampling to participate in this study via semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed that students encounter a number of academic challenges, which include a lack of awareness of plague words and phrases usage, grammatical mistakes, improper usage of pronouns, and lack of cohesion among sentences. Based on the results, it is vital for educational institutions and policymakers to recognize these challenges and take steps to address them by improving English language instruction and providing resources to support academic writing skills.