The Tutoring Book - California State University, Sacramento

How Can Tutors Help Asian Students Improve Their Writing Style?
Hyang-Sook Park
Everyone who has worked in the writing center this semester knows the plight of international
students who are striving to adapt to the American academic community. Most Asian students studying in
American universities experience a hard time making themselves familiar with the new academic
community. Not only do they have to develop their writing ability in English, but they also have to adapt
to the different writing style, which is a new concept to them. Kaplan (1988) argues that no writing style
is universal, but each varies in every culture and changes constantly. Different cultural values can
determine the form and style of writing. As a writing tutor, it would be helpful to have an understanding
about how a student’s culture is connected to his/her writing. Knowing the differences in writing styles
can be the first step to finding an appropriate approach to assist writers transition into the American
writing style. Therefore, I would like to address how the Asian writing style is related to its culture and
tradition and give some suggestions that may be helpful in tutoring writing.
In American writing, students are taught to develop a thesis statement, identify supporting ideas,
add a few examples being both coherent and cohesive, and conclude the paper with a brief summary of
the paper. Conversely, Asian writing does not have a thesis statement at the beginning of the essay, but
rather a topic statement at the end. American writing is writer- responsible while Asian writing is readerresponsible.
American writers try to covey their thoughts directly and clearly with explicit details;
whereas, Asian writers do not express connections too explicitly as a way of showing respect to the
reader. Despite the loose organization of the essay, the reader has the responsibility to make connections
between various parts in the writing and understand what the writer conveys in his or her writing. On the
contrary, American readers have little patience with implicit detail. Therefore, tutors should help the
students become aware of the cultural differences and of the value of audience awareness in writing.
Asian students who are accustomed to sentence-level instruction and pattern practice in the
writing classroom may have difficulties in expressing, supporting, and explaining a single idea at length
and in detail. Providing model sentences can help students become familiar with how they are expected to
write. American culture values individualistic expression and debate. On the contrary, directness is
considered to be impolite in Asian culture. For example, it would be rude and disrespectful if you say, “I
disagree with the view of the author…” Due to the cultural values, Asian students tend to seek more of a
consensus and may feel awkward performing writing exercises without a model or collective help.
Therefore, providing model writing samples can increase their writing fluency.
Second, providing a mini lesson is another way to help students. For this activity, tutors can ask
students to explain a given idea elaborately or ask them to support the idea by giving examples or relating
to a personal story. This activity can encourage students to get to the point without digression from the
topic. For example, tutors can provide sample supporting sentences and ask students to further explain by
giving a specific example or relating a personal experience. Understand that the writer-responsible
conception of a piece of writing moving from general to specific may be difficult for an Asian writer to
grasp because they are unfamiliar with writing thesis statements, topic sentences, and supporting
sentences. So try explaining that writing is like taking a photo. For example, a photo without a focus can
be very blurry. When you focus on the topic you want to discuss, you can describe all the details and
examples clearly. This analogy can teach students how the essay moves from general to specific.
Another useful strategy is color coding. Color coding can help students to stay coherent from the
beginning to the end of their writing by using different colored pencils or markers to mark a thesis
statement, topic sentences, and examples. While writing a paper, a student can continuously keep in mind
the purpose of his/her paper by using different colors, and as a result, it can help them to produce
cohesive writing.
Free-writing and processed writing are two useful writing techniques. Free writing directs
students to simply get their ideas onto paper without worrying much about grammar, spelling, or other
English mechanics. For free-writing activities, allowing students to write in their native language can be a
benefit. In doing so, students can focus on content without pausing to think about the vocabulary or
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