Professor Nigel Harwood
School of English
Professor in Applied Linguistics
+44 114 222 8464
Full contact details
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
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S3 7RA
- Profile
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I joined the School of English as a Reader in Applied Linguistics in 2014 and was promoted to Professor in 2020. Prior to taking up my post at º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ I worked at the University of Essex for 11 years as Teaching Fellow, Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer. Before becoming a lecturer, I taught English as a foreign language for seven years across southern Europe (Greece, Spain, and Portugal).
My primary research interests lie in the areas of academic writing, English for specific and academic purposes, academic literacy, materials and textbook design, and corpus-driven pedagogy, citation, and proofreading. I have edited two books on theory and practice in ELT materials design: English Language Teaching Materials: Theory & Practice (CUP, 2010), and English Language Teaching Textbooks: Content, Consumption, Production (Palgrave, 2014).
I have authored or co-authored five articles exploring the proofreading of student writing.
Another area of interest focuses on students’ and supervisors’ experiences of dissertation supervision, research I conducted with Dr Bojana Petric (Birkbeck, University of London). We published a book reporting our findings: Experiencing Master’s Supervision: Perspectives of International Students and their Supervisors (Routledge, 2017).
I am co-editor of the journal English for Specific Purposes (Elsevier) and an editorial board member of Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Journal of International Students, Journal of Language, Identity, & Education, Text & Talk, and Written Communication.
- Research interests
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I am a qualitative researcher, and the primary research methods I use in my work are interviews and textual analysis. My doctoral thesis is a corpus-based study of how the personal pronouns I and WE are used in academic writing across four disciplines (Business, Economics, Computing, and Physics) by ‘experts’ writing journal articles and postgraduate students writing dissertations.
I have published papers on taking a lexical approach to ELT and on taking a corpus-based critical pragmatic approach to English for academic purposes. More recent work includes research on citation in academic writing, on proofreaders’ beliefs and practices when working on student texts, and on supervisors’ and supervisees’ experiences of master’s dissertation supervision.
I have published my findings in outlets such as Applied Linguistics, Written Communication, Text & Talk, English for Specific Purposes, Journal of Pragmatics, Studies in Higher Education, Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, and Journal of Business & Technical Communication.
In general, my research interests lie in the following areas:
- Analysis of academic writing - analysing the text and interviewing writers about their texts
- Citation analysis
- Academic literacies in higher education
- Academic socialisation in higher education
- English for specific and academic purposes
- Development and use of and language teaching materials and textbooks
- Critical pedagogy
- English language teaching and learning
- Publications
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Books
- Experiencing Master’s Supervision: Perspectives of international students and their supervisors. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
- . Routledge.
Edited books
- . Palgrave Macmillan.
- English Language Teaching Materials Theory and Practice. Cambridge University Press.
Journal articles
- . Written Communication.
- . The Modern Language Journal, 105(S1), 175-184.
- . Teaching in Higher Education, 25(2), 68-83.
- . Written Communication.
- . Journal of Academic Ethics, 17(1), 17-49.
- . Journal of International Students, 9(1), 150-171.
- . Business and Professional Communication Quarterly.
- . Written Communication, 35(4), 474-530.
- . RELC Journal, 48(2), 264-277.
- . Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 12(2), 110-124.
- . English for Specific Purposes, 31(2), 79-80.
- . Studies in Higher Education, 37(5), 569-584.
- . Written Communication, 29(1), 55-103.
- . English for Specific Purposes, 29(1), 54-67.
- . Journal of Second Language Writing, 18(3), 166-190.
- . Journal of Pragmatics, 41(3), 497-518.
- . Scientometrics, 77(2), 253-265.
- . Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(6), 1007-1011.
- . Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 22(1), 38-64.
- . Text & Talk, 27(1).
- . Written Communication, 23(4), 424-450.
- . Applied Linguistics, 26(3), 343-375.
- . Journal of Pragmatics, 37(8), 1207-1231.
- . Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 4(2), 149-161.
- . English for Specific Purposes, 24(3), 243-267.
- . English for Specific Purposes, 23(4), 355-377.
- . International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 12(2), 139-155.
- Why TESOL textbooks are the way they are: the constraints of writing for a global audience. TESOL Quarterly.
- . Written Communication, 40(2).
- . English for Specific Purposes, 68, 116-130.
- . Journal of Writing Research, 6(3), 233-278.
Chapters
- , Proofreading and Editing in Student and Research Publication Contexts (pp. 1-11). Routledge
- , Proofreading and Editing in Student and Research Publication Contexts (pp. 88-113). Routledge
- Tracing changes in the citing practices of a master’s student: a longitudinal case study In Wette R (Ed.), Teaching and Learning Source-Based Writing: Current Perspectives and Future Directions (pp. 27-47). Routledge
- English for academic purposes In Wei L, Hua Z & Simpson J (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics, Vol 1, 2nd edition (pp. 121-135). Routledge
- , Teaching and Learning Source-Based Writing (pp. 27-47). Routledge
- Proofreading in a UK university writing centre: perspectives and practices In Bruce I & Bond B (Ed.), English for Academic Purposes in Higher Education: Politics, Policies, and Practices (pp. 87-108). Bloomsbury
- Research in materials development: what, how, and why? In Norton J & Buchanan H (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Materials Development for Language Teaching (pp. 139-154). Routledge
- , English Language Teaching Textbooks (pp. 178-204). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- , English Language Teaching Textbooks (pp. 145-177). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Content, consumption, and production: three levels of textbook research In Harwood N (Ed.), English Language Teaching Textbooks: Content, Consumption, Production (pp. 1-41). Palgrave Macmillan
- , The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics (pp. 243-258).
- Issues in materials development and design In Harwood N (Ed.), English Language Teaching Materials: Theory and Practice (pp. 3-30). New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Research-based materials to demystify academic citation for postgraduates In Harwood N (Ed.), English Language Teaching Materials: Theory and Practice (pp. 301-321). New York: Cambridge University Press.
- , English Language Teaching Textbooks Palgrave Macmillan
- , The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics Routledge
- , English Language Teaching Textbooks Palgrave Macmillan
- Experiencing Master’s Supervision: Perspectives of international students and their supervisors. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
- Research group
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I am interested in hearing from PhD applicants who wish to conduct qualitative or predominantly qualitative projects relating to:
- projects related to TESOL textbook content, consumption, and/or production (see Harwood, 2010, 2014, 2017, 2021)
- the proofreading of students’ academic writing (see Harwood, 2018, 2019; Harwood et al., 2009, 2010, 2012)
- international students’ enculturation and their development of academic literacy (see Harwood & Petric, 2017)
- international students’ citation behaviour (see Harwood & Petric, 2012; Petric & Harwood, 2013)
- research projects related to EAP or ESP
- Teaching activities
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I teach on the MA in Applied Linguistics with TESOL, teaching or co-teaching the Research Methods in TESOL, Teaching Writing in TESOL, Current Issues in ESP, and Curriculum Design modules.