Abstract
There is an increasing amount of research investigating the difficulties encountered by international students while writing academic English to help them ovcercome these problems and improve their academic styles. As research in the Libyan context is scarce and concerns with the Libyan postgraduates are almost non-existent, the purpose of the study is to explore Libyan postgraduates' academic writing difficultes and their views and attitudes towards tutors' written feedback. to investigate these points, questionnaires were sent to Libyan postgraduates and their tutors. Samples of tutors' feedback also were collected to have more valid and reliable data. Students (n = 73) were asked to report the type of difficulties they encountered while writing and the strategies they used to conquer their problems. they were also asked about their views on tutors' written feedback and whether they thought this feedback helped them improve their academic writing styles. Turors (n = 8) were asked about the purpose of their feedback and the problems they noticed in Libyan postgraduates' academic writing. Additionally, feedback samples were analysed and compared with the other data. Data indicates that Libyan postgraduates do have problems, mostly in being critical, expressing opinions accurately, closely followed by problems in organisation and using referencing to avoid plagiarism. The probl;ems that were observed by tutors were in coherence in the planning stage, cohesion and repetition, and circularity. the possible causes, as reported by students, were lack f input, lack of experience, L1 interference, errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation, and students' lack of vocabulary. The strategies that were reported by Libyan postgraduates were writing their academic work, attending pre-sessional and in-sessional courses, reading books and journals related to their courses as well as books on study skills and asking for help from tutors whenever it was needed. Data also showed that Libyan postgraduates highly valued tutors' feedback and tried to use it to improve their future work. The findings of this study support whaqt other studies found and suggest that changes should be made in the Libyan context in the way of teaching writing by concentrating on the existing approaches more than the traditional ones in order to improve students' academic writing abilities and to prepare them for the academic context.There is an increasing amount of research investigating the difficulties encountered by international students while writing academic English to help them ovcercome these problems and improve their academic styles. As research in the Libyan context is scarce and concerns with the Libyan postgraduates are almost non-existent, the purpose of the study is to explore Libyan postgraduates' academic writing difficultes and their views and attitudes towards tutors' written feedback. to investigate these points, questionnaires were sent to Libyan postgraduates and their tutors. Samples of tutors' feedback also were collected to have more valid and reliable data. Students (n = 73) were asked to report the type of difficulties they encountered while writing and the strategies they used to conquer their problems. they were also asked about their views on tutors' written feedback and whether they thought this feedback helped them improve their academic writing styles. Turors (n = 8) were asked about the purpose of their feedback and the problems they noticed in Libyan postgraduates' academic writing. Additionally, feedback samples were analysed and compared with the other data. Data indicates that Libyan postgraduates do have problems, mostly in being critical, expressing opinions accurately, closely followed by problems in organisation and using referencing to avoid plagiarism. The probl;ems that were observed by tutors were in coherence in the planning stage, cohesion and repetition, and circularity. the possible causes, as reported by students, were lack f input, lack of experience, L1 interference, errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation, and students' lack of vocabulary. The strategies that were reported by Libyan postgraduates were writing their academic work, attending pre-sessional and in-sessional courses, reading books and journals related to their courses as well as books on study skills and asking for help from tutors whenever it was needed. Data also showed that Libyan postgraduates highly valued tutors' feedback and tried to use it to improve their future work. The findings of this study support whaqt other studies found and suggest that changes should be made in the Libyan context in the way of teaching writing by concentrating on the existing approaches more than the traditional ones in order to improve students' academic writing abilities and to prepare them for the academic context.