Academic writing or expository writing is different in many ways than narrative or descriptive essays. While the latter retells the writers’ experience and observations, the former requires writers to think and plan before they can begin writing. This is because writing no longer depends on their memory. They soon discover essay writing is not merely transferring from their oral thoughts to written thoughts. They cannot just retell what they think they already know in their memory. They have to find for valid information (content knowledge), check the validity of the information (problem analysis and set goals) and then write the information in a proper manner (discourse knowledge). They are not only required to knowledge-tell but also knowledge-transform information into their writing task. This study is done to explore the difficulties that writers face when write academic essays. This qualitative study is done to explore the how writers feel about the difficulties they faced in writing expository essays. 20 participants were purposively chosen from students who attended a semester of academic writing course for the first time in the university. 10 of the participants were from the social sciences discipline while 10 of them were from the science and technology discipline. Findings revealed that academic writers faced difficulties in problem analysis & goal setting, content knowledge and also discourse knowledge. Findings of this study adds on to the body of knowledge in understanding why academic writers find their writing task difficult.
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