Students’ challenges of writing science essays in English for Specific Purposes at tertiary level

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15587/2519-4984.2026.361730

Keywords:

science (specialism-related) essays, students of independent user level (B1-B2), essay structure, essay types, text organization, cohesion, coherence, language register

Abstract

Analyzing and summarizing information from different sources, comparing and contrasting ideas, interpreting and presenting results are routine job-related issues stipulating an integrated approach to the development of linguistic and specialism-related competences of majors in Biology used to describe scientific theories and models, discuss and evaluate experimental methods. These tasks are highly correlated with academic writing skills that, to a great extent, can be acquired by constructing academic specialism-related essays.

The objective of this paper is to identify and analyze the difficulties of majors in Biology in science essay writing in English at intermediate level and suggest successful strategies that can be employed to solve the problems arising.

The research was conducted within the framework of an ESP course for junior students. In order to visualize the challenges, 30 undergraduates were involved in writing 3 different types of science essays as a part of their formative assessment. At the next stage of the research, these papers were subjected to qualitative and quantitative analyses.

The complexities experienced by undergraduates are divided into: 1) defining the relevant essay type and composing parts of the essay; 2) lingual instruments of arranging ideas. The findings of this research indicate that the appropriate communicative strategy employed by students when identifying the essay type essentially contributes to crafting relevant content. Constructing an effective introduction and ensuring text cohesion, followed by building a successful conclusion and making relevant references to the data and visuals, epitomize the highest level of difficulties in writing science essays in English for Specific Purposes

Author Biographies

Tetiana Pastushenko, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor, Head of Department

Foreign Languages Department for Natural Science Faculties

Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology

Nataliia Lutkovska, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

Assistant

Foreign Languages Department for Natural Science Faculties

Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology

References

  1. Butler, L. (2007). Fundamentals of Academic Writing. New York: Pearson Education, 227.
  2. Blanchard, K., Root, C. (2010). Ready to write More: From paragraph to essay. New York: Pearson Education, 200.
  3. Austrus, E., Mahamod, Z., Adnan, N. H. (2025). Challenges in Malay essay writing: a qualitative study among non-native speakers in primary school. Journal of Education and Learning (EduLearn), 19 (3), 1525–1532. https://doi.org/10.11591/edulearn.v19i3.22503
  4. Halytska, O. (2024). Experience in conducting the academic essay competition. Studia Methodologica, 57, 259–269. https://doi.org/10.32782/2307-1222.2024-57-27
  5. Rachmawati, D. L., Fadhilawati, D. (2024). Exploring the Challenges Faced by ESP Students in Writing Academic Essay. JETLEE: Journal of English Language Teaching, Linguistics, and Literature, 4 (2), 190–206. https://doi.org/10.47766/jetlee.v4i2.2962
  6. Akib, R., Tahang, H., Astuti, R., Saral, D. S. (2026). Non-Academic Vocabulary Used by Students in Essay Writing. JOLIES: Journal of Linguistic and English Studies, 3 (1), 15–22. https://doi.org/10.33506/jole.v3i1.5551
  7. Cekiso, M., Tshotsho, B., Somniso, M. (2016). Exploring First-Year University Students’ Challenges with Coherence Writing Strategies in Essay Writing in a South African University. International Journal of Educational Sciences, 12 (3), 241–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/09751122.2016.11890431
  8. Bulqiyah, S., Mahbub, Moh. A., Nugraheni, D. A. (2021). Investigating writing difficulties in essay writing: Tertiary students’ perspectives. English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 4 (1), 61. https://doi.org/10.12928/eltej.v4i1.2371
  9. Febriani, T. N. (2022). “Writing is challenging”: factors contributing to undergraduate students’ difficulties in writing English essays. Erudita: Journal of English Language Teaching, 2 (1), 83–93. https://doi.org/10.28918/erudita.v2i1.5441
  10. Nisar Ul Haq, M., Mahmood, M., Awan, K. (2020). Assistance of Formative Assessment in the Improvement of English Writing Skills at Intermediate Level. Global Language Review, V (III), 34–41. https://doi.org/10.31703/glr.2020(v-iii).04
  11. Hasnawati, H., Mujahidin, E., Tanjung, H. (2023). Analyzing Students’ Difficulties in Writing English Essay. International Journal of Social Science and Human Research, 6 (10), 5954–5959. https://doi.org/10.47191/ijsshr/v6-i10-22
  12. Caulfield, J. (2023). How to Structure an Essay | Tips & Templates. Scribbr. Available at: https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/essay-structure/
  13. Hewings, M. (2012). Cambridge Academic English. Upper Intermediate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 176.
  14. Kochubei, V. (2021). Challenges of writing academic essays and ways of overcoming them. Germanic Philology Journal of Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, 831-832, 147–156. https://doi.org/10.31861/gph2021.831-832.147-156
  15. Sitorus, N., Siregar, E. F. Y., Siagian, B. A., Lestari, F. D., Silitonga, H. (2021). Investigating and examining the structure and the difficulties of tertiary learners in essay writing. Linguistics and Culture Review, 5 (S3), 1704–1713. https://doi.org/10.21744/lingcure.v5ns3.1953
  16. Pastushenko, T., Lutkovska, N., Voytovych, S. (2026). Typical students’ errors in writing academic essays in english. Grail of Science, (62), 1248–1250. https://doi.org/10.36074/grail-of-science.20.02.2026.146
  17. Harmer, J. (2008). How to Teach Writing. Harlow: Pearson Education, 153.
  18. Young, P. (2006). Writing and Presenting in English: the Rosetta Stone of Science. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 116.

Downloads

Published

2026-05-29

How to Cite

Pastushenko, T., & Lutkovska, N. (2026). Students’ challenges of writing science essays in English for Specific Purposes at tertiary level. ScienceRise: Pedagogical Education, (2(67), 24–28. https://doi.org/10.15587/2519-4984.2026.361730

Issue

No. 2(67) (2026)

Section

Pedagogical Education

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Tetiana Pastushenko, Nataliia Lutkovska

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Our journal abides by the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License copyright rights and permissions for open access journals.

Authors, who are published in this journal, agree to the following conditions:

1. The authors reserve the right to authorship of the work and pass the first publication right of this work to the journal under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which allows others to freely distribute the published research with the obligatory reference to the authors of the original work and the first publication of the work in this journal.

 2. The authors have the right to conclude separate supplement agreements that relate to non-exclusive work distribution in the form in which it has been published by the journal (for example, to upload the work to the online storage of the journal or publish it as part of a monograph), provided that the reference to the first publication of the work in this journal is included.

3. Authors have the right to store the final accepted version of the article in an institutional, thematic, or any other repository to ensure visibility and accessibility.