شبكة المعلومات العربية التربوية

Middle Eastern students represent the fastest-growing international student population in the United States, with the majority coming from Saudi Arabia. While some studies have examined the academic challenges faced by international students, few have examined the academic writing difficulties encountered by Saudi international graduate students. This study aimed to understand the academic writing experiences of Saudi international graduate students enrolled in at a U.S. institution; specifically, it examined the academic writing challenges they encountered, how they address these challenges, and how these challenges impact their overall academic success. This study used a qualitative research design, utilizing participants' narratives, the researcher's personal experience (auto-ethnography), and writing samples as artifacts. Findings indicate that Saudi international graduate students face many rhetorical writing difficulties such as difficulties in thinking critically, expressing ideas, delivering solid arguments to support research theses, and technical writing difficulties related to grammar and APA citations. These difficulties can be attributed to lack of English proficiency and poor English instruction. To address these academic writing challenges, they have sought assistance from university and publicly available writing resources such as Grammarly, online APA format checkers, the university's writing centers, professional editors/tutors, professors, and fellow classmates/friends. However, these resources have yielded few benefits. These academic writing challenges have had a negative impact on their grades, ability to graduate, opportunity to publish their work, overall experience studying in the U.S. The findings of this study provide significant practical and theoretical implications for preparing Saudi students in academic writing prior to and during their study abroad. (As Provided)