Academic Writing for Graduate Students is targeted at students whose first language is not English, and who need to write academic papers of various kinds in English as part of their post-graduate studies. In this, it is evidently directed first and foremost towards students such as those whom Swales and Feak themselves teach at the University of Michigan, but is also useful to those of us working on English-medium or bilingual postgraduate programs in the European context.
The book is divided into eight units, the first three of which are essentially preparatory, focusing on basic academic style, general-specific and problem-process-solution texts. The next three units are more specific, dealing with data commentary, summaries and critiques. The last two units of the book demonstrate how these different text-types knit together into the full-length research paper, and as such are particularly useful. There are also four rather heterogeneous appendixes, which deal with use of the article, Latin phrases, E-mail and a sample mini-project.