BAWE

About the British Academic Written English Corpus

The British Academic Written English (BAWE) Corpus is a large-scale collection of proficient student writing from British universities. Created by Hilary Nesi and Sheena Gardner, BAWE offers insights into how successful students write across disciplines in the UK higher education system.

What’s in BAWE?

BAWE originally contains 2,761 assignments representing:

  • Writing from 4 major discipline families: Arts & Humanities, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences
  • 35 different disciplines including English, Biology, Engineering, Psychology, Business, and many more
  • Students at 3 levels: undergraduate years 1-3 and taught postgraduate
  • 13 genre families covering essays, reports, proposals, critiques, case studies, and more
  • High-quality writing: All texts received grades of 60% or above (equivalent to B- or better)

Why Use BAWE?

BAWE is particularly valuable because it shows:

  • British academic writing conventions - how students write in the UK university system
  • Genre diversity - the widest variety of assignment types of any student corpus
  • Disciplinary breadth - comprehensive coverage across major academic fields
  • Systematic organization - carefully classified by discipline, level, and genre
  • International perspective - complements American corpora like MICUSP

Available Versions in DocuScope

Due to BAWE’s large size, both versions available have been strategically down-sampled:

Corpus Version Sampling Method Best For
BAWE Mini Balanced across 4 discipline families Quick exploration and balanced comparisons
BAWE One random sample per contributing student Comprehensive analysis with student diversity
Important

Important Note: Both BAWE versions in DocuScope are down-sampled from the original 2,761 texts. The full version contains one randomly selected text from each student contributor, while the mini version is further balanced across discipline families to roughly match the MICUSP Mini size.

Research Questions You Can Explore

BAWE’s systematic classification makes it ideal for investigating:

  • Cross-National Comparisons: How does British student writing compare to American writing (using MICUSP)?
  • Genre Analysis: How do essays differ from reports, proposals, or case studies?
  • Disciplinary Conventions: What makes writing in Life Sciences different from Arts & Humanities?
  • Academic Level Progression: How does writing change from first-year to postgraduate level?
  • Assignment Types: Which disciplines favor certain genres (reports vs. essays)?

BAWE’s Genre Classification System

BAWE uses a sophisticated 13 genre families system:

  • Explanation (describing processes, concepts)
  • Exercise (problem-solving, calculations)
  • Narrative Recount (describing events, experiences)
  • Empathy Writing (creative, personal response)
  • Critique (evaluating texts, arguments, theories)
  • Essay (developing arguments, analysis)
  • Literature Survey (reviewing research)
  • Methodology Recount (describing research methods)
  • Case Study (analyzing specific examples)
  • Problem Question (addressing specific issues)
  • Proposal (suggesting research, projects)
  • Research Report (presenting original research)
  • Design Specification (technical planning documents)

Getting Started with BAWE

  1. Begin with BAWE Mini: Start with the balanced sample to understand the corpus structure
  2. Explore Genre Families: Use the genre classification to focus your research
  3. Compare Strategically: Consider comparing with MICUSP for cross-national insights
  4. Consider Discipline Families: Use the 4-way classification for broad comparisons

Learn More About BAWE

Official Corpus Information

Visit the BAWE Corpus homepage for comprehensive information about the corpus design and development.

Citations and Further Reading

Primary Citations

For the BAWE corpus and genre classification:

APA Format: Nesi, H., & Gardner, S. (2012). Genres across the disciplines: Student writing in higher education. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139044097

Nesi, H., & Gardner, S. (2018). The BAWE corpus and genre families classification of assessed student writing. Assessing Writing, 38, 51-55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2018.06.005

Key Research Using BAWE

Multi-Dimensional Analysis: Gardner, S., Nesi, H., & Biber, D. (2019). Discipline, level, genre: Integrating situational perspectives in a new MD analysis of university student writing. Applied Linguistics, 40(4), 646-674. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amy021

Disciplinary and Level Perspectives: Gardner, S., Biber, D., & Nesi, H. (2015). MDA perspectives on discipline and level in the BAWE corpus. International Corpus Linguistics Conference, Lancaster, UK.

For Course Citations

When using BAWE data in your coursework, cite the corpus and relevant research:

Tip

Example: “Using the British Academic Written English Corpus (Nesi & Gardner, 2012), this analysis examines genre variation across…”

Ready to explore British academic writing? Head to the Load Corpus guide to get started with BAWE data analysis.