SCHOLARS IN THE MAKING: UNRAVELLING THE PUBLICATION QUEST THROUGH A COMMUNITY OF WRITING PRACTICE

Although many studies have been conducted to investigate how graduate students navigate the publication endeavor as a graduation requirement, a scant number have explicitly focused on how Master's students manage to do so through their participation in a community of practice (CoP). This study set out to bridge this gap by examining the transformation experienced by Indonesian Master's students of English education in terms of their knowledge and practice in writing for scholarly publication after joining a writing group. This study employed a qualitative, descriptive case study approach. Data were collected through a questionnaire, in-depth interviews, and artifact analysis from 15 students and analyzed using Content Analysis. Findings indicate that after joining the writing group, the students reported increased skills in writing scholarly articles and more knowledge of the publication process. This study suggests the establishment of communities of writing practice in graduate programs to assist students in addressing the mounting pressure of scholarly publication, either as degree conferment or career preparation and advancement.


INTRODUCTION
Graduate students often pursue higher degrees to better position themselves in the increasingly competitive academic job market. Since academic positions place a greater emphasis on the proof of scholarly works published in peer-reviewed journals (Arnbjörnsdóttir & Ingvarsdóttir, 2018;Lassig et al., 2013;Sletto et al., 2020), graduate students are expected to write early to establish a track record of publication. Thus, graduate programs serve as a maturation venue for these 'scholars in the making' by facilitating their students' production of academic publications and simultaneously promoting their identity as scholarly writers.
In addition to career preparation, the publication pressure for graduate students is exacerbated by the institutionalized policy of publishing requirements for degree conferral that is widely applied in higher education institutions. Graduate students across the globe are under mounting pressure to publish in refereed journals on a national and international scale as a prerequisite to earning their terminal degree (Barbero, 2008;Hanauer et al., 2019;Kumar & Aitchison, 2018;Li, 2016;Nagano & Bukovszki Spiczene, 2018). For example, Ph.D. degree-granting institutions in the United States require publishing in top-tier scholarly publications instead of the traditional dissertation as a requirement for program completion (Jalongo et al., 2014). Doctoral students in China must publish their scholarly papers in internationally reputable journals, whereas Master's students, although allowed to publish their work in Chinese, are highly encouraged to publish their scholarly writing in English to foster a university reputation (Cargill et al., 2018). Similarly, Ph.D. candidates in Malaysia and Iran must publish their scholarly articles before defending their dissertations or graduating from university (Jeyaraj, 2018;Rezaei & Syeiri, 2019).
In the last decades, this pressure has trickled down to Master's students with the result that publishing in refereed journals is increasingly institutionalized as a graduation requirement for them (Fithriani et al., 2023;Lathif et al., 2021: Lei & Chuang, 2009. A similar requirement is also implemented in Master's programs in Indonesia. Since the introduction of the Indonesian government regulation requiring scientific publications for bachelor, Master's, and doctoral students (Fithriani & Salmiah, 2022;Fithriani et al., 2023), Indonesian Master's students have been under mounting pressure to publish their work nationally accredited journals,
The pressure to publish in a reputable journal as a degree conferment has received burgeoning attention from scholars of the academic writing field, with many focusing on the challenges graduate students encounter when writing their manuscripts. Among notable challenges frequently encountered in the writing process are discursive (languagerelated) challenges due to lack of required academic writing proficiency, such as inability to organize and develop ideas, paucity of expression, and incoherence in writing; and procedural difficulties, such as rhetorical patterning and genres, reporting the literature, use of citations; and lack of methodological thoroughness (Al Fadda;Kent et al., 2017;Phothongsunan, 2016). Nondiscursive challenges either come from external factors such as time constraints, workload pressure, limited resources, lack of research networking and mentoring/guidance (Gonzales et al., 2014;Jiang et al., 2017;Quimbo & Sulabo, 2014) or internal factors of the students themselves, such as lack of motivation and self-efficacy for research; no self-perceived professional identity, low confidence in their ability, fear of rejection and competition, (Hyland, 2016;Mongkolhutti, 2020;Quimbo & Sulabo, 2014) were also reported to limit students' capacities to publish scholarly papers. Notwithstanding the challenges of scholarly publication, Master's students are often left on their own to figure out the standards of scholarly writing according to the styles and peculiarities of their specific academic field, known as a community of discourse. Furthermore, lecturers and supervisors frequently presume that their students can adequately draft their manuscripts (Odena & Burgess, 2017). This assumption has made scholarly publication one of the most challenging aspects of graduate school for many students. Against this backdrop, some efforts have been made to address these challenges regarding the excessive pressure that graduate students encounter in producing research outputs. One is the establishment of writing groups, which departments or individual supervisors commonly initiate.
The establishment of writing groups to demystify the publication process is grounded on Lave and Wenger's (1991)  In the case of a writing group, the members share similar writing situations, a desire for productive writing, and the urge to publish their work. A CoP comprises people with diverse backgrounds and abilities so that they can learn from one another; those with more experience serve as teachers or mentors to those with less experience. Thus, members contribute to developing an individual's and the group's learning (Kumar & Aitchison, 2018).
Increasing research has been given to investigating the function of such CoP in supporting graduate students' publication endeavors and facilitating their maturation into scholarly writers. This body of literature has shed much light on a wide range of benefits of writing groups, such as emphasizing the relationship between writing and thinking/knowledge development (Aitchison & Guerin, 2014;Badenhorst & Guerin, 2016), promoting graduate students' professional development and scholarly identity (Badenhorst & Guerin, 2016;Ciampa & Wolfe, 2023;Kent et al., 2017); fostering collegial support between graduate students (Ciampa & Wolfe, 2023;Odena & Burgess, 2017).
However, despite the rich literature on this very topic, previous studies on graduate writing groups commonly involved doctoral students, whereas very little has been written about Master's students' experiences of participating in community writing practice to unravel the publication quest to refereed English journals. Since these two higher education levels have different foci, a master's degree is designed to improve career-oriented knowledge and abilities. In contrast, a doctorate is mainly research-based and aims to develop critical research, analytical, and writing skills to cover industry knowledge gaps. It will be intriguing to investigate how Master's students navigate publication endeavors without the same level of preparation as doctoral students have.
In response to this empirical gap, the study aims to investigate how 15 Indonesian master's students of English education participated in a writing group to demystify the publication process as a graduation requirement, focusing on tracking their selfperceived transformation regarding their academic writing skills. The findings are hoped to expand our understanding of Master's students' scholarly publishing practices and have implications for graduate publication in general.

Research design
This study employed a qualitative, descriptive case study approach to capture the comprehensive description needed to answer the two research questions (Yin, 2014). Because the goal of this study is to explore and encapsulate the scholarly writing experience of the Indonesian Master's students of English education in participating in a CoP, a descriptive case study is deemed appropriate as it serves to "describe a phenomenon (the "case") in its real-world context" (Yin, 2014, p. 238). In this inquiry, the realworld situations are the Master's students' experiences in joining the writing group to seek support in navigating the publication process as part of the education requirements. Utilizing a descriptive case study also allowed the detailed examination and elaboration of students' experiences and journeys in writing for scholarly publication through the writing group.

Research Site and Participants
This study was conducted at a college of education at a state university in Medan, Indonesia. This institution offers 15 programs of study, four of which are graduate level, three Master's degrees, and one doctoral program. English Education, one of the Master's programs, was chosen as the setting for this study. Like all other Indonesian institutions of higher learning, this college of education imposes the publication requirement for degree conferment. Master's degree candidates must publish their papers at least in SINTA 3-accredited journals, whereas doctorate candidates in SINTA 2accredited journals to defend their thesis or dissertation. In addition, the Master's program in English education was chosen purposefully chosen as the research site since only students in this program are required to publish in English as opposed to Indonesian. These specific characteristics of the language of publication will permit us, as researchers, to explore the writing experience of Indonesian Master's students in the context of English as an additional language (EAL).
Fifteen students (11 females and four males) across academic years were recruited as the participants who voluntarily joined the writing group. A purposeful sampling approach was adopted to obtain the most representative participants to answer the research questions. This technique is thought appropriate for discovering, comprehending, and gaining rich and diverse views from potential individuals who may offer the most significant perspective for understanding the investigated issue

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http://journal.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php/ijee | DOI: http://doi.org/10.15408/ijee.v10i1.31457 P-ISSN: 2356-1777, E-ISSN: 2443-0390 | This is an open access article under CC-BY-SA license (Merriam, 2009). Thus, to comprehend how Indonesian Master's students of English education navigate publication pressure as part of their education requirement, it is essential to capture the voices of individuals who had or had not published in nationally accredited journals. The proportion of male and female students was considered when recruiting the participants to ensure that the actual demography was accurately represented.

The Writing Group
As the head of the Master's program of English education where this study was conducted, the first author was concerned about the overall quality of the students, particularly concerning their writing, which led her to initiate the writing group. The primary objective of this group was to improve its members' academic writing skills. The core group comprised two instructors (the first and the second authors) and 15 master's students who voluntarily joined the CoP. The group met every two weeks (typically on weekends) over three months. Unfortunately, due to the varying schedules of the Master's students in the group, members could not always attend every meeting.
The three essential components of this writing group were group sessions, personal writing, and a seminar. During the group session, members explored a range of scientific writingrelated themes, including exploring reliable sources, the publication process, and research paper rhetoric patterns. They were also encouraged to share their writing progress with others in order to gain feedback. Individual writing time was used to incorporate the knowledge obtained in group sessions. In addition, members rewrote and edited previous manuscripts that received feedback during individual writing. An expert in scholarly writing for publication was invited to the seminar to enhance the members' writing motivation and comprehension of best practices.

Data Collection and Analysis
In order to achieve data source triangulation, this study employed three distinct data gathering methods: questionnaire, in-depth interview, and artifact analysis. The questionnaire and individual interviews with writing group participants constituted this study's primary data collection sources. The questionnaire with closed-and open-ended questions was administered twice (once at the first meeting of the writing group and again after the sixth meeting) to examine the participants' perspectives on scholarly publication. After the last meeting of 227-238 http://journal.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php/ijee | DOI: http://doi.org/10.15408/ijee.v10i1.31457 P-ISSN: 2356-1777, E-ISSN: 2443-0390 | This is an open access article under CC-BY-SA license the writing group, interviews were conducted to glean further information and clarify what the members had stated on the questionnaire. Each interview lasted between forty minutes and an hour. The interviews were audio recorded with the participant's consent. In addition, the data collection process entails an evaluation of the student drafts created during writing group activities. This process validated or disputed the underlying data about the transformation students perceived in their writing abilities.
The collected data were analyzed using Content Analysis, through which the participants' responses to openended questions in the questionnaire and interview questions were contextually examined by reading each response in its entirety and highlighting words, phrases, or concepts that were deemed relevant to the phenomenon under study for subsequent coding. The data were coded in three stages using the Structural Coding method: precoding, first coding, and final coding (Saldana, 2016). Once they emerged, the themes were compared to the literature review, and their similarities and differences were described. To address the issue of data analysis, triangulation, peer debriefing, and member check was employed by comparing the results of data analysis conducted individually by the first two researchers and requesting that the participants carefully review the interview transcripts and data analysis to validate or dispute the data interpretations.

Findings
To determine the participants' perceptions of their knowledge regarding scholarly publication before and after participating in the scholarly writing group, we handed out pre-and post-questionnaires to the students in the initial and final meetings. The prequestionnaire was designed to ascertain participants' identity and initial knowledge regarding scholarly publications. In the meantime, the postquestionnaire was disseminated to determine the student's final knowledge regarding scholarly publication after the writing training program had been completed. This procedure was carried out to ensure that the participants could provide the most comprehensive understanding of the investigated phenomenon. The students' demographic characteristics and perspectives on scholarly publication are described separately below.
In the first part of the prequestionnaire, the demographic picture of the participants in terms of age, gender, profession, time in Master's degree, and experience in scholarly publication was collected. According to Table 1, 11 of the 15 selected participants are female, and four are male. The participants' ages ranged from 24 to 41 years old, with the majority of participants being between the ages of 25 and 26. Regarding occupation, most students are teachers, followed by four full-time students and two principals at the bottom. In addition, the Master's degree experience of students was divided into two categories: those with one year of experience (equal to two semesters of Master's degree) and those with two years of experience (equal to four semesters in Master's degree). Nine students comprised most participants, dominated by the first type of time in Master's degree programs. This condition corresponds to the number of students with experience in scholarly publication since six students in the fourth semester believed themselves to have "occasional" experience in academic publication. In the meantime, eight students in the second semester claimed to have no or little experience with a scholarly publication.  After deriving the students' demographic information, the second section of the pre-questionnaire was administered to determine the student's initial knowledge of scholarly publications regarding article submission, brainstorming, and writing procedure. The questionnaire answers were then used as a reference to develop a contextual training model for the participants.
The data from the prequestionnaire reveals that before joining this writing-based community of practice, most students claimed

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http://journal.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php/ijee | DOI: http://doi.org/10.15408/ijee.v10i1.31457 P-ISSN: 2356-1777, E-ISSN: 2443-0390 | This is an open access article under CC-BY-SA license neither know nor not know (mean score = 3) regarding their knowledge of the article submission, brainstorming, and writing procedures for scientific publications. It is backed by statements like, "I have no idea about scholarly publication. I guess the scholarly article is similar to my undergraduate thesis published in the repository, " demonstrating students' need for more understanding and clarity over the word scholarly publication. This is also why most students consider writing a scholarly article necessary only for graduation requirements, as stated in open-ended questions such as "Scholarly article is significant for the graduation requirements for master's degree." However, although the students' stance is in the middle of agree and disagree, the students believe they have a greater understanding of article submission and literature review writing. In the sections of the article submission, the students acknowledged that they knew how to locate a reputable publication, with an average score of 3.33. Meanwhile, in the literature review, students confidently assert that they know how to cite reference materials with the maximum possible score, 4. This perspective is consistent with the responses to openended questions such as "...finding journals and citing references in the literature review are the simplest aspects of the writing process for me. I can Google my desired publications or articles with a single click, and I have learned how to cite references during my undergraduate studies".
However, students' knowledge of brainstorming, writing abstracts, introductions, methodology, findings, discussion, and references needed more attention, as the average score of each item was 3. This was also supported by the participants' statements that they had trouble coming up with a writing idea, had less knowledge of what should be written in the introduction and how to find the research gaps, did not know how to choose the best research design and participant recruitment techniques, could not explain clearly the data analysis, did not know how to display findings and create the discussion, and had blurred knowledge on what to write for the conclusion and references. From the preceding statement, the areas in which the writing group members found the most difficulty prior to the program were brainstorming, abstract, introduction, methodology, findings, discussion, conclusion, and references. The data analysis reveals that after joining the writing group, the students experienced an increased comprehension of all parts of scholarly publications, starting from article submission to references. Students clearly understand brainstorming, writing abstracts, introductions, methods, findings, discussion, and references. The initial confusion with the average score of 3 increased to 5 after the writing-based community practice was completed. It is further bolstered by the student's responses to the open-ended questions, such as "Now I have a thorough understanding of what a scholarly publication is and the systematic steps for writing a scientific paper." Additionally, the student's comprehension of the article submission and literature review increases proportionally from 3.3 and 3.5 to 5. The increased comprehension is also followed by the students' awareness of the importance of scholarly publication. Previously, students merely viewed scholarly publication as the requirement for earning a master's degree; however, they now believe that publishing their academic work is equally essential for advancing their careers as teachers and principals and enhancing their professionalism in the workplace. Figure 1 compares students' knowledge of scholarly publications before and after joining the scholarly writing group. It can be seen from the graph that participants' knowledge considerably increases from 3 to 5 of the average score. This improvement is observed across the board, from article submission to reference writing, indicating that after participating in the CoP, students' understanding significantly increases by almost a hundred percent. has improved in several facets of scientific publication. As seen in Figure  2, a manuscript written by Participant 7 before she joined the writing group, the first paragraph of her introduction did not include any reference to support her argument. Furthermore, she could have explained why researching the topic is vital. The same manuscript seen in Figure 3 was significantly improved after the revision made by Participant 7 during her participation in the writing group. As shown in the picture, Participant 7 adds references to support her argument (highlighted in green) and explains why the issue of academic writing is important to explore by providing instances from other contexts (highlighted in blue) before focusing on the context of her research (highlighted in red). This considerably better draft demonstrates the students' increased grasp of scientific writing, notably the rhetorical structure of an appropriate introduction to a research study. Navigating relevant literature has also been something that she had trouble with in the past. After joining this group, participant 3's perception of discovering literary reviews shifted from "tough" to "easy".
Writing a manuscript based on the discourse community (DC) rhetorical framework is another aspect of the publication process that the participants improved after their involvement in the COP, as seen in the following excerpt: ….In writing an introduction, I once used a science paper as a text mentor for my article, so I assume every article contains the same part. Unexpectedly, I've recently learned that different academic disciplines have distinct article-writing responsibilities, such as writing an introduction. (Excerpt 2,Interview,Participant 14) Participant 14, as cited in Excerpt 2, was still determining whether each publication on a particular topic had its own rule to follow. However, after engaging in this community of practice, she is aware that each section of a scholarly piece, such as the introduction for one discourse community, is distinct from that of other discourse communities.

Discussion
The results of this study demonstrate anticipated benefits associated with participation in a community of practice, including heightened proficiency and confidence in academic writing, as well as enhanced comprehension of the publication process. Upon completion of the community of practice (CoP) program, the Master's students have acquired an enhanced understanding of the art of brainstorming, the ability to expound upon ideas and transform them into well-crafted paragraphs, and the skill to amalgamate these paragraphs into a cohesive and polished composition. The student's written work evinces their ability to effectively communicate their ideas, identify gaps in existing research, and elucidate the purpose of their study, particularly in the introductory section. Over time, students' writing proficiency tends to improve as they acquire a greater understanding of the requisite techniques and content necessary for producing scholarly articles.
The results suggest that the student's adeptness in academic writing is enhanced by their involvement in the CoP. This lends credence to Wenger's (2010)  The student's understanding of scholarly publications evolved from perplexity to perfect comprehension after joining the community of practice. They selfassessed confidently that they clearly understood how to write an article, as demonstrated by the questionnaire responses and document review results.
The findings of this investigation are consistent with earlier research (Ciampa & Wolfe, 2023; Kumar & Aitchison, 2018;Maher et al., 2008) that posited the advantages of participating in a writing group. Specifically, the current study elucidates the function of a community of practice in fostering increased confidence in writing knowledge and skills among its members upon completion of the program. Furthermore, Weaver et al. (2013) observed similar outcomes in their investigation of the students' cognitive proficiency pre-and postparticipation in a writing training program. It demonstrates that the students possessed a more profound understanding of scholarly writing. In contrast to Ciampa and Wolfe's (2023) study that put enormous emphasis on enhancing students' comprehension of the substance of academic writing, the present study endeavors to assist students in exploring information about article content, idea generation, and submission to reputable journals.
This study also evinces the students' transition from a neutral to a comprehensive comprehension of the publication process concerning article submission. The results indicate an increase in the survey responses about the self-assessment of the subjects' comprehension of various phases of the publication process. Furthermore, the student participants involved in this study purported to possess rudimentary knowledge, particularly regarding locating a reputable scholarly journal. The observed phenomenon of shifting suggests that the students have acquired a heightened level of confidence regarding navigating the intricacies of the publication process after participating in the Community of Practice (CoP). As mentioned above, the outcome can be attributed, in part, to the deconstruction of the process into 234-238 http://journal.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php/ijee | DOI: http://doi.org/10.15408/ijee.v10i1.31457 P-ISSN: 2356-1777, E-ISSN: 2443-0390 | This is an open access article under CC-BY-SA license distinct components. Specifically, the Master's students identified and analyzed pertinent journals, procured reputable resources to serve as potential references for their chosen topics and incorporated selected references into their drafts to cultivate a brief literature review. Weaver et al. (2013) and Sletto et al. (2020) have reported analogous results, demonstrating enhanced confidence and comprehension of publication preparation procedures among their study participants. It has been observed that the enrollment of students in a writing group leads to a significant augmentation in their publication proficiency, particularly in identifying a reputable journal and executing a comprehensive literature review. These results substantiate the significance of a community of practice (CoP), more specifically, a writing group, as a means of facilitating its members' understanding of the publication process (Fithriani & Salmiah, 2022;Fithriani et al., 2023;Sletto et al., 2020).
In conclusion, it can be inferred that a heightened awareness of the appropriate procedures and content required for academic papers can lead to a sustained improvement in a student's writing proficiency. The impact of self-efficacy on writing achievement is noteworthy, as noted by Pajares (2003) and Prat-Sala and Redford (2012). It has been observed that students with higher levels of selfefficacy tend to exhibit better writing achievement and produce work of higher quality.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION
This study aimed to explore the experience of Indonesian Master's students of English education in demystifying the publication process as a graduation requirement through their participation in a writing group and any perceived change in their understanding of various aspects of scholarly publication. We argued that by outlining their narratives regarding their maturation into published scholars, we are compelled to respond to the question of what should be done to assist graduate students in coping with the increasing strain of the publication requirement for degree conferment.
Through their participation in the writing group, Master's students gained knowledge of the fundamentals of producing a scholarly paper and had numerous opportunities to receive feedback from other members. As a result, the Master's students' perception of the nature of scholarly publication has been transformed from a graduation requirement' to 'an integral 235-238 The Master's students also confirmed that the dialogic presentation and discussions in the writing group helped them better comprehend the journal article's structure and cleared up their confusion over the processes of preparing for publication. This study presents the success of a CoP-based writing group in unraveling the unconscious journey to the publication from the perspective of Master's students of English education. It has been underlined that writing groups are a practical approach and platform for improving students' academic writing skills. All group members can gain social and emotional benefits from learning together through providing and receiving feedback in the community of practice. Consequently, this study recommends that graduate programs establish such communities of practice for scholarly writing to be viewed as a routine, thereby addressing the growing need for graduate students to publish during their study time.