Writing is a challenging but requisite skill at university and other life situations. At university, essay writing is generally challenging to first-year students across disciplines or faculties. This study therefore describes the writing challenges of the Faculty of Social Sciences students at the University of Botswana. To that end, this study asks the following research questions: (1) What writing tasks are first-year students in the Faculty of Social Sciences given? (2) What problems do the students encounter when writing essays in the Faculty of Social Sciences? (3) What kind of assistance do students receive on writing essays? This article is underpinned by the English for Academic Purposes genre analysis framework. All in all, the findings of this study point to the need for a more intensive writing programme for first-year students at the University of Botswana in which both faculties and the Communication and Study Skills Unit will cooperatively assist students with writing. Students’ responses clearly indicated the need for such collaboration.

中文翻译：

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社会科学论文的体裁分析：以博茨瓦纳学生为例

在大学和其他生活环境中，写作是一项具有挑战性但必不可少的技能。在大学中，论文写作通常对跨学科或跨学科的一年级学生构成挑战。因此，本研究描述了博茨瓦纳大学社会科学学院学生的写作挑战。为此，本研究提出以下研究问题：（1）社会科学学院的一年级学生承担哪些写作任务？（2）在社会科学学院写论文时，学生会遇到什么问题？（3）学生在撰写论文时会得到什么样的帮助？本文以学术目的英语体裁分析框架为基础。总而言之，本研究的结果表明，需要对博茨瓦纳大学的一年级学生进行更深入的写作计划，该计划将由院系和传播与学习技能部共同协助学生进行写作。学生的回答清楚地表明了进行这种合作的必要性。