This book explores why students from other cultures often find it difficult to learn academic writing and understand its purpose in a U.S. university. The book discusses how these students' writing is influenced by cultures where people communicate indirectly and holistically, value the wisdom of the past, and downplay the individual in favor of the group. Drawing upon systematic conversations and interviews with students from Asia, Latin America, and Africa, the book looks at what happens to undergraduate and graduate students--some of them mid-career professionals who are published writers in their own countries--when they try to modify their writing and thinking styles to produce analytical papers in the Western context. The book addresses the difficulties on both sides with sustained and empathetic focus on underlying cultural differences, noting that the dominant communication style of the United States is highly valued "by only a tiny fraction of the world's peoples." (NKA)