This paper is a preliminary investigation into how the context of student life influences student writing. Specifically, activity theory is drawn upon to explore how the role of assessment affects students' attempts to participate in knowledge-producing communities, a relatively under-researched aspect of student writing. To identify rhetorical…

One indispensable task in the doctoral undertaking in the humanities and social sciences is that of reviewing the literature. To many graduate students, finding the "right" direction of reviewing is a particularly grueling experience, a practical concern seldom addressed in thesis manuals and studies of the doctoral thesis. This paper is an…

An important component of fluent linguistic production is control of the multi-word expressions referred to as clusters, chunks or bundles. These are extended collocations which appear more frequently than expected by chance, helping to shape meanings in specific contexts and contributing to our sense of coherence in a text. Bundles have begun to…

The neglect of acknowledgements in the EAP literature is perhaps surprising given their importance in the scholarly communication process. While unrelated to the important academic goals of establishing claims and reputations, the significance of this optional genre is confirmed by its widespread use and the role it plays in the academic practice…

Explores the extent to which published advice on the organization and structure of theses and dissertations concurs with what happens in actual practice. Examines guides and handbooks that focus on thesis and dissertation writing and postgraduate research. Found that only a few books devoted a substantial amount of space to this topic. Discusses…

The linguistic resources used by academic writers to adopt a position and engage with readers, variously described as "evaluation," "stance" and "metadiscourse," have attracted increasing attention in the literature over the last 10 years and now form an important element of many ESP courses. A relatively overlooked interpersonal feature, however,…

Describes a program created to assist students of English as a Second Language in their preparation for thesis and dissertation writing by focusing on the thesis proposal as an important part of that process. Notes that they often experience difficulty meeting the demands of the kind of writing required at this level and often are unaware of the…

Explores one grammatical feature of metadiscourse--clauses with an anticipatory "it" and extraposed subject. This feature is compared in two computerized corpora, one consisting of published journal articles from the field business studies and the second of MBA student dissertations written by nonnative speakers of English. (Author/VWL)

Explores the issue of international students' sense of personal identity in relation to postgraduate argument texts and examines research students' own perceptions about their writing experience in the English language. Argues that the associations these students make between their self-concepts as learners and their English language texts have…