Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language

A Handbook for Students and their Supervisors

Brian Paltridge, Sue Starfield

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351690669
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Fully updated and packed with new material, the second edition of Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language is the ideal guide for non-native speaker students and their supervisors working on writing a thesis or dissertation in English.

Considering the purposes of thesis and dissertation of writing alongside writer/reader relationships, this book uses accessible language and practical examples to discuss issues that are crucial to successful thesis and dissertation writing. This edition offers:

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• Insights into the experience of being a doctoral writer, issues of writer identity, and writing with authority

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• Typical language and discourse features of theses and dissertations

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• Advice on the structure and organisation of key sections

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• Suggestions for online resources which support writing

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• Extracts from completed theses and dissertations

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• Guidance on understanding examiner expectations

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• Advice on publishing from a PhD

Suitable for students from all disciplines, Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language is essential reading for non-native speaker students looking to complete a thesis or dissertation in English.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Background to the book

The aim of this book is to provide a handbook for students who are writing a thesis or dissertation¹ in English as their second language as well as for supervisors who are working with second language students. The book aims to unpack some of the tacit understandings of the thesis and dissertation writing process that students are often not aware of and, in this case, students who come from a language and culture background other than English. There are practical examples, learning tasks, and examples from completed theses and dissertations throughout the book. The learning tasks are designed to help students develop the skills and understandings necessary for successful thesis and dissertation writing. These learning tasks include a focus on aspects of language use particular to thesis and dissertation writing as well as the social and cultural expectations particular to writing a thesis or dissertation, such as what is expected of students in this kind of writing and at this level of study, the issue of disciplinary differences in thesis writing, and what examiners expect of theses and dissertations written in English-medium universities.

The book includes a focus on theory and research, where appropriate, and provides practical advice on thesis and dissertation writing for second language students. It discusses issues that are common to all thesis and dissertation writers, such as understanding the setting and purpose of thesis and dissertation writing, the place of audience in thesis and dissertation writing, understanding writer/reader relationships, issues of writer identity, and the place of assumed background knowledge in thesis and dissertation writing.

Each unit of the book focusses on a particular aspect of the thesis and dissertation writing process. The sequencing of the units follows the stages of carrying out research and writing a thesis or dissertation. Each of the units includes tasks, which are written in a way which encourages students to explore the points that are covered in each chapter in relation to their own discipline-specific and academic situation.

While there are a large number of texts that offer support to students with assignment writing, there are far fewer that offer support to students who are writing a thesis or dissertation. Furthermore, assignment writing is a quantitatively and qualitatively different task to writing a thesis or dissertation and managing the writing process over a sustained period of time.

The approach adopted in this book is one which explicitly teaches the expectations, conventions, structure, and organisation of the various sections of the typical thesis and dissertation. It also draws on authentic instances of theses and dissertations to illustrate these features of the texts. While the aim of this book is to make the issues we discuss clear to second language students, there is much in this book that will also be of use to native speaker students and to students who have already studied in an English-medium university but have not written a text previously of the kind we are discussing.

Changes to the second edition of the book

A very important change in this second edition of our book is its focus on students as its primary readership as opposed to supervisors, which was the case with the first edition of the book. It is likely that supervisors will, however, find much of value in this revised edition. We have added research that has been published since we wrote the first edition of our book over 10 years ago, such as research into the experience of being a doctoral writer, identity issues in relation to thesis and dissertation writing, writing with authority and finding your voice, and research into linguistic and discourse features of theses and dissertations. The new edition includes more tasks, and we have added more recent extracts from completed theses and dissertations, and introduced newer digital-based tools to support thesis writing. We have also added a chapter on publishing from and during a PhD, something we did not include in the first edition of the book.

Background to thesis and dissertation writing in a second language

A large number of second language students attending British, US, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand universities are enrolled in a degree that requires the writing of a thesis or dissertation in English. There are also many students enrolled in degrees in places such as South Africa and Hong Kong who are required to write a thesis or dissertation in English and for whom English is not their first, or dominant, language. Such students often have difficulty in meeting the demands of the kind of writing required of them in this particular genre. This is especially the case for students who come from a context where the conventions and expectations of academic writing may be quite different to the situation they now find themselves in.

This chapter discusses:

• the context in which theses and dissertations are produced and the implications of this for second language writers from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds;
• the very particular social and cultural context of theses and dissertations, and how this impacts on what students write and how they can write it;
• approaches to knowledge and approaches to learning at different levels of study;
• cross-cultural issues in thesis and dissertation writing;
• identity and thesis and dissertation writing;
• disciplinary differences in thesis and dissertation writing; and
• what universities and examiners expect of theses and dissertations.

The social and cultural context of thesis and dissertation writing

We have found that a useful way to think about thesis and dissertation writing is by examining the social and cultural context in which the thesis or dissertation is being produced. This includes factors such as:

• the setting of the text
• the focus and perspective of the text
• the purpose/s of the text
• the intended audience for the text, their role and purpose in reading the text
• the relationship between writers and readers of the text
• expectations, conventions, and requirements for the text
• the background knowledge, values, and understandings it is assumed that thesis and dissertation writers share with their readers, including what is important to their reader and what is not
• the relationship the text has with other texts

Each of these is important to consider as they all, in their way, have an impact on the thesis or dissertation and the way it is written. Often these issues are mutually understood by people working in the university but not explicitly stated to students. This includes the values and expectations that are held in a particular area of study, the audience the thesis or dissertation is written for, and different expectations at different levels of study. We have found it useful to consider these factors before starting on writing the thesis or dissertation as well as before looking at examples of actual texts. Each of these aspects is discussed, in turn, below.

The setting of the thesis or dissertation

The setting of the thesis or dissertation includes the kind of university and level of study the text is being written in. This may be a comprehensive research university, or it may be a university of technology where different sorts of work and different sorts of research projects might be more especially valued. The thesis or dissertation may be being written for an honour’s, a master’s, or a doctoral degree. This has implications for the breadth and scale of the project reported on in the text.

Another important issue is the kind of study area the text is being written in, that is, whether it is written in what Becher and Trowler (2001) call a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ discipline, a ‘pure’ or ‘applied’ discipline, or a ‘convergent’ or ‘divergent’ area of study. This has important implications for understanding the values, ideologies, and research perspectives that are prioritised in the particular area/s of study. It is helpful to consider, for example, whether academic staff in the area of study share the same basic ideologies, judgements, and values (a convergent area of study) or whether their research perspectives are drawn from other areas of study (a divergent area of study). It is important to consider how much variation there is as to what might be considered ‘research’ in the particular area of study and to what extent this makes a difference as to what can be ‘said and done’ in the thesis or dissertation. This all helps to place the thesis or dissertation in its particular academic setting as well as to bring to the fore the sets of values that hold in the area of study that might be shared by members of academic staff but not openly expressed by them.

Research perspective, topic, and purpose of the thesis or dissertation

Another matter to consider is the research perspective and topic of the research project, and the extent to which this impacts on how the thesis or dissertation will be written. For example, is it a quantitative or qualitative study, or an example of ‘mixed method’ research, and what particular assumptions do these perspectives imply? This includes what sorts of claims can be made in the thesis or dissertation and what claims cannot.

The actual purpose of the research and, in turn, the thesis or dissertation is also important to consider. The purpose, for example, may be to answer a question, to solve a problem, or to prove something as well as contribute to knowledge in their area of study. The purpose may equally be to display knowledge and understanding of a particular topic; to demonstrate particular skills; to convince a reader; and, at a more advanced level, to ‘gain admission to a particular area of study’. Students are often required in this kind of writing not only to answer their research question/s but also to ‘show what they know’ in doing this.

The audience for theses and dissertations

A further issue to consider is the intended audience for the thesis or dissertation, the readers’ role and purpose in reading the text, how readers will react to what they read, and the criteria they will use for assessing the text. For example, is the text written for academics in the field, for examiners, or for the supervisor/s of the thesis or dissertation? And who counts most in judging whether the text meets the requirements of their particular area of study?

Theses and dissertations are typically written for a primary readership of one or more examiners. In some cases, a student’s supervisor may be one of the student’s examiners, and in other cases they may not. If the supervisor is not one of the examiners, they will be a secondary reader of the thesis, not a primary one. This difference between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ readerships is important and is often not immediately obvious to students. In the case of thesis and dissertation writing, it is the primary reader that is the final judge as to the quality of the student’s piece of work, rather than the secondary reader. As Kamler and Threadgold (1997, p. 53) have pointed out, a dominant, or ‘primary’, reader, within the academy, ‘quite simply counts more than other readers’ (such as friends, learning advisors, and anyone else the student shows their text to). It is important, then, to consider the expert, ‘all-powerful reader’ of the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Author biographies
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Becoming a researcher in a global world
• 3 Issues in thesis and dissertation writing in English as a second language
• 4 Writing a research proposal
• 5 The overall shape of theses and dissertations
• 6 Writing the introduction
• 7 Writing the background chapters
• 8 Writing the methodology chapter
• 9 Writing the results chapter
• 10 Writing discussions and conclusions
• 11 Writing the abstract and acknowledgements sections
• 12 Publishing from a thesis or dissertation
• 13 Resources for thesis and dissertation writing
• References
• Index