Supervising masters and doctoral dissertations is a key function of teaching in higher education and giving written feedback on draft sections is an essential component of this function. However, the specific types of response that supervisors give to their dissertation students' written work have received limited research interest to date. The…

In attempts to find appropriate and authentic materials for students who are developing their academic writing skills, instructors often turn to works written by professional academics. However, genres such as published research articles and textbooks in specific disciplines may not be the most suitable models for what first year composition…

This paper offers a narrative framework for understanding how multilingual graduate students make sense of the continuous and frequently contradictory talk they engage in as they write. It illustrates how attention to the telling, form, and content of the stories such students relate about their ongoing interactions around academic writing can…

This study reports the perceptions of students and lecturers on the effectiveness of the foreign language instruction in relation to students' academic needs in an English-medium university in Turkey. The theoretical framework of the study draws upon a discourse community (DC) perspective, which considers writing as a socio-cultural practice and…

Adopting the social theory of writing and new rhetorical genre studies (Bakhtin, 1986; Dias, Freedman, Medway, & Pare, 1999; Freedman & Medway, 1994; Miller, 1984/1994) as the theoretical framework in this study I made an attempt to explore graduate students' perceptions of academic writing as a mode of communication in academia. I interviewed…

Drawing on students' literacy autobiographies, this article critiques the premise that academic discourse and working-class identity are not only static but also in complete opposition. The author argues for a more performative theory of class, a theory that would, she explains, recognize that academic discourse creates social class distinctions…

The use of English as an international language of science (EILS) is by now well documented; depending on one's orientation, English may be seen as a neutral "lingua franca" or it may be seen more insidiously as a dominating and overpowering force. This paper explores these co-existing roles of EILS through various perspectives. It begins by…

This paper examines the concepts of discourse community and writing apprenticeship in the context of undergraduate education students' writing. Drawing on an integrated research methodology using marker feedback on student assignments and interview data, the paper addresses to what extent the concepts of discourse community and apprenticeship can…