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Thesis and Dissertation Writing
in a Second Language
The changing demographics of higher education in conjunction with imperatives of greater
accountability and increasing support for research students mean that many supervisors find
themselves challenged by the task of guiding non-native-speaker students to completion.
Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language is a practical guide containing useful
real-life examples. Tasks in each unit are designed for supervisors to use with their students to
help them develop the skills and understanding necessary for successful thesis and dissertation
writing.
Each unit of the book focuses on a particular aspect of thesis and dissertation writing and
the research and supervision process, including:
● aspects of language use particular to thesis and dissertation writing;
● typical chapter structures and organization;
● social and cultural expectations particular to writing a thesis or dissertation;
● what is expected of students in this kind of writing and at this level of study;
● expectations of students and supervisors in the supervision and thesis writing process;
● disciplinary differences in thesis writing;
● what examiners expect of theses and dissertations written in English-medium universities;
● insights into barriers faced by non-native-speaking students studying for a research degree.
Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language is the ideal guide for all supervisors working
with non-native-speaker students writing a thesis or dissertation in English. This accessible
text provides guidelines to facilitate successful writing using tasks which encourage students
to apply the points covered in each unit to their own situation.
Brian Paltridge is Associate Professor of TESOL at the University of Sydney in Australia.
Sue Starfield is Director of the Learning Centre, and a Visiting Fellow in the Department of
Linguistics, University of New South Wales. They both have extensive experience in working
with students writing a thesis or dissertation in English as their second language.
Thesis and Dissertation
Writing in a Second Language
A handbook for supervisors
Brian Paltridge and Sue Starfield
First published 2007 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park,Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2007 Brian Paltridge and Sue Starfield
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Paltridge, Brian.
Thesis and dissertation writing in a second language : a handbook for
supervisors / Brian Paltridge and Sue Starfield.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-415-37170-4 (alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-415-37173-5 (pbk. : alk.
paper) 1. Dissertations,Academic--Authorship. 2.Academic writing. 3. English
language--Study and teaching--Foreign speakers. I. Starfield, Sue, 1952- II.Title.
LB2369.P353 2007
808'.042--dc22
2006038301
ISBN10: 0–415–37170–8 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–37173–2 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–96081–5 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–37170–4 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–37173–5 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–96081–3 (ebk)
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
ISBN 0-203-96081-5 Master e-book ISBNContents
List of illustrations vi
Acknowledgements viii
1 Introduction 1
2 Working with second-language speakers of English 22
3 Thesis writing in English as a second language 43
4 Writing a research proposal 55
5 The overall shape of theses and dissertations 66
6 Writing the Introduction 82
7 Writing the background chapters 99
8 Writing the Methodology chapter 114
9 Writing the Results chapter 134
10 Writing Discussions and Conclusions 145
11 Writing the Abstract and Acknowledgements 155
12 Resources for thesis and dissertation writing 163
Appendix 168
References 175
Index 185Illustrations
Figures
1.1 Text and context in academic writing 18
2.1 Interrelationships between level of English language
proficiency and research status 24
2.2 The role perception scale 38
3.1 A simplified model of the writing process 46
3.2 A more realistic model of the writing process 47
3.3 The reciprocal relationship of writing and thinking 47
6.1 The thesis hourglass 84
8.1 Visual map of typical components of a Methodology chapter 123
9.1 Making claims: some examples of hedging 143
Tables
1.1 The social and cultural context of theses and dissertations 8
1.2 Attitudes to knowledge, approaches to learning and different
levels of study 9
1.3 Characteristics of high and low quality theses 19
4.1 Purpose of each section of a research proposal 61
6.1 Typical moves in thesis Introductions 83
7.1 Degrees and the nature of the literature review 100
7.2 Steps and strategies for writing a literature review 104
7.3 Typical tenses used in the literature review 109
7.4 Choices of tense and reasons for their use 109
7.5 Linguistic strategies for commenting on previous research 111
7.6 Techniques for paraphrasing and summarizing 112
9.1 Typical elements in reporting Results sections of theses 135
10.1 Stance and engagement strategies 149
10.2 The typical structure of thesis-oriented Conclusions 152
10.3 Reporting, commenting and suggesting in the
Conclusions section 153Illustrations vii
11.1 Use of verb tenses in thesis and dissertation Abstracts 159
11.2 Moves in Acknowledgements sections 161
Boxes
2.1 Dai’s story 34
5.1 A ‘simple’ traditional thesis 68
5.2 A ‘complex’ traditional thesis 69
5.3 A topic-based thesis 71
5.4 A compilation of research articles presented as a PhD thesis 72
5.5 Summary of thesis types and their typical organizational
structures 73
5.6 Typical content of individual chapters 76
6.1 Language patterns in Move 3c 90
6.2 Extract from Introduction of a PhD thesis in physics 92
6.3 Extract from Introduction of a PhD thesis in history 95
7.1 Sample literature review chapters 102
8.1 Extract from table of contents of a thesis by compilation 115
8.2 Extract from table of contents of a PhD thesis in linguistics 116
8.3 Extract from table of contents of a PhD thesis in sociology 117
8.4 Extract from Research Design chapter of a PhD
thesis in history 118
8.5 Extract from Methodology chapter of a PhD thesis 120
8.6 Example of justification of unit of analysis 121
8.7 Description and evaluation of data sources 124
8.8 Extract from Materials and Methods section of a PhD
thesis in marine biology 125
8.9 Account of how data were processed from a PhD
thesis in marine biology 127
8.10 Use of impersonal language in data analysis section
of a PhD thesis in marine biology 128
8.11 Writer’s representation of herself as researcher in a PhD
thesis in linguistics 130
8.12 Extract from Methodology chapter of a PhD thesis
in which writer explicitly discusses the role of the researcher 131
9.1 Extract from Move 1 in Findings chapter of a PhD
thesis in history 136
9.2 Extract from a PhD thesis in engineering illustrating Move 1 138
9.3 Extract from a PhD thesis in history showing Move 2 139
9.4 Extract from an engineering thesis showing use of Move 2 140
9.5 Extract from Move 3 of Findings chapter of a history thesis 142
9.6 Move 3 showing hedging in an engineering thesis 143
11.1 Analysis of a PhD thesis abstract 156This book is the result of many years of teaching, talking and thinking about
thesis and dissertation writing with our students, colleagues, friends and
families. We thank them all. We would also like to acknowledge the many
doctoral and master’s students whose theses have contributed extracts to this
book. Specifically we would like to thank Dwight Atkinson, Diane Belcher,
Chris Casanave, Andy Curtis, Tony Dudley-Evans, Chris Feak, Liz Hamp-
Lyons, Alan Hirvela, Cynthia Nelson, Louise Ravelli and John Swales for
their interest, support and inspiration; Tracey-Lee Downey for her help with
illustrations; our anonymous reviewers as well as Philip Mudd at
RoutledgeFalmer for his support for our project and Lucy Wainwright, also
at RoutledgeFalmer, for seeing our project through to completion.
Being able to develop and teach our courses in thesis and dissertation writing
has been and continues to be a rewarding experience for us both. From what
our students tell us, they find the courses very helpful with the development of#p#分页标题#e#
their own writing. Writing a research thesis in a language that is not your
native one is undoubtedly a challenge. We hope that other students and their
supervisors will find our book helpful in meeting that challenge and that the
students’ unique contribution to knowledge in their field will be enhanced.
Sue would especially like to acknowledge her parents for their unconditional
love and support and thank Alan, Sophia and Jeremy for putting up
with her during the writing process. She would also like to thank Adrian Lee
and Richard Henry for their encouragement and her Learning Centre colleagues
for being passionate about writing. Brian would like to acknowledge
the support he has in his faculty for the work that he does, and his colleagues
and research students there for making it the place to be that it is.
AcknowledgementsBackground to the book
The aim of this book is to provide a handbook for supervisors who are working
with students writing a thesis or dissertation1 in English as their second
language. The book aims to unpack some of the tacit understanding that
supervisors often have of the thesis or dissertation writing process that is
often not shared by their students, and in this case, students who come from
a language and culture background other than English. The book is also suitable
for teachers who run courses or workshops on thesis and dissertation
writing for second-language students. 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, expectations of students and
supervisors in the supervision and thesis writing process, 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, as well
as providing practical advice on thesis and dissertation writing for secondlanguage
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 focuses on a particular aspect of thesis and dissertation
writing and the research and supervision 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 for supervisors to use with
their students. The tasks are written in a way that encourages students to
Chapter 1
Introductionexplore 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. There are a
number of books that offer advice to research students but very few of these
provide detailed instruction in the writing of the actual thesis and hardly any
offer specific advice to students from non-English-speaking backgrounds (see
Paltridge 2002 for further discussion of this).
We hope that the approach to the conceptualizing and teaching of thesis and
dissertation writing presented in this book will be of benefit to our disciplinary
colleagues. The approach adopted is one which explicitly teaches the expectations,
conventions, structure and organization 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 and their
supervisors, 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 previously written a text of the kind we are discussing.
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 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;
2 Introduction● cross-cultural issues in thesis and dissertation writing;
● the issue of being a second-language writer in research settings;
● critical issues in thesis and dissertation writing;
● disciplinary differences in thesis and dissertation writing;
● 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 discuss thesis and dissertation writing
with our students is by starting with an examination of the social and cultural
context in which the student’s thesis or dissertation is being produced.
Factors that might be discussed with the student, for example, include:
● 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 the
student shares 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 what the student writes and the way they write it. Often these
issues are mutually understood by people working in the university, but not
explicitly stated to students. This discussion can include values and expectations
that are held in a particular area of study, the audience students are
writing for, and different expectations at different levels of study. We have
found it useful to have this discussion with students before they start writing
their thesis or dissertation, as well as before we look at examples of
actual texts with them. Some of the issues we raise with our students are
discussed below.
The setting of the students’ text
The setting of the student’s text includes the kind of university and level of
study the thesis or dissertation 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
Introduction 3honours, a master’s, or a doctoral degree. This has implications for the
breadth and scale of the student’s research project.
Another important issue is the kind of study area the student’s text is being
written in; that is, whether it is written in what Becher and Trowler (2001)
call a ‘hard’ or a ‘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 prioritized
in the students’ area/s of study. Students can be asked, for example, to
consider whether academic staff in their area of study share the same basic ideologies,
judgments and values (a convergent area of study) or whether their
research perspectives are drawn from other areas of study (a divergent area of
study). They might consider whether there is more variation in what might be#p#分页标题#e#
considered ‘research’ in their particular area of study, and to what extent this
makes a difference as to what students can ‘say’ and do. This discussion helps
students to place their dissertation in its particular academic setting as well as
to bring to the fore the sets of values that hold in their 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
Students can be asked to consider the research perspective and topic of their
research project and the extent to which this impacts on how they will write
their thesis or dissertation. They can consider, for example, whether they are
doing a quantitative or qualitative study or whether their research project is
an example of ‘mixed method’ research, and what particular assumptions
these perspectives imply. This includes what sorts of claims can be made in
the particular perspective and area of study, and what claims cannot.
Students can then be asked to consider the actual purpose of their research,
and in turn, their thesis or dissertation. This may, for example, be to answer a
question, to solve a problem, or to prove something, as well as to 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, as well as, often, 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 (see Chapters 3, 5 and 6 where this is discussed in more detail).
The audience for theses and dissertations
A further issue that students should consider is the intended audience for their
thesis or dissertation, their readers’ role and purpose in reading their text, how
their readers will react to what they read, and the criteria they will use for
assessing their text. For example, are the students writing for academics in the
4 Introductionfield, for their examiners, or for their supervisor? And who counts most in judging
whether their 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 the student’s supervisor may be one of
the examiners and in other cases they may not. If the supervisor is not one of
the student’s examiners, they will be a secondary reader of the student’s text,
not a primary one. This difference between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ readerships
(Brookes and Grundy 1990) is significant, 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:
53) point 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, for students
to consider the expert, ‘all-powerful reader’ of their texts who can either
accept, or reject, their writing as being coherent and consistent with the conventions
of the target discourse community (Johns 1990) and how they will
(potentially) read their text.
The relationship between writers and readers
of theses and dissertations
Next, students can be asked to consider the relationship between their readers
and themselves as writers and how this impacts on what they say and how
they can say it. They can also be asked to consider how this relationship
changes for other academic texts such as research articles and conference presentations.
Writers of theses and dissertations, for example, are typically
‘novices writing for experts’ whereas writers of research articles are generally
‘experts writing for experts’. Conference presentations, for research students,
are often a mix of the two.
Background knowledge, values and understandings
in thesis and dissertation writing
Another useful topic to discuss is the background knowledge, values, and
understandings it is assumed students will share with their primary readers
(their examiners), what is important to their readers, and what is not. This,
students will discover, impacts on how much ‘display of knowledge’ their text
should contain, to what extent they should ‘show what they know’, as well as
what issues they should address, what boundaries they can cross (Kamler and
Threadgold 1997), and how they might do this.
Introduction 5Discourse community expectations and thesis
and dissertation writing
It is also useful to discuss general expectations and conventions for theses and
dissertations, as well as the particular expectations, conventions and requirements
of the students’ area of study. Students can be asked how a thesis or
dissertation might typically be organized and how this might vary for a particular
research topic and kind of study.
The next issue is what might typically be contained in each chapter of the
thesis or dissertation and what amount of variation might be allowed in all of
this. A further important topic is the level of critical analysis required of students
at the particular level and area of study and the level of originality and
‘contribution to knowledge’ expected of the students’ research projects.
Relationship with other texts
A final important point to discuss with students is the relationship their thesis
or dissertation has with other texts such as monographs, journal articles
and research reports, as well as how they are expected to show the relationship
between what they are writing and what others have written before them on
their topic. Students can be asked how they might use other texts to support
arguments they wish to make, as well as differences between acceptable and
unacceptable textual borrowings (Pennycook 1996) and differences between
reporting and plagiarizing.
The context of theses and dissertations
Table 1.1 (see p.8) is an analysis of the social and cultural context of theses
and dissertations based on this set of questions. This table shows the range of
factors that impact on how a student’s text is written, how it will be read and,
importantly, how it will be assessed.
6 Introduction
Applications
1 Ask your student to consider the following in relation to their thesis
or dissertation. To what extent do these factors influence what
they write and how they write it?
● the institutional setting of the text;
● the focus and perspective of the text;
● the intended audience for the text.Introduction 7
Attitudes to knowledge and different
levels of study
A further useful topic to discuss with students is attitudes to knowledge,
learning approaches, and teaching and learning strategies at different levels
of study – also how these are often different in English-medium universities
from those in second-language-speaker students’ own counties. Ballard and
Clanchy (1984, 1997) discuss each of these, including how they change as
students progress in their studies. For example, the primary focus in an
English secondary school education is often ‘conserving’ knowledge
whereas, as a student continues on to tertiary studies, there is often a shift
to critiquing and ‘extending’ knowledge. This may entail a shift from a
focus on correctness, to ‘simple’ originality and, in turn, to ‘creative’ originality
and the creation of new knowledge. Students, thus, often move from
summarizing and describing information, to questioning, judging and
recombining information, through to a deliberate search for new ideas, data
and explanations. Higher levels of study still expect correctness and the
recombination of information, however. They also often expect the creation
of new knowledge, and a search for new evidence and interpretations
(Ballard and Clanchy 1997).
Table 1.2 presents relationships between teaching and learning strategies
and attitudes to knowledge at different levels of study in English-medium
institutions. This figure is a useful starting point for a discussion with students
on these issues, including cross-cultural differences and expectations
at different levels of study. Ballard and Clanchy point out, importantly, that
the attitudes and strategies they describe are not fixed and static, but on a
continuum. In some courses, students vary in the strategies and attitudes to
knowledge that they adopt. Equally, the learning strategies students adopt
2 Ask your student to consider how these factors influence how they
write their text:
● university expectations, conventions and requirements for the
thesis or dissertation;
● the background knowledge, values, and understandings it is
assumed they will share with their readers, including what is
important to their readers and what is not.
3 Ask your student to discuss the differences between reporting,#p#分页标题#e#
paraphrasing and plagiarizing. Ask what strategies they use when
they are paraphrasing other writers’ work (see Bailey 2003: 21–22
for a useful activity on paraphrasing).Table 1.1 The social and cultural context of theses and dissertations
Setting of The kind of university and level of study, the kind of degree (e.g.
the text honours, master’s or doctoral, research or professional).
Study carried out in a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’, pure or applied, convergent or
divergent area of study (Becher and Trowler 2001).
Focus and Quantitative, qualitative or mixed method research.
perspective Claims that can be made, claims that cannot be made.
of the text Faculty views on what ‘good’ research is.
Purpose of To answer a question, to solve a problem, to prove something, to
the text contribute to knowledge, to display knowledge and understanding,
to demonstrate particular skills, to convince a reader, to gain
admission to a particular area of study.
Audience, role To judge the quality of the research.
and purpose Primary readership of one or more examiners, secondary
in reading readership of everyone else who reads their work.
the text How readers will react to what they read, the criteria they will use
for assessing the text, who counts the most in judging the quality of
the text.
Relationship Students writing for experts, for admission to an area of study (the
between writers primary readership), students writing for peers, for advice (the
and readers secondary readership).
of the text Writer identity, authority and positioning.
Expectations, An understanding and critical appraisal of relevant literature.
conventions A clearly defined and comprehensive investigation of the research topic.
and Appropriate use of research methods and techniques for the
requirements research question.
for the text Ability to interpret results, develop conclusions and link them to
previous research.
Level of critical analysis, originality and contribution to knowledge
expected.
Literary quality and standard of presentation expected.
Level of grammatical accuracy required.
How the text is typically organized, how the text might vary for a
particular research topic, area of study, kind of study and research
perspective.
What is typically contained in each chapter.
The amount of variation allowed in what should be addressed and
how it should be addressed.
The university’s formal submission requirements in terms of format,
procedures and timing.
Background The background knowledge, values, and understandings it is assumed
knowledge, students will share with their readers, what is important to their
values, and readers, what is not important to their readers.
understandings How much knowledge students are expected to display, the extent
to which students should show what they know, what issues
students should address, what boundaries students can cross.
Relationship How to show the relationship between the present research and
the text has other people’s research on the topic, what counts as valid previous
with other research, acceptable and unacceptable textual borrowings,
texts differences between reporting and plagiarizing.
Source: Paltridge 2006: 100. By kind permission of Continuum
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