Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language

Doctoral Writing Blog (https://doctoralwriting.wordpress.com/recommended-reading/)

The highly popular Doctoral Writing Blog recommends the book in these terms:

Brian Paltridge and Sue Starfield’s Thesis and dissertation writing in a second language: A handbook for supervisors, London: Routledge, remains hard to beat. This book is for doctoral students who haven’t studied linguistics, and suspect that their supervisors and advisors are not that clear with spelling out how to meet the criteria that will please examiners. We’ve found that the focus on second language explanation makes this a wonderfully clear book for anyone.

In a list of resources for doctoral students, the Blog says about our book:

As a teaching resource this is probably the most well used book in my library. I return to it time and time again because it provides me with the confidence to say ‘research shows that this is a common pattern in thesis writing’. That’s really important for me. This use of empirical evidence makes the book stand out from the crowd – it’s so unlike those other writing advice books

Anne Lee, University of Stavanger, Norway.

There is a need for this book, internationally candidates are struggling with how to write their work up, and supervisors are struggling with how to help them. The pedagogical expectations from different cultural backgrounds are enormous.

The market is growing, international doctoral candidates are a growing force in the UK (partially because of the funding difficulties that local students face).

I think the various national Council’s for Doctoral/Graduate Education should be alerted to this book when it is published (EG UKCGE).

This book is different from the competition as the focii of existing books are either on academic writing, supervising writing or a first language doctoral candidate writing their thesis up in English.

I recommend that a second edition of this book is published.

Professor Jerry Wellington, University of Sheffield, UK

Yes, I think there is a need for this book as most books of this kind do not focus as clearly on international students. Having said that, most of the points and guidelines in the first edition apply to all students: what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Yes, I recommend publication. I like it and I know that our students will find it valuable, clear and helpful.