Feedback and doctoral student writing

Feedback is an important way through which doctoral students learn the expectations of writing at their particular level of study as well as are inducted into the academic community of practice of their discipline. This chapter examines the feedback that doctoral students are provided with on their work from both supervisors and examiners and, in particular, features of this feedback that students might find difficult to interpret and, as a result, respond to. The analysis shows that the feedback that students receive is often indirect, making it sometimes difficult for them to understand exactly what is required of them by the comments made on their work. The chapter makes suggestions for how supervisor and examiner feedback can be interpreted and acted upon for the improvement of the students’ work. Suggestions are also made for how feedback can be written in a way that is less ambiguous to students and thereby increase the quality of their work.