the dissertation as a whole. However, the problems of the discussion section were seldom addressed. Based on interviews with nine advisor-student pairs from the natural, applied, and social sciences in Taiwan, this study explored the problems encountered by students in writing the doctoral dissertation discussion section. The results showed that: (1) compared with their advisors, students' overall understanding of the purposes of writing the discussion section was inadequate; (2) there was to some extent a gap between advisors and their students in terms of understanding students' problems in writing the discussion section; (3) both advisors and students within/between each group (i.e., natural and applied sciences/social sciences) gave different explanations Dissertation Writing Service regarding students’ writing problems; and (4) the understanding of genre was enacted differently across disciplines. The implications are discussed.
This paper examines the emergence of the doctoral thesis as a research genre and traces the development of thesis types and their macrostructures over time. We do this by examining the first doctorates that were awarded in English-medium universities and comparing them with doctorates that have been awarded more recently at the same universities. The data on which the study is based is a set of 100 PhDs. The study found there was change in Science-based doctorates where some of the early PhDs were written in ways that were less recognisable compared with how they are written today. There was continuity, however, in Humanities doctorates in that both the early