A Case Study into the Writing of Chinese Postgraduate Students in a UK Academic Environment

This case study explores the problematic issues in academic writing of three Chinese postgraduate students studying in UK academic environment. It aims to attempt to identify mismatches in lecturer and postgraduate student expectations and to understand the reasoning behind these mismatches from the students’ perspective. This study was carried out based on the extended academic essay assignment feedback of three British lecturers on a Postgraduate Masters course in Human Resource Management. By using research method of qualitative analysis, this present study found that eight categories of negative comments. It contains lack of criticality; lack of voice; unreferenced sources, unsubstantiated statements, plagiarism; inappropriate referencing conventions; lack of clear relevance and focus; inappropriate academic style; unclear expression (language concerns) and cohesive and structural weaknesses. And then, it has been concluded that the pedagogical implications of such research are far-reaching. The students themselves require a far greater understanding not only of what is expected of them, but also of how to meet these expectations in practice and trainers need to focus on the development of the schemata.