Discipline-specific Writing: An Examination of Japanese Students' Undergraduate Theses

Abstract

This paper examines disciplinary variations of undergraduate theses written by Japanese university students, and their acquisition of discipline-specific writing, with particular focus on macro-structures. Data was collected from 10 students in the final-year of their Bachelor's programs, and from their supervisors. The students were enrolled in a variety of disciplines at two universities in Japan. Adopting thesis types identified in Paltridge's (2002) study, the current paper found that they were loosely categorised into three types: "traditional-simple", "traditional-complex" and "topic-based". The theses written by the psychology students, which all fell into the traditional type, had similar distinctive features, while the theses written by literature students fell into the topic-based category. The ways in which the psychology students were trained to write their undergraduate theses differed significantly from those of the students in the other disciplines. The findings of this study may have pedagogical implications for supervisors of Japanese postgraduate students who study at overseas universities.