ABSTRACT
Supervisory feedback, both oral and written, offers specific advice, based in the broader understanding and recognition of what those rather abstract terms indicate in practice. This chapter suggests that research into Threshold Concepts at the doctoral level provides a particularly helpful framework for feedback on students' written expression and articulation of their research practice and achievement. Threshold Concepts are those concepts that are critical to a learners' understanding of a discipline. Threshold Concepts related to learning to be a researcher include: argument/thesis, theory, framework, knowledge creation, analysis, research paradigm, creativity, scholarly writing and 'doctorateness'. The feedback and nudging should also influence articulation of the doctorate as a whole in writing. Feedback, like any teaching and learning, is a dialogue between the supervisor, the student's understanding as expressed in their writing, and finally the examiners. Feedback is specific guidance, engagement with specific needs at different stages, in terms of both the discipline and the writing.
