ABSTRACT
In Chapters 3 and 4, we considered the pre-writing advice and the post-writing feedback that supervisors typically give their doctoral students on the writing of their dissertation chapters. In this chapter, we focus on how the selected content for dissertation chapters is organised so that it serves the purpose or function(s) of the part-genre (chapter) for which it was selected. In academic genres like the dissertation, the content is organised as an ‘argument’ that, in one way or another, explains and develops rhetorically a case to support and justify the inclusion of the selected content. As the previous chapters explained, the nature of the content, and the argument it serves, vary from one chapter to another. Thus, the argument of a literature review, for example, is different to the argument of a results chapter. Once students and supervisors have a clear understanding of the relevant content and how it can be most effectively organised, they need to understand that the argument is only going to be rhetorically effective if there is a coherent logic to the way the content is presented. The aim of this chapter, then, is to present some pre-writing advice, in Part One, and post-writing feedback, in Part Two, that will help students to write a successful argument.
