ABSTRACT
This chapter covers background for students' thesis or dissertation. This includes writing the literature review and chapters which describe the theoretical framework to a study. Particular writing skills covered include summarising and critiquing previous research, adopting a stance and using reporting and evaluative verbs. Writing the background chapters is an important part of the thesis and dissertation writing process. The first of these, background, is covered in most detail in the literature review chapter/s. This backgrounding of the project should lead to what is being researched and why. That is, the background chapters should lead to the gap in the field that students' thesis or dissertation is aiming to fill. The notion of critical thinking is a culture-specific Western idea even though it is often presented in the literature as a universal norm. This notion, further, is often in direct conflict with some second language students’ cultural backgrounds and past educational experiences.
