ABSTRACT
Writing a postgraduate thesis for the first time is a challenging enterprise. This chapter focuses on the findings of a wide-ranging study into supervisors' and students' perspectives on effective feedback, and analyses of on-script examples of feedback, carried out across several discipline areas in six New Zealand universities. Findings suggested that having English as L1 or L2 did not lead to a differentiation in the type of written feedback students reported finding helpful, and linguistic feedback was required for some L1 as well as L2 students. A range of feedback was found to be more helpful than only one type of feedback. It was also seen as important to combine written feedback with oral feedback. It was apparent that the literature review ranked as the most crucial in terms of feedback, followed by the discussion and methodology sections. It was evident in the survey data that the key to successful written feedback was the developmental opportunity for post-feedback discussions.
