Developing writing skills for graduate NESBC students

Students from non English-speaking backgrounds and cultures (NESBC) undertaking postgraduate research degrees are expected to write a major thesis and publish conference and journal articles. As novice researchers, they need mentoring through the process of writing a journal article in their specialized area. Experienced supervisors, who have previously published, have an intuitive grasp of the structure of the research article, and are able to suggest restructure of unsuccessful student drafts. This paper analyses the protocols of re-organization of both a professional journal article and sections of a thesis, which a NESBC postgraduate student and his supervisor went through to arrive at a suitable formula for publication. An interactive student/supervisor protocol was used to record the supervisor's revision of an NESBC student's draft journal article and thesis writing process.