Understanding the language of evaluation in examiners’ reports on doctoral theses

First order and second order indirectness in Korean and Chinese

“…The increasing number of evaluation studies have focused primarily on Western languages and contexts, such as Danish news reports (Holmgreen and Vestergaard, 2009), Spanish medical discussions (Gallardo and Ferrari, 2010), English workplace communications (Ho, 2014), English online social networks (Santamariá-Garcia, 2014), and English academic feedback (Starfield et al, 2015). These studies focused on different types of evaluations (e.g.…”

“Commenting on your work is a waste of time only!”: An appraisal-based study of evaluative language in supervisory feedback

“…However, little research has focused squarely on the socio-affective features of evaluative language used in supervisory feedback. Two studies (Hu & Choo, 2016;Starfield et al, 2015) that employed the appraisal framework to examine evaluative language used in examiners' reports are 7 relevant to the present study. Starfield et al (2015) explored the use of evaluative language in 142 PhD examination reports written by international, national, and internal examiners for 50 theses across four disciplines (i.e., Health and Health Sciences; Science; Business, Economics, and Accounting; and Humanities) at a New Zealand university.…”

“…Extant research has also demonstrated that the quality of feedback is mediated by the nature of the feedback process per se (i.e., authoritative or dialogic) (K. Hyland & Hyland, 2019a), students' competence and confidence (Wang & Li, 2011), and the supervisor-student relationship (Katikireddi & Reilly, 2017;Sutton, 2012). In this regard, the language used to communicate feedback has been recognized as affecting the quality and impact of feedback because students may simply dismiss the feedback received if the language is authoritative, demeaning, or destructive to mutuality (Sopina & McNeill, 2015;Starfield et al, 2015). Thus, a feedback provider intending to encourage and motivate students "could, unwittingly, employ language and tone that undermines [his/her] purpose" (Price, Handley, & Millar, 2011, p. 881).…”

Advice for writing a thesis (based on what examiners do)

“…So, the advice is to be prepared for some negative comments, but recognise that most examiner comments will be constructive feedback (even if they do not seem to be), useful for improving your thesis or developing further research and publications. When reading examiner comments, it is useful to distinguish obligatory requests which require action, from optional suggestions which do not (Starfield et al, 2015). Also, realise that almost all of the comments are about the thesis, not about you, and you should not take these personally.…”