The Thesis Writing Journeys of Bachelor’s and Master’s Students: A Transnational European Perspective

Completing a thesis is a crucial final stage in many bachelor’s and master’s programmes across Europe and beyond. However, the process of thesis writing, how it is experienced by the writers, and how those experiences impact on writing remain underexplored. This book examines the student experience of thesis writing through an interdisciplinary perspective drawing on theories of learning, emotions, and genre and narrative/discursive analysis. As a result of this approach, the thesis is reconceptualised as a multilayered experience from the point of view of student writers. The chapters, which arose out of a collaborative research project across 10 European countries, employ an innovative combination of methods including the use of journey plots to provide a complex picture of the thesis writing process, which will be of interest to readers involved in academic writing at all levels.

Bojana Petric is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck, the University of London, UK. Her research interests include multilingual writers’ academic literacy practices and experiences, particularly their citation practices, source use, writer voice, disciplinary socialisation and interdisciplinarity.

Montserrat Castelló is a Full Professor at Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain. Her research interests include academic and research writing, doctoral writing, writing regulation, doctoral trajectories and researcher identity development.