Reflections on the genre-based approach to the teaching of thesis writing

Abstract

This paper discusses how the genre-based approach can be employed in the teaching thesis writing in the universities. An analysis of six theses drawn from public universities in Kenya revealed that generic features fulfil particular communicative purposes in different rhetorical moves of the thesis. To produce texts that meet their intended purposes, the genre-based approach should be adopted where teaching and learning includes conscious-raising activities and comparisons of students’ own writing with that by ‘experts’ in their disciplinary cultures.