Should Learning Developers provide instruction in the use of metadiscourse?

Metadiscourse is the language writers use to guide their readers through texts and organise arguments. This can take form of phrases, for example, ‘this essay will discuss’, or ‘in conclusion’, individual words such as ‘firstly’ ‘therefore’. study aims determine how undergraduate students develop metadiscourse over first two years at a UK university investigate whether related grade that text receives from subject tutors. To achieve this, corpus summative written assignments was collected 67 undergraduates studying health discipline. writing we Learning Developers are most closely involved with: part course study. The were analysed using software developed field linguistics identify used metadiscourse. results this suggest including explicit instruction in Development sessions some aspects could be value. supports an ‘academic literacies’ (Lea Street, 1998) approach it recognises need make clear implied assumptions surround academic inherent variation between disciplines.