Chinese Graduate Students' Experiences with Writing a Literature Review‪.‬

Introduction With English becoming a world language, an increasing number of English as a second language (ESL) students are seeking graduate studies in North American universities. Following this trend is a growing body of research on the acculturation of second-language (L2) students into the English-language academy. Issues emerging from the research concern the distinct nature of L2 writing, how ESL students struggle to survive in a new education system, and how their previous learning experiences influence their English writing. As evident from the literature, Chinese students have difficulties in English academic writing. However, these students' experiences with writing a literature review (LR), an important genre of academic writing, have been given little attention by researchers and educators. To explore this issue, this study investigated--through interviews--four Chinese graduate students' experiences with writing an LR at a medium-sized university in Canada. The purpose was to examine their perceptions of requirements for writing an LR, the challenges they encountered in writing an LR, and the strategies they used in the composing process.