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Immy Holloway and Lorraine Brown, the authors of Essentials of a Qualitative Doctorate, explicitly identify their intended audience as "doctoral candidates who write their dissertations in English...." This review looks at the book from two frames, a professor who mentors doctoral students, and, imaginatively, as a student who is trying to write my first qualitative dissertation. I found the book has a number of strengths, most especially its broader focus than solely on a US Ph.D. However, the broad focus left many important details in the background. Essentials of a Qualitative Doctorate is probably best seen as a helpful reminder to a student in the writing phase of the dissertation of what the student should already have learned and mastered in prior course work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study of the adjustment journey of international postgraduate students at a university in the South of England, which involved interviews and participant observation over a 12-month academic year. It was discovered that the initial stage of the sojourn was not characterised by feelings of excitement, as suggested by the U-curve model (and its successors): though such feelings were present, they were overwhelmed by negative symptoms more commonly associated with culture shock. The implications of these findings for support structures in higher education are discussed. (Contains 1 note and 1 table.)

Using findings from an ethnographic study of international postgraduate students at a university in the south of England, this article offers a model of adjustment that is informed by the duration of the sojourn, from the initial stage to the month of students' departure from England. This study found that stress was at its height in the initial stage of the academic sojourn; this was caused by the struggle to cope with the challenges of foreign language use and an unfamiliar academic and sociocultural environment at a time when students were beset with homesickness and loneliness. An association was made between the passage of time and a gradual decrease in acculturative stress. However, this was not a generalizable process; there was fluctuation not only in experience across the student body but also in the individual's subjective sense of success across different aspects of life in the new country. This led to the conceptualization of the adjustment journey as an unpredictable and dynamic process, which is experienced differently among sojourners, and fluctuates throughout the sojourn as a result of a host of individual, cultural and external factors. (Contains 1 figure.)

Christine Daymon and Immy Holloway London: Routledge, 2000 293 pp. soft cover 19.99 £ ISBN 0-415-22274-5 This introductory text aims to provide students on public relations and marketing communications courses [...]