For some overseas students, essays have to be written in the unfamiliar rhetorical styles of the target culture (Crowe & Peterson, 1995). An added complexity is that different cultural conventions are involved in academic argument. These conventions are important from the point of view of the teacher in that overseas students may have a logical orientation, but it may be perceived to be illogical to a reader anticipating a different culturally-constrained demonstration of logic. Jordan (1997) looked at the writing difficulties of overseas postgraduates attending writing classes at a university in the . The students were asked to comment.
