Around 30. 30 to 40. It's like the fixed class like, it's kind of a fixed group; every students is forming the one class and study together same subjects.

So you got to know each other very well?

Yes.

We've only got lectures. There was no tutorial when I was studying at university. If I study computer subject probably will stay in the computer laboratory to do some computer work, but the rest of it was just, I would say boring lecture, just what textbook say and just tell us and taught us and that's it. There was no audiovisual, no video, nothing interesting for me. When I was in the university, it's 1994 and 1996. So it's 10 years ago. I think now it's changing.

In my experience, during the class no student ask question during the class. Probably they ask the lecturer question afterwards. There was no interruption in the process of the lecture.

There's only one assessment for us, was examination – like, final examination.

We had some homework to do, but not that much; like ... um... question and answer mainly based on a textbook. Because we've got textbook, they've got like theories and some exercises afterwards, so the uni lecturer pick up some exercises from textbook and that was our homework to do. But we didn't get graded on those.

Maybe just like high school in Australia: the teacher tell us some information and we sit there listening and maybe writing some notes.

We just have lectures, no tutorials...

In China we don't write many essays, just exam. But exam is also different from Australia. We don't write questions in essay format. We just need to write some points of the question, dot points, because there are many questions in one paper.

That's the one real essay I wrote in my University – the final one in the last year.

Did they teach you how to write the essay? How to organise it, what sort of writing style to use, that sort of thing?

Yes, we were divided into teams, with one teacher responsible for one team.

How many people in the team?

Six or seven, depends on the topic you write. We six write the same topic, so following the same teacher. In my University we spend about two months to make out a draft and take it to the teacher, and she looked at it, maybe she will give us some suggestions and we will make some change, and that's enough.

Did you cooperate in the preparation and the writing of your essay, apart from when you met with your teacher?

No, we don't cooperate. Because it's a general direction we write, not the specific topic. For example, in my team, I write the topic about the tourism development, and the other guys they write some like total quality management and some like – I can't remember – some like the marketing. First the teacher give us many topics, and we choose some topics and submit our preference to the teacher, and they make the teams. So we guess it may be depending on the topics, but we don't know really why they divide the teams like this.

How long was the essay? How many words, roughly?

10,000 in Chinese.

All the teachers, maybe some five or six teachers, they write down, they write, and the students, they presentate in the front. We don't use computer or slideshow in my University: I don't know about others – maybe in better Universities they use high technologies. In my University we write our outlines on big paper and hang them on the blackboard, so the teachers write down, they can look at this, and I just follow the outlines to say something. But sometimes some teacher will ask very difficult questions.

This presentation counts for a lot, because if you can't answer the questions, maybe you should have a second presentation.

In fact we don't need to do many research. We just focus on the book and find some points, some information from the book, and then write it down on paper. We don't need to do much research. In the library there are not enough books. We don't want to read [them].

But you know, in China we don't put much focus on the plagiarism – not as much as in Australia. Sometimes maybe the teacher will encourage us to borrow something from others, and we don't need to write in our own words.

We have reference, but we don't put much focus on it, we just focus on the amount of the references – the more the better, because that means you looked for so many things. In my University, because my University is not the very good in China, it's just the normal level, we think the teachers, they don't have much time to look all the essays, it's more like a activity, they put more focus on the result, because we must finish the essay before we graduate, so they just want us to finish it quickly, and submit it.

Before I come to Australia, I think that [plagiarism] only happens in the exam; for example, [if] I look at what somebody else is writing – I think that is plagiarism. It is in China. We Chinese think to borrow from some famous writers or to borrow from some researcher's work is not bad; it's legal in China. In Australia you write down in your own words, but in China we just borrow. You know, in computer it's more easier, we just copy and paste. That's why we think 10,000 words is not very very many. Because we just do copy, paste, copy, paste, just like this, one copy then we follow some reference.

Yes, but still we have some guidelines, or some small objectives for what we would achieve; for example, the guidelines, the steps, the procedures for each laboratory activity. And the results we found, sometimes we may write some short summary or report...

It's a kind of activity to get more field understanding on the theory, or – for example, Chemistry class, you need to do some laboratory test to verify, to strengthen what you've learnt in class, because class learning is a bit abstract, but such laboratory activities make you – impress – sometimes, you know?

Other students have mentioned writing a dissertation at the end of their degree. Did you have to do that?

Yes; and we also had a final [oral] presentation: we submit the thesis first, and maybe one week later we have the presentation.

Did you use PowerPoint?

No, just some overhead transparencies. And because the thesis was already submitted, the lecturers and professors [could refer to it in asking questions].

So, what training did you get in how to write a dissertation?

Actually, we had one elective talking about how to write a scientific report; but not very impressive, I think – you know, electives a little bit relaxed, people [did] not take [them] seriously. One reason is because there was not a lot of marks [for] that elective, and there's less impact on your final score, so people are not very serious....

Did you have to do much library research for your dissertation?

Yes, yes, normally; but not as much as here.

So were you taught anything about how to quote, how to paraphrase, how to reference sources?

I don't remember! That means it's not a very strict way.

If a student gets some problem, I think there are two ways. First he can go to his classmates, because in university we have the dormitories, so we live together; and normally there's some students study good and study bad; but as a small community, we live, we eat, we play together, so there's some - hùxiāng bāngzhù - helping each other. So this is the way; and still we can ask the lecturer, we can ask for some tutor...

They will give you some cases, like in the subject here, International Management Process, they will give you, like, the case, and ask you to do the case, and ask the question and you will prepare all the things by yourself. Might be it's group, and, like, do the presentation and show the student what you gained idea, and how can you use academic things in this case.

Every year you have one subject like this; and one subject, it's like, do the research by yourself; it's like – there's no examinations. Every lecture, the teacher will discuss with your group – that's 4 people – and they ask you to do the research – help you to research in the correct way. And at the end you should give the teacher the report.

You also have the individual things; but the teacher said, individual things, you can't gain idea from other people; so most teachers prefer the team work. You should organise all the things, and if some people don't do anything in the group you can complain.

This is the problem I meet here. Our lecturer said, your references – how can you write your reference, it's wrong. Many of my classmates met the same situation; like, the lecturer will correct all your references, they think you don't do it the correct way.

Here, you should put the reference inside the article, right? But in my bachelor degree you don't need to put all the things – like, this one sentence or this paragraph, maybe this come from one book, you don't need to put the reference here: you put all the references at the end. You just say, "XXX says..." – like this.

Only one of our lecturers – he is the best lecturer, I think – he search all the possible things in the website, if you write the same things as on the website he will know. But take long time.

I think the big difference is, all the Chinese article is, they want you say your opinion. It's not depend – like, you do all the research. Like, here, you should support your opinions from others – some people has already published a book, he has already got a opinion, you said, OK, I get this opinion to support my opinion from the book. But, like, Chinese article, you don't need like this, you just say your opinion; this is your opinion...

Especially at the end you should say, this is my opinion. Here it's like, from the beginning, the first sentence, you should say, this is my opinion, and say, this is the reason, one, two, three – like that. Yeah, it's totally different.