A good deal of research reveals the ways university students fulfil the needs of the reader in their academic writing. Little is known, however, about the ways writing tutors help students to understand their audience during the preparation stage. Understanding the reader's needs can be difficult for any student, but particularly for international students that may come from different linguistic, cultural and academic backgrounds, some of whom may little or no prior experience of writing an essay. As the numbers of international students at ‘Western’ universities continue to grow, understanding the pedagogical practices that enable them to develop as academic writers is vital. This study shows how, in real-life interaction, writing tutors make systematic and explicit reference to the reader as a pedagogical tool when advising international students. Using Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorization Analysis, this paper (i) explores the interactional contexts in which tutors invoke the reader, (ii) discusses the ways tutors construct particular characteristics and activities of a ‘standardized relational pair’ (writer-reader), and (iii) tracks the ways students respond in real-time. This study finds that advice-giving practices that include an invocation of the reader routinely results in students providing claims and demonstrations of knowledge and a general agreement. Analyses also explore occasions when this invocation requires further unpacking to help students understand. Findings show how the reader-invocations enable tutors to engage with broad principles, which can help international students adapt to new writing norms. This study builds on research on writing centres and advice-giving practices, then discusses practical implications for educators.

大量研究揭示了大学生在学术写作中满足读者需求的方式。然而，关于编写辅导老师如何帮助学生在准备阶段了解听众的方式知之甚少。对于任何学生而言，了解读者的需求可能都是困难的，但对于可能来自不同语言，文化和学术背景的国际学生来说尤其如此，其中一些人可能很少或根本没有撰写论文的经验。随着“西方”大学国际学生人数的不断增长，了解使他们能够发展成为学术作家的教学方法至关重要。这项研究表明，在现实生活中，写作导师在为国际学生提供建议时，将其作为教学工具对读者进行了系统，明确的参考。本文使用“对话分析”和“成员资格分类分析”，（i）探索了辅导者调用读者的交互上下文，（ii）讨论了辅导者构建“标准化关系对”（作者-阅读者）特定特征和活动的方式，以及（iii）实时跟踪学生的反应方式。这项研究发现，提供建议的做法（包括对读者的调用）通常会导致学生提供知识主张和示范以及达成普遍协议。分析还探讨了这种调用需要进一步分解以帮助学生理解的场合。调查结果表明，读者的调用如何使导师能够遵循广泛的原则，从而可以帮助国际学生适应新的写作规范。这项研究基于对写作中心和建议实践的研究，然后讨论了对教育者的实际意义。