Metadiscourse is the linguistic expressions and signalling words used by a writer to organise a text and connect with the readers. This research paper is a preliminary study to explore and identify the metadiscourse markers from organisational discourse markers category in 195 persuasive essays written by second year undergraduate students at a chosen public university in Malaysia. The organisational discourse markers category (ODM) is one of the two main categories, other than the interpersonal discourse markers category (IDM), in a simplified metadiscourse framework for ESL lay writers proposed by Tan (2012). This preliminary study focuses on ODM because this category assists a writer to manage the flow of ideas in a text. It is also relevant to get an idea of how metadiscourse markers are applied by this group of tertiary level students to organise their essays, through the use of organisational discourse markers. The metadiscourse markers in the essays were searched with the assistance of a concordance software, WordSmith 5.0. The findings of this study provide a platform for a larger study of metadiscourse use in Malaysian undergraduate students’ essays.
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