This study explores student perspectives about the challenges and affordances of participating in two dialogic teaching initiatives (writing group and writing workshop) implemented in Argentina to improve doctoral students' academic writing. It seeks to understand if these pedagogical initiatives can open, widen, and deepen dialogic spaces that, in turn, can help advance the dissertation writing process. Data analysis yielded two categories as the most relevant to the initiatives' dialogic aspect: draft exchange and participants' disciplinary backgrounds. Exchanging drafts and interdisciplinary background of the participants seem to be major conditions to open spaces of dialogue, where members encounter new voices and viewpoints that can contribute to improve the drafts. Both categories are also associated with negative feelings, which seem to be attenuated as participants become increasingly involved in the dialogic spaces inaugurated by these pedagogical initiatives.