University researchers need to use computers in their work yet they are not computer professionals and are not able to progress efficiently without adequate guidance. All British universities make such computer-use guidance available, the most important source of information being the advisory service of the local computer center. However, little is known of the structure and effectiveness of advisory interactions. The analysis of advisory conversations requires some method for representing their structure. This paper reports such a method based on a scheme devised by a research team at the University of Birmingham, UK (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975) for the study of teaching discourse. Using this system, we are able to define the problem-solving nature of advisory discourse, along with a number of limitations inherent in the way advisers currently conduct interactions. Various coding extensions are suggested, along with proposals for the application of the system to the development of improved advisory strategies.