Types of Academic Writing

1. Book Report
Academic Writing for Graduate Students
Essential Tasks and Skills (3rd edition)
Asst. Prof. Dr. Siriluck Usaha
Department of English for Business Communication
School Liberal Arts

2. Academic Writing for Graduate Students
Essential Tasks and Skills
I. About the Book
II. Target Readers
III. Approach and Organization
IV. What is learnt from the book?

3. I. About the Book

4. I. About the Book

5. II. Target Readers
 Graduate Students
 Non-native graduate students
 EFL/ESL teachers

6. III. Approach and Organization
Approach: Analytical & rhetorical
Rhetorical Conciousness Raising Cycle

7. Organization: Varied tasks & activities, basic
orientation to writing an article for publication
 Table of Contents

8.  Table of Contents

9.  Table of Contents

14. IV. What is learnt from the book?
How to write articles for publication?
I. Reasons for publication
II. Overall shape of a research article
III. Four sections: IMRD
IV. Genre analysis
 Definition
 Why GA?
V. Abstracts
VI. Introductions
VII. Methods
VIII. Results
IX. Discussion

15. 1. Reasons for Publication
 Sharing findings and contributions (in English) to
scholars communities
 Competition against other research papers for
acceptance and recognition
 Academic promotion and research funds
 Graduation requirement

16. 2. The Overall Shape of a Research Paper

17. 3. Four Sections: Four Different Purposes

18. 4. Genre Analysis
 Genre analysis focuses primarily on the organizational structure of texts
and the conventional linguistics features associated with a particular
genre. That is, each text type conforms to the culturally expected way of
constructing texts belonging to the variety. For example, research article
introductions have expected textual conventions that are different from
research article methods sections (Kanoksilapatham, 2012)
 Definition of Genre (Swales, 1990)

19. Why Genre Analysis?
 “To be successful in a publishing research work, scientists,
like scholars of other disciplines, need to be able to express
the findings and contributions in English . Moreover, they
need to present the findings and contributions in a manner
that is acceptable and conforming to the requirements of
the target journal.” (Swales, 1991 quoted in Kanoksilapatham, 2004, 230)
 The goal of genre analysis is to identify the rhetorical
organization of texts belonging to a given genre.

20. Genre Analysis and Research Articles
 The genre analysis applied to research articles of each academic
discipline elucidates the textual structural conventionally
followed by scientists in their respective disciplines.
 Based of this notion, the terms ‘move’ and ‘step’ are invented to
refer to textual units of analysis.
 ‘Move’ refers to a text segment that performs a communicative
function.
 ‘Step’ is a subunit of a move that, in turn, contributes to the
move’s communicative function.

21. Swales’ (2004) model for research article introductions

22. Move structure for biochemistry research article
(Kanoksilapatham, 2005)
 Introduction Section

23. Move structure for biochemistry research article
(Kanoksilapatham, 2005)
 Methods Section

24. Move structure for biochemistry research article
(Kanoksilapatham, 2005)
 Results Sections

25. Move structure for biochemistry research article
(Kanoksilapatham, 2005)
 Discussion Section

26. 5. Research Article Abstracts
 The abstract is the first part that can be read for getting information
about a research article within a few minutes.
 Most researchers often focus on skimming abstracts and key words.
 Hyland (2002) states that “the abstract is generally the readers’ first
encounter with a text, and is often the point at which they decide
whether to continue and give the accompanying article further
attention, or to ignore it” (p. 63).
 According to Pho (2008), “acquiring the skills of writing an abstracts is
therefore important to novice writers to enter the discourse
community of their discipline” (p. 231).

27. Rhetorical Moves in Article Abstracts

28. Language Use in Abstract
 Introduction Move: Present simple/ Present perfect
 Purpose Move: Present/ Past simple
 Method Move: - Action verb (use, investigate, compare)
- Passive voice (was used, was stimulated)
- Past simple
 Product/Result Move: - Perceptive verbs (found, seen, shown,
indicated)
- Passive voice
- Past tense
 Conclusion Move: - Interpretive Verbs (summarize, conclude, elucidate)
- Use hedging words such as might, may should,
plausibly, possibly

29. Practice: Identify Rhetorical Moves in Abstract

31. 6. Introduction Sections
Creating a Research Space
 It is widely recognized that writing Introductions can be slow,
difficult, and troublesome for many writers.
 The Introductions of RPs typically follow the pattern in the
following figure in response to kinds of competition: Competition
for readers and competition for research space.
 The rhetorical pattern has become known as the create-a-research-
space model (or CARS) by Swales (1990).

32. Swales’ Model 2004

33. Language Focus: ‘Move 1- Establishing a research territory’
 In Move 1 certain fixed phrases tend to occur as shown in the table below.

34. Language Focus: Citation and tense

35. Language Focus: Citation and tense

36. Language Focus: ‘Move 2- Establishing a niche’

37. Language Focus: ‘Move 2- Establishing a niche’
 Negative Openings in Move 2

38. Language Focus: ‘Move 2- Establishing a niche’

39. Language Focus: ‘Move 3 Step 1- Announcing present research descriptively
and/or purposively’

40. Language Focus: ‘Move 3 Step 1- Announcing present
research descriptively and/or purposively’

41. Language Focus: ‘Move 3 Step 1- Announcing present
research descriptively and/or purposively’
 Purpose statement and tense

42. Language Focus: ‘Move 3 Step 1- Announcing present research
descriptively and/or purposively’
 Completing an Introduction

43. Language Focus: ‘Move 3 Step 1- Announcing present
research descriptively and/or purposively’

44. Language Focus: ‘Move 3 Step 1- Announcing present
research descriptively and/or purposively’
 Google Scholar hits for some Move 3 Step 1 expression obtained in May
2012

45. Language Focus: ‘Move 3 Step 2- Presenting research
questions or hypotheses’
 Listing research questions

46. Language Focus: ‘Move 3 Step 5- Announcing principal
outcomes’

47. Language Focus: ‘Move 3 Step 6- Stating the values of the
present research’

48. Language Focus: ‘Move 3 Step 7- Outlining the structure of
the paper’

49. Language Focus: ‘Move 3 Step 7- Outlining the structure of
the paper’

50. 7. Methods Sections
 Peacock (2011) examined 288 RP Methods sections in
published, data-driven papers from the fields of Biology,
Chemistry, Physics, Environmental Science, Business,
Language and Linguistics, Law, and Public and Social
administration (36 papers from each field).
 He proposed the existence of seven ‘moves’ in Methods
sections.

51. Seven Move in Methods Section by Peacock (2011)

52. Language Focus: Linking Phrases in Methods Sections

53. Language Focus: Linking Phrases in Methods Sections

54. Frequency of Purpose Clause Types and Verbs

55. 8. Results sections

56. Data versus Results

57. Results versus Discussion

58. Outline of Results Sections in Three Fields

59. Structure of Data Commentary

60. Data Commentary

61. Location Statements: 4 patterns

62. Location Statements: 4 patterns

63. Special verb agreements: Exercise

64. Making comparisons

65. Commentary in results sections

66. Commentary found in results sections

67. Concluding a commentary

68. Specific ways of moderating or qualifying a claim: Likelihood

69. Specific ways of moderating or qualifying a claim: Likelihood

70. 9. Discussion/ Conclusion Sections
 The Structure of Discussion/Conclusion Sections

71. Expressions of limitations

72. 10. Acknowledgements

73. Acknowledgements

74. Academic Writing for Graduate Students
Essential Tasks and Skills
I. About the Book
II. Target Readers
III. Approach and Organization
IV. What is learnt from the book?

75. Thank you