Regularities and irregularities in rhetorical move structure of linguistics abstracts in research articles

Awareness of abstract writing skill plays an important role for research article (RA) abstract writers to meet the discourse community expectations. In academic writing, writers should persuade readers to read the whole article by writing an effective abstract in terms of both content and rhetorical...

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Main Authors: Khansari, Delaram, Chan, Swee Heng, Chan, Mei Yuit, Tan, Helen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2016
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/35309/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/35309/1/Regularities%20and%20irregularities%20in%20rhetorical%20move%20structure%20of%20linguistics%20abstracts%20in%20research%20articles.pdf
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author Khansari, Delaram
Chan, Swee Heng
Chan, Mei Yuit
Tan, Helen
author_facet Khansari, Delaram
Chan, Swee Heng
Chan, Mei Yuit
Tan, Helen
author_sort Khansari, Delaram
building UPM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Awareness of abstract writing skill plays an important role for research article (RA) abstract writers to meet the discourse community expectations. In academic writing, writers should persuade readers to read the whole article by writing an effective abstract in terms of both content and rhetorical structure. This paper utilised Swales’ (1990) theory as considers abstract as an independent discourse because of its distinctive function and indicates the content and structure of the whole text. Swales also highlights the format of the abstract as having I-M-R-D pattern. The underlying assumption is that the associated RAs follow the IMRD structures and their abstracts are also likely to exhibit the same move pattern. This study investigated 130 English research article abstracts in linguistics journals in order to identify the move patterns found in RA abstracts in terms of moves and steps. In addition, it established move cycling in the structuring of an abstract. The findings indicated that 63.84% of the abstracts followed the IMRD structure that was premised to reflect the structure of the main text. Findings from this research provide new insights into abstract writing in linguistics articles, in particular, with regard to the actual practice in the use of the IMRD move patterns and how the related genres in RA are similar or different. These findings have pedagogical implications as writers could be given training in the various aspects of writing to satisfy the rhetorical structure for information flow.
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spelling upm-353092016-10-12T04:31:16Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/35309/ Regularities and irregularities in rhetorical move structure of linguistics abstracts in research articles Khansari, Delaram Chan, Swee Heng Chan, Mei Yuit Tan, Helen Awareness of abstract writing skill plays an important role for research article (RA) abstract writers to meet the discourse community expectations. In academic writing, writers should persuade readers to read the whole article by writing an effective abstract in terms of both content and rhetorical structure. This paper utilised Swales’ (1990) theory as considers abstract as an independent discourse because of its distinctive function and indicates the content and structure of the whole text. Swales also highlights the format of the abstract as having I-M-R-D pattern. The underlying assumption is that the associated RAs follow the IMRD structures and their abstracts are also likely to exhibit the same move pattern. This study investigated 130 English research article abstracts in linguistics journals in order to identify the move patterns found in RA abstracts in terms of moves and steps. In addition, it established move cycling in the structuring of an abstract. The findings indicated that 63.84% of the abstracts followed the IMRD structure that was premised to reflect the structure of the main text. Findings from this research provide new insights into abstract writing in linguistics articles, in particular, with regard to the actual practice in the use of the IMRD move patterns and how the related genres in RA are similar or different. These findings have pedagogical implications as writers could be given training in the various aspects of writing to satisfy the rhetorical structure for information flow. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2016 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/35309/1/Regularities%20and%20irregularities%20in%20rhetorical%20move%20structure%20of%20linguistics%20abstracts%20in%20research%20articles.pdf Khansari, Delaram and Chan, Swee Heng and Chan, Mei Yuit and Tan, Helen (2016) Regularities and irregularities in rhetorical move structure of linguistics abstracts in research articles. 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature, 22 (1). pp. 39-54. ISSN 0128-5157 http://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/article/view/9327
spellingShingle Khansari, Delaram
Chan, Swee Heng
Chan, Mei Yuit
Tan, Helen
Regularities and irregularities in rhetorical move structure of linguistics abstracts in research articles
title Regularities and irregularities in rhetorical move structure of linguistics abstracts in research articles
title_full Regularities and irregularities in rhetorical move structure of linguistics abstracts in research articles
title_fullStr Regularities and irregularities in rhetorical move structure of linguistics abstracts in research articles
title_full_unstemmed Regularities and irregularities in rhetorical move structure of linguistics abstracts in research articles
title_short Regularities and irregularities in rhetorical move structure of linguistics abstracts in research articles
title_sort regularities and irregularities in rhetorical move structure of linguistics abstracts in research articles
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/35309/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/35309/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/35309/1/Regularities%20and%20irregularities%20in%20rhetorical%20move%20structure%20of%20linguistics%20abstracts%20in%20research%20articles.pdf