A Genre Analysis of Information and Communications Technologies Research Articles

Abstract

There is an increasing need for knowledge from the field of information and communications technologies (ICT) research to analyze a variety of problems across the social sciences. However, studies on research writing in ICT remain limited, in part because of this field's strong interdisciplinary nature. This paper examines the genre of research articles in the field of ICT, using 16 research articles. The study-collaboratively conducted by an applied linguist and an ICT expert-is largely based on Swales' (1990) move analysis, move coding, and investigation of the expressions of important rhetorical functions. The results show that although the examined articles do not appear to use any structure unique to this discipline, they draw from a limited range of common structures depending on the research type. The articles employ language that explicitly emphasizes the significance of the research, policy recommendations, and future work. We argue that ICT research article writing does not use any specialized interdisciplinary rhetorical structure, but focuses on communicating findings to a wider audience of readers from different disciplines. This paper also discusses pedagogical implications for ICT writing and interdisciplinary writing in general.