Rhythmic Complexity of Graduate Students’ Written Assignments: An Analysis of Their Thematic Choices

Abstract

The majority of the work on academic writing has focused on methods to analyse students' views of and attitudes towards writing. However, research on students' perceptions of the impact of their choices on the clarity and quality of their texts remains scant. This study used a content analysis approach to analyse graduate students’ written assignments across academic genres to understand their thematic choices, and the choices’ rhythmic effects and communicative functions. Further, it employed a grounded theory approach to examine students’ perception of the effect of their thematic choices on their assignments’ rhythmic complexity. Inspired by Martin and Rose’s (2007) semantic approach to Systematic Functional Linguistics, the study analysed 108 written assignments and conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 students. According to the findings, the assignments commonly included topical and unmarked themes, and students used different types of themes to control the rhythmic complexity and structure of the texts. Additionally, students used different thematic structures to achieve different communicative objectives, which in turn motivated them to use complex thematic patterns. Finally, students' perceptions were affected by their writing proficiency, academic and genre knowledge, linguistic background, stylistic preferences, and learning experiences.