Discussion Sections Of Research Articles Research Articles

Socio – Cognitive Perspective to the Analysis of the Strategic Features of the Discussion Section of Research Articles in Applied Linguistics: Native vs. Non-native Researchers

Writing is like a mirror that reflects the social and personal realities. Any culture and society has some specific ways and strategies for text and talk organization and communication, e.g. generic conventions, moves, metadiscourse markers, etc. are some of such strategies for better text organization and communication. Metadiscourse categories are specific rhetorical devices that help the participants to effectively communicate with each other (Hyland, 2005). Employing these interactional devices is different in various languages and societies, in other words metadiscourse strategies are context dependent. In order to find differences between the use of interactional metadiscourse strategies, in two different societies and contexts, we analyzed and critically interpreted their usage in the discussion sections of 40 research articles written by Iranian and English scholars in English. This critical analysis was based on the socio-cognitive approach of van Dijk. This analysis showed similarities and differences in the rhetorical behaviour of these authors in their use of interactional metadiscoursive strategies. There was a considerable tendency to the use of ‘hedging’ by both groups of writers. The main difference was in the use of self-mentions and engagement markers. The frequency rate of such strategies was very low amongst Iranian writers. The social constructions and cognition of participants may have undeniable effects on the use of interactional strategies. The findings of such studies can have useful implications for ESL, EFL, and ESP courses in general; and for developing academic literacy in particular.

A Genre-Based Analysis on Discussion Section of Research Articles in Indonesian Written by Indonesian Speakers

This study examines the genre of research article (RA) discussion section written in Indonesian by Indonesian writer aiming at exploring how Indonesian writers discuss their research findings in their RAs. The corpus for this study consists of 47 selected RAs published mainly in university-based journals in Indonesia from social science and humanity disciplines. Swales’ eight-move structure (EMS) model of discussion section of RAs was employed for the data analysis. The results show that the EMS model is effective to use to analyze the move structure of the discussion section of Indonesian RAs; there is no significant difference between the move structures in the Indonesian RAs between different fields of discipline. The most noticeable differences occur in terms of the absence of Move 4 (reference to previous research findings) in the majority of the Indonesian RAs and the difference between the RAs in the same discipline in terms of the number of moves found. The difference in research practice and RA writing practice in Indonesia are the most possible cause of the differences in the move structure.

A genre-based investigation of discussion sections of research articles in Dentistry and disciplinary variation

Outwardly the rhetorical organisation of sections of research reports in different disciplines can appear similar. Close examination, however, may reveal subtle differences. Numerous studies have drawn on the genre-based approach developed by Swales (1990, 2004) to investigate the schematic structure of sections of articles in a range of disciplines. Dentistry does not appear to have attracted this kind of research interest. The present study examined discussion sections of articles in Dentistry with reference to a schematic framework of discussion sections in Applied Linguistics. Steps in ‘commenting on results’ moves were closely examined to understand how arguments about the meaning and significance of results in the Dentistry discussions were constructed. Findings showed the discussion sections could largely be accounted for in terms of moves and steps in the framework (thus indicating a broadly similar rhetorical organisation) and they revealed two patterns of argumentation in commenting moves, one not reported in previous genre-based research. Findings from the study are discussed in relation to disciplinary variation. The study provides a genre-based description of discussion sections of articles in Dentistry and suggests that analysis of steps, sub steps and sequences within moves can be a useful focus for genre-based investigation of disciplinary norms.

Communicative moves in the discussion section of research articles

This paper describes an analysis of communicative moves in discussion sections across seven disciplines—Physics, Biology, Environmental Science, Business, Language and Linguistics, Public and Social Administration, and Law. While introductions in academic writing have received attention recently, much less research has investigated discussion sections and there has been little investigation of their move structure, including interdisciplinary and NS/NNS variation. Findings in these areas have clear relevance for the teaching of ESP: the rapid growth in the number of research writers, and the need to teach them discipline-specific research writing, makes these factors increasingly important. Research articles (RAs) were analysed in terms of Dudley-Evans's 1994 model. The total corpus was 252 RAs (36 from each discipline, 1.4 million words). A number of marked interdisciplinary and NS/NNS differences were found in the type and number of moves and move cycles. Conclusions are that the findings have relevance for the teaching of research writing. They may help ESP teachers inform learners of typical move sequences and also how much flexibility the genre allows regarding obligatory and optional moves and cycles, and the optimal order of moves. A revised model for the discussion sections is also put forward.

Toward Evidence-Based Medical Statistics. 1: The P Value Fallacy

An important problem exists in the interpretation of modern medical research data: Biological understanding and previous research play little formal role in the interpretation of quantitative results. This phenomenon is manifest in the discussion sections of research articles and ultimately can affect the reliability of conclusions. The standard statistical approach has created this situation by promoting the illusion that conclusions can be produced with certain "error rates," without consideration of information from outside the experiment. This statistical approach, the key components of which are P values and hypothesis tests, is widely perceived as a mathematically coherent approach to inference. There is little appreciation in the medical community that the methodology is an amalgam of incompatible elements, whose utility for scientific inference has been the subject of intense debate among statisticians for almost 70 years. This article introduces some of the key elements of that debate and traces the appeal and adverse impact of this methodology to the P value fallacy, the mistaken idea that a single number can capture both the long-run outcomes of an experiment and the evidential meaning of a single result. This argument is made as a prelude to the suggestion that another measure of evidence should be used--the Bayes factor, which properly separates issues of long-run behavior from evidential strength and allows the integration of background knowledge with statistical findings.

Genre analysis, and the social sciences: An investigation of the structure of research article discussion sections in three disciplines

The Discussion sections of 30 social science Research Articles, 10 each from the disciplines of history, political science and sociology, were analyzed according to a modified version of the moves, or communicative categories, presented in previous studies. It was found that, although there were fundamental similarities to the natural sciences, social science Discussion sections also displayed some distinctive features. History texts were particularly distinctive, and of the three disciplines bore the least resemblance to those of the natural sciences. It is suggested that this distinctiveness is sufficient to justify the idea of a social science subgenre of the Research Article genre and that data of this kind are needed if academic reading and writing materials are to be developed that are sensitive to the structural features of academic texts and in particular to the ways in which such features vary according to discipline.