Discussion Sections Of Research Articles Research Articles

EXPLORING LEXICAL COMPLEXITY IN SCIENTIFIC WRITING: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY ACROSS DISCIPLINES

This study examines the lexical complexity of scientific writing. It specifically focuses on the degree of lexical density and lexical diversity in the results and discussion sections of research articles. Using a qualitative approach with quantification to back it up, this study scrutinized 60 results and discussion sections of research articles written by Tunisian linguistics and engineering scholars. The analysis was conducted using the lexical complexity analyzer developed by Lu (2010). Moreover, descriptive analysis and the independent T-test were conducted to ascertain the statistical distinctions between the discussion and results sections of linguistics and engineering disciplines. The findings suggest that engineering scholars wrote in a more concise and information-dense style, with a greater lexical density, while linguistics scholars used a broader range of linguistic forms, resulting in more diverse and richer expressions. The differences in writing style can be attributed to the nature of the disciplines and the types of research conducted within each field. The results obtained from this study may offer valuable implications for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing instructions.

Modality in the moves of the discussion section of research articles

Various studies have been conducted on the rhetorical mechanism of Research Articles (RAs). However, the use of modal verbs in the Discussion section of a Research Article (RA) has not been adequately addressed. Thus, this study analysed modal verbs within the four generic moves in the Discussion sections of RAs using the model of Kanoksilapatham (2007). A corpus of 60 RAs written in English was selected from four Applied Linguistics journals: Language Testing, TESOL Quarterly, Pragmatics, and Second Language Research. The analysis of the corpus included two phases: (1) the identification of moves in the Discussion sections and (2) identification of modal verbs and their use within the identified generic moves in the Discussion sections. Chi-square was used to determine the distribution of modal verbs within the moves in the Discussion sections in each journal. The study revealed the significant distribution of modal verbs within three moves: 2, 3, and 4. The study also showed that the way modal verbs are distributed reflects the importance of their use as they have pragmatic functions in the Discussion section of a RA. It is hoped that this genre-based analysis of modal verbs in the Discussion section can make novice writers aware of how expert writers use modal verbs effectively in the moves of the Discussion section.

An Analysis of Structural Bundles Clustered within Rhetorical Moves of Qualitative and Quantitative Discussion Section of Research Articles

One of the most significant activities that writers can engage in to share their knowledge and establish a voice within the disciplinary community is writing academic research articles. To have a greater understanding of this commonly practiced genre, exploring the linguistic realisations which are used to classify the rhetorical structures of academic research articles is beneficial. This study’s main objective was to analyse structural bundles clustered in rhetorical moves in the Discussion parts of the specialised corpora of qualitative and quantitative datasets of Applied Linguistics Research articles (RAs), wherein each corpus contains Discussion sections of 50 RAs, as well as structural elements of those lexical bundles. For rhetorical move identification, the data were analysed based on Ruiying and Allison’s (2003) model. For lexical bundle analysis, the corpus-driven approach was used to extract four-word lexical bundles. Hence, the data were analysed using Biber et al.'s (1999) structural taxonomy. The analysis of Discussion sections identified some discrepancies in terms of lexical bundle frequency, which has also shown that some moves incorporated more bundles as compared to others. In terms of similarity of usage, the two groups of RA writers significantly used phrasal more than clausal. RA writers used more NP-based bundles at the expense of other phrasal sub-categories. The results of the current study provides insightful knowledge of genre convention as well as cluster of lexical bundles in Qualitative and Quantitative research articles. This knowledge enables authors, especially novice ones, to dive into their academic writing approach.

Akademik metinlerde kaçınma ve güçlendirme ifadeleri: İngiliz dili eğitimi ve fizyoterapi araştırma makaleleri üzerine karşılaştırmalı çalışma

The current corpus study intended to examine and compare the use of hedges and boosters in discussion sections of English Language Teaching and Physiotherapy research articles that were published between 2020 and 2022. This study also aimed to discover the frequency and types of hedges and boosters in two disciplines. 15 research articles from each disciple were analyzed through descriptive statistics. The chi-square test was also run to analyze the data to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference in terms of the use of hedges and boosters between the two disciplines. According to the results of the descriptive statistics, the number of hedges outnumbered the boosters in both disciplines. Furthermore, findings revealed that the differences in the use of hedges between the two disciplines were significant and meaningful. On the other hand, there were no significant differences regarding the use of boosters. Some similarities and variations were found in terms of the categories of hedges and boosters used in the discussion sections of research articles in the two disciplines.

Didactic Oriented Study: Move and Transitivity Analysis of Method, Result, and Discussion Sections in Research Articles

<p style="text-align: justify;">This study expounds how the analysis of move and transitivity in the method, result, and discussion sections contributes to the advancement of novice writers’ writing skills by providing a writing pattern applied when composing research articles. To this aim, a qualitative approach with descriptive technique is employed to encapsulate and explain the phenomena being studied. The data are the method, result, and discussion sections of research articles (RAs) drawn from top tier journals categorized as language and linguistics and analyzed based on macro structure (move and steps) and micro structure (transitivity). The results indicate that 11 moves and 38 steps discovered, in detail, these consist of three moves and 15 steps in method, four moves and 10 steps in result, and four moves and 13 steps in discussion. As for the successions of the move steps, few inter-move step shifts observed. This is in contrast with the outer-move step shifts that commonly occurred. Meanwhile, the outcomes of the transitivity analysis suggest that there are six processes revealed including material, relational, verbal, mental, existential, and behavioral consecutively with material dominating and behavioral the fewest. The results of the present study may supplement the teaching materials reside in English for a research purpose. </p>

Fine-grained measures of syntactic complexity in the discussion section of research articles: The effect of discipline and language background

Previous research on syntactic complexity in academic writing has mostly examined traditional large-grained indices to capture this construct, measuring complexity at clause or sentence level. However, due to the heavier reliance of academic writing on complex noun phrases, these traditional indices of syntactic complexity are not adequate for operationalizing this linguistic feature in academic writing. Therefore, the present research used fine-grained phrasal and clausal indices to investigate syntactic complexity in the discussion section of research articles (RAs) in three disciplines, namely applied linguistics, chemistry, and economics. In addition, texts from two groups of writers, L1-English authors and L2-English authors, were compared with respect to clausal and phrasal indices. Nine indices of clausal complexity and thirteen indices of phrasal complexity were examined. The findings revealed significant disciplinary differences in both types of complexity. It was found that in clausal measures, applied linguistics and economics discussions were generally more complex than those of chemistry, while in phrasal measures chemistry texts were generally more complex than those of applied linguistics and economics. However, the picture related to L1 vs. L2 differences was not that clear. The results are discussed and theoretical and pedagogical implications are offered.

Engagement Markers in Discussion Section of Research Articles Written by English Education Students and Articles Published in Reputable English Journal

Engagement Markers in Discussion Section of Research Articles Written by English Education Students and Articles Published in Reputable English Journal

Potential factors influencing the rhetorical patterns of research article discussion sections

The present study reports potential factors influencing the rhetorical patterns of research articles (RA) discussion sections. The study was conducted by utilizing descriptive qualitative research. The researcher purposefully focused on investigating 10 bilingual writers who wrote both one English and one Indonesian research article. The selected writers were those who had an educational background in language and language teaching. The interviews covered the interviewees’ background information, current activities, writing activities, and their rhetorical patterns of discussion sections. The interviews were conducted by utilizing the snowball technique to search for more information. The interview data were analyzed into some steps namely, transcribing the interview data, organizing data, summarizing data, and interpreting data. All data transcription was then categorized and coded. Research findings revealed that the writers’ choice of move structure could be as a result of learning from other people’s rhetorical patterns, believing themselves, having high self-confidence, having high writing frequency, and having high awareness in the micro and macrostructure of writing discussion sections. The Indonesian writers have opened their minds to learn and read other researchers’ articles and then determine whether the patterns are suitable for them or not. The writers’ starting point of experiencing to have their RA published made them believe in themselves and felt self-confident. Thus, the more they wanted to write RA, the higher they had writing frequency and awareness in the micro and macrostructure of writing discussion sections.

Argument Schemes and Soundness/Strength in Published Research Article Discussion Sections: A Diachronic Study

Argument Schemes and Soundness/Strength in Published Research Article Discussion Sections: A Diachronic Study

Review of the Discussion Section of Research Articles: Rhetorical Structure and Move

The discussion section forms an integral part in the writing process of a research article (RA). Research authors find it difficult to write and produce a well-structured discussion for their findings. The reason could be due to the unawareness of the main components (rhetorical moves) that shape this section. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a review of the studies that have been done to analyze the discussion section of RAs over the last 36 years. Also, this review seeks to examine the discussion section of RAs across various scientific disciplines and different types of journals. The review showed that the rhetorical structure of RAs discussion section witnessed some changes over the course of time. New moves such as Research Implications and Research Limitations started to be parts of the discussion section of RAs. In addition, it was revealed that differences in writing the discussion section can be varied broadly across disciplines such as soft sciences (e.g., applied linguistics, sociology, psychology) and hard sciences (e.g., engineering, chemistry, biology) and slightly across types of journals such as ISI and local journals. In conclusion, this paper offered several suggestions for further research to be conducted in the area.

A Logogenetic Delve into Attitudinal Meanings in Native vs. Non-Native Discussion Section of Research Articles

Using evaluative language has been considered as the significant predictor of academic writing success in second and foreign language research. Such an importance paved the way for the current study to investigate the use of the APPRAISAL tool, namely ATTITUDE resources, in the research articles (RAs) written by native (N) and non-native (NN) writers, focusing on the discussion sections. A qualitative corpus selection resulted in choosing 30 RAs written by American writers and 30 authored by Iranian writers. Two coding schemes were used: one for discussion boundaries based on Kanoksilapatham’s (2005) discussion move structure, and the modified version of APPRAISAL theory (Xu, 2017) for identifying attitudinal resources. The corpus analysis revealed that academic writers preferred to use a great number of inscribed ATTITUDE resources, that is, APPRECIATION tools compared to JUDGMENT. There was also a significant difference between N and NN sub-corpora in using attitudinal resources, highlighting that the language of N RAs contained more authorial stance of ATTITUDE compared to NN sub-corpus. However, the use of idioms as evoked ATTITUDE was found to be frequently applied by NN authors. The findings of the study contributed to the significance of using evaluative language in academic writing through which the writers can make a dialogic interaction with readers and enhance their critical stance by involving them in the argument.

A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Research Article Discussion Sections in an Engineering Discipline: Corpus Explorations and Scientists’ Perceptions

Writing discussion sections of research articles (RAs) is difficult for novice scientists. The study investigates patterns of linguistic characterizations in discussion sections of RAs in chemical engineering. Around 240,000-word corpus was compiled using 213 discussion sections extracted from 20 disciplinary journals. Multi-dimensional (MD) analysis proposed by Biber was used to capture linguistic co-occurrence patterns based on a constellation of features across collected texts. The MD results show six salient linguistic patterns: (1) Involvement and interactivity; (2) Description versus Narration; (3) Expression of attitude; (4) Informational production; (5) Framing scientific claims; and (6) Expression of denial. Discourse-based interviews were then conducted with eight professional scientists to elicit their perception of MD findings concerning their reading experience and understanding of established writing conventions. The implications for EAP professionals are proposed as to the explicit instruction on teaching novice writers how to employ stance expressions strategically in academic writing.

Crafting theoretical value in management research article discussion sections

The enactment of theoretical contribution in research articles (RAs) is a critical academic writing practice for showcasing the scientific progress of a disciplinary field. To decide how novel research strengthens a discipline’s current state of knowledge necessitates evaluating the new empirical results based upon its specific academic norms. Yet the academic values utilized to formulate theoretical advancement have been little studied in the literature. Drawing upon pertinent evaluation frameworks, the purpose of this study is to uncover how RA authors negotiate the theoretical value of novel research by conducting a rhetorical analysis of 60 research article discussion sections taken from four prestigious management journals. The present investigation reveals a tentative taxonomy of six rhetorical appeal types deployed by RA authors to articulate the value of novel research in the knowledge market. The widespread use of these appeals in management research article discussion sections indicates that a strong promotional orientation is prevalent in the rhetoric of the journals examined. The findings of this research have theoretical and pedagogical implications for academic evaluation and promotion, as well as for teaching academic writing

Use of Adverbials in Discussion Sections of Research Articles in Thai and International Journals

The purpose of this study was to compare the discussion sections of research articles in applied linguistics in Thai and international journals. The corpus consisted of 20 English research articles: 10 from Thai journals and 10 from international journals. The adverbials framework of Biber et al. (1999) was employed in this study. The study explained the different usage of adverbials in discussion sections of both corpora. The results show that most of the use of adverbials in research article discussion sections in Thai and international journals is similar. There are five adverbials which are different and influence the presentation of content in discussion sections. It is hoped that this study may help teachers to design writing courses for novice writers or undergraduate and postgraduate students in writing research article discussion sections to publish in an international level.

Interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers in research articles of Indonesian expert writers

Academic writing articles serve as the medium of communication among scholars to share knowledge and new inquiries and are made in such a way that the idea they deliver is both understandable and accepted. One essential action to accomplish this is by employing metadiscourse markers. Metadiscourse is viewed as an essential element of credible written texts created by students of ESL and native speakers, by which the intelligibility of communication in research articles can be accomplished through suitable discipline conscience, norms, and belief to track the writers’ pathway to academic promotions. Therefore, employing descriptive qualitative approach, this study aims at investigating the utilization of interpersonal metadiscourse markers and their functions in academic writing. Analysing discussion section of research articles written by Indonesian expert writers, the results show that the metadiscourse markers in the articles are found to be similar to the commonly used markers among academic community, including interactive and interactional markers. Moreover, the employment of markers in the articles reveal the functions of them to indicate relation between sentences, involvement of readers, existence of example, limitation of commitment to propositions, emphasis on general practice and certainty, and reference to the writer.
 HIGHLGHTS:
 
 The appropriate utilization of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers in research articles indicates the international norm of academic writing. 
 The Indonesian expert writer articles fulfill the intelligibility of communication in international research articles. 
 The writing course in the universities needs to emphasize the essential functions of metadiscourse markers.

Diachronic Analysis of Stance Markers in Research Articles’ discussion Sections

It is now increasingly accepted that metadiscourse as one of the significant rhetorical features of research articles is context-sensitive and subject to change in response to the historically developing practices of academic communities. Motivated by such an understanding, the current research drew on a corpus of 914679 words taken from three leading journals of applied linguistics in order to trace the diachronic evolution of stance markers in discussion sections of research articles from 1996 to 2016. The analysis revealed a substantial decline in the overall frequency of stance markers in the discussion section, with devices in all categories, except self-mention which increased dramatically over the past 20 years. Approaching the interactional dimension of academic writing from such a diachronic perspective, it might be argued that academic writing reflects, and in turn constitutes, social and institutional practices derived from contexts that are continually changing. Hence, training in academic writing needs to be a process of raising students’ consciousness of the choices they can make and the consequences of making those choices in particular contexts.

Paradigmatic variation in hedging and boosting: A comparative study of discussions in narrative inquiry and grounded theory research

This paper explores whether hedges and boosters are used differently in discussion sections of research articles adopting one of the two qualitative approaches: narrative inquiry and grounded theory. Based on 30 SSCI-indexed journal articles in the field of education, both similarities and variations between the two paradigms were identified regarding the ways propositions are modified. Generally, narrative inquiry researchers relied more on boosters than grounded theorists in their statements, while researchers following grounded approach were more tentative in building a theory or concept. Furthermore, while narrative and grounded-theory studies both used hedging and boosting, certain nuanced variations were observed, e.g., the former being more likely to boost their contributions to their research communities. Such similarities and differences can be rooted in and explained by the respective philosophical assumptions behind each paradigm, suggesting a paradigmatic influence on hedging and boosting in academic writing. This study contributes to the current understanding of metadiscourse by documenting paradigmatic variation and proposing four continua sensitive to hedge–booster interactions and to aspects of knowledge representation, thereby providing pedagogical implications for teaching and learning of metadiscourse in papers using one of the two qualitative approaches in particular and different qualitative approaches in general.

THE ARGUMENT STYLE OF RESEARCH ARTICLE DISCUSSIONS BY NON-NATIVE AUTHORS OF ENGLISH PUBLISHED IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALS

The argument quality in the discussion section of research articles determines the quality of the article but authors often find it very difficult to write especially when writing it in a foreign language. This study is aimed at investigating how Indonesian authors in multi- disciplines as non-native speakers of English discuss their research results in their English RAs. Fifty English RAs written by Indonesian authors in multi-disciplines published in Indonesian-based journals were analysed on the ways the authors discuss their research results and justify their new knowledge claims. The results show that, like international authors, Indonesian authors in multi-disciplines consider statement of results (Move-2), reference to previous research (Move-4), explanation (Move-5), and exemplification (Move-6) conventional or obligatory. They also consider explanation of the findings (Strategy-2), illustrating or exemplifying the findings (Strategy-4), and relating the findings with those in previous studies obligatory or conventional. The implication of these findings is for teaching Indonesian young faculty members and postgraduate students in writing convincingly argumentative discussion sections when writing RAs in English for international journal publication by including necessary moves and strategies.

Key phrase frames in the discussion section of research articles of higher education

Recent scholarship on phraseology in academic writing has concentrated on phrase frames (p-frames), which are recurrent sequences of identical words with a variable slot. The present study purports to identify the key phrase frames in the discussion section of research articles of higher education. The corpus used in this research consists of the discussions of research articles published from 2013 to 2018 in thirteen leading journals in the field of higher education. The p-frames extracted by KfNgram were compared with the British Academic Written English Corpus11The British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus (www.coventry.ac.uk/bawe) was developed at the Universities of Warwick, Reading and Oxford Brookes, under the directorship of Hilary Nesi and Sheena Gardner (formerly of the Centre for Applied Linguistics [previously called CELTE], Warwick), Paul Thompson (Department of Applied Linguistics, Reading) and Paul Wickens (Westminster Institute of Education, Oxford Brookes), funded by the ESRC (RES-000-23-0800). to find those phraseological items specific to the discipline of higher education, resulting in a list of 58 four-word and 40 five-word p-frames that are key to the research article discussion in this field. Moreover, the majority of these frames were found to be non-verb content word phrases, and referential expressions in terms of discourse function. Pedagogical implications for discipline-specific writing programs are offered.

Genre practices in mechanical engineering academic articles

Since move analysis was proposed by Swales (1990), numerous studies have adopted this method to explore organisational patterns in different sections of research articles in a range of disciplines. However, research articles in mechanical engineering have attracted scant attention in genre analysis research. This paper will be among the first to identify move structures of the Results Discussion section of research articles in this under-explored discipline. To this end, it draws on a corpus of 18 original research articles that employ different research types (experimental, theoretical and mixed). The findings show the prototypicality as well as variability in genre practices associated with different disciplinary contexts. The findings have important implications for the design of corpora used in genre analysis