scholarly journals RHETORICAL STRUCTURE OF INTEGRATED RESULTS AND DISCUSSION CHAPTER IN MASTER’S DISSERTATIONS ACROSS DISCIPLINES

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zahra Shirian Dastjerdi ◽  
Helen Tan ◽  
Ain Nadzimah Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Public University ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
Style Of Writing

Writing a dissertation is the most challenging task for students, especially the IntegratedResults and Discussion chapter. One solution would be to offer them a template of therhetorical flow of this chapter. However, to date, a limited number of studies have beenconducted on the rhetorical movement of this chapter. Therefore, the rhetorical units ofIntegrated Results and Discussion chapters of 40 Master’s dissertations in the hard and softscience disciplines obtained from a Malaysian local public university were investigated.The findings indicated that this chapter focused predominantly on presenting the resultsfollowed by commenting on them. Disciplinary variation was observed in the use of‘referring to previous research’ and ‘making overt claims or generalizations’ which wereobserved more in the dissertations in the soft sciences. Besides, ‘invalidating results’ wasfound more in the dissertations in the hard sciences. To conclude, knowing the prevalentmoves may heighten the awareness of novice postgraduate students to align their writing tothe academic writing conventions. Furthermore, awareness on the disciplinary variationsof the use of certain rhetorical moves would sensitize novice writers to the preferreddisciplinary style of writing Integrated Results and Discussion chapter.

scholarly journals Basic and Advanced Skills They Don’t Have: The Case of Postgraduate and Literature Review Writing

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuang Ching Hei ◽  
Maya Khemlani David
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Public University ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Student Selection ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Learning ◽  
Klang Valley ◽  
Advanced Skills

Purpose – This paper aims to identify the difficulties postgraduate students face in writing the literature review for their thesis and dissertation.   Methodology – Seventy postgraduate students from 9 faculties in one public university in the Klang Valley consented to participating in this study. They were 49 Masters candidates and 21 doctoral (PhD) candidates attending a workshop on academic writing. Among them, 31 were Malaysians and 39 were foreigners with majority being Arabs and Africans. After an icebreaking session, participants were asked what their writing diffi culties are when doing their literature review. They were told to write their responses in English in a paper. A linguistic analysis was then applied to the written phrases and expressions which denote their diffi culties. These were then categorised under common themes and manually counted in terms of the frequency.   Findings – A total of 37 categories of diffi culties were detected. They encompassed basic and advanced skills in reading and writing including ‘not knowing what to read’, ‘how to read’, ‘how to start writing’, ‘organising’, ‘doing a critical analysis’, ‘summarising’ and ‘synthesising’.   Significance – The fi ndings imply that most of the participants do not possess the necessary skills of reading and writing which are required in most postgraduate programmes. Thus, it is imperative that institutions of higher learning develop stricter criteria for student selection. Alternatively, a programme providing support in reading and writing may enable these postgraduate students to raise their level before being admitted. This kind of support can help to mitigate the burden imposed on supervisors as well as develop better quality postgraduate students.  

scholarly journals ADJECTIVES IN THE EXPRESSION OF EPISTEMIC MODALITY IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS RESEARCH ARTICLES

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-452
Author(s):  
Attapol Khamkhien
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Methodical Approach ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
Interpersonal Model

Research in academic writing has shown that writers have a strong tendency to communicate their ideas interactively with readers. This study examines how professional writers use adjectives as part of interactional metadiscourse when writing research articles. A total of 255 research articles published in distinguished journals in the field of applied linguistics between 2015 and 2020 were systematically compiled and quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. The extent to which epistemic adjectives and typical phraseological patterns are used in research articles was investigated with the help of corpus linguistics methods, as was their epistemic strength indicated by writers. The interpersonal model of metadiscourse was used as the theoretical framework for the study. The findings suggest that the academic writing corpus, in essence, is interactionally oriented, while the use of adjectives as an epistemic modality reflects a methodical approach by article writers when presenting propositions and discussing their knowledge claims. This study provides a deeper understanding of these linguistic features to impact the reader. Pedagogically, the study can be useful for teaching academic writing to postgraduate students and help them and novice writers develop writing competency through epistemic devices, especially in research articles intended for publication.

scholarly journals Proposed Model to Assist Saudi Postgraduate Students in their English Academic Writing

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 527-542
Author(s):  
Noof Saleh Alharbi
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Written Feedback ◽  
Mixed Methods Design ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Sequential Mixed Methods ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Underlying Causes ◽  
English Academic Writing ◽  
Qualitative Phase

This current research forms part of a broader investigation into the problems Saudi postgraduate students face in English academic writing. The study used the interpretive paradigm to investigate and interpret the perceptions of Saudi postgraduate students and their supervisors in relation to the difficulties they encountered regarding academic writing in English. Therefore, the study adopted a sequential mixed-methods design. The quantitative phase of the research employed a questionnaire whereas the qualitative phase employed semi-structured interviews and document analysis. In total, 275 students completed the prepared questionnaire whilst 15 students, both male and female, and 9 supervisors participated in the semi-structured interviews. The research also used ten samples of written feedback students had received from their supervisors. SPSS descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data quantitatively, and MAXQDA software was used to analyse the data qualitatively. The study identified that Saudi postgraduates encounter a range of difficulties in their academic writing, which were due to several underlying causes. Therefore, to address this issue and to contribute to knowledge in the field, the author of this study devised a theoretical model to assist Saudi postgraduate students overcome their difficulties with English academic writing. The main focus of the current study is to explain this model in detail.

BAAL/CUP Seminars 2010

2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-133
Author(s):  
James Donohue
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽  
Open University ◽  
Academic Literacies ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Functional Linguistics ◽  
Milton Keynes

The Open University, Milton Keynes, 21 April 2010This seminar, organised by Caroline Coffin and Jim Donohue (both from the Open University, UK), took the form of a day of dialogue between invited experts and other interested parties, including academic writing practitioners, researchers and postgraduate students. The invited speakers were asked to form panels representing either Academic Literacies or Systemic Functional Linguistics.

Understanding the use of mediational means in academic writing

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 378-407
Author(s):  
Peisha Wu ◽  
Shulin Yu
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Master Level ◽  
Mediational Means ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
Present Case Study

Abstract While the majority of previous studies on EAP (English for academic purposes) writing have been devoted to professional or academic writing at a more advanced level (i.e., PhD students and scholars) in ESL contexts, little attention has been paid to the academic writing of master-level novice writers in EFL contexts. From a sociocultural perspective, the present case study examined the writing strategies of a master-level novice writer – Alice in Macau context. Non-structured, semi-structured and text-based interviews were used as the primary source of data, with document analysis used for triangulation. The study identified two major categories (i.e., artifacts and community) and five subcategories of mediational means (i.e., journal articles and theses, languages, online writing materials, peers and experts) as significant in the novice writer’s academic writing activities. It also unveiled double-edged features of mediational means and recognized their interplay with the writer’s goals and relatedness to her situated context.

scholarly journals Paradigmatic influences on lexical bundles in research articles in the discipline of education

Corpora ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-263
Author(s):  
Duygu Candarli ◽  
Steven Jones
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Research Paradigms ◽  
Quantitative And Qualitative Research ◽  
Writing Research ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
English Academic Writing

Lexical bundles are pervasive in English academic writing; however, little scholarly attention has been paid to how quantitative and qualitative research paradigms influence the use of lexical bundles in research articles. In order to investigate this, we created two equal-size corpora of research articles in the discipline of education. We examined four-word lexical bundles in terms of their structural characteristics and discourse functions in the quantitative and qualitative research articles published in international English-medium journals. We attribute intra-disciplinary variations in the use of lexical bundles to the knowledge-making practices that are specific to quantitative and qualitative research articles. This paper provides further evidence that the research article is not a unitary construct. The results have implications for academic writing, and corpus building and design in academic discourse. One of the key implications of this study is that L2 novice writers need to take into account the influences of research paradigms on the use of lexical bundles when writing research articles for English-medium journals in the discipline of education.

Rethinking Reader and Writer Responsibility in Academic English

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Ian MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Rhetorical Patterns ◽  
Additional Processing ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Processing Effort ◽  
Style Of Writing

AbstractThere is a growing perception that English used as a lingua franca does not need to resemble English as a native language, but can include a great deal of lexicogrammatical variation. However, a more fundamental matter is whether research articles written in English need to conform to the dominant linear, deductive, ‘Anglo’ pattern of text organization, or whether non-native English speakers should be free to transfer rhetorical patterns from their L1s into English, such as, e.g., an inductive, indirect, end-weighted form of argumentation, perhaps with a less-assertive conclusion. Hinds (1987) describes the latter style of writing as “reader-responsible,” as opposed to the “writer-responsible” Anglo-American style, arguing that it requires a great deal more inferential work on the part of the reader. Yet from a relevance theory perspective it appears unlikely that a culture would choose to impose unnecessary additional processing effort on readers. The perception of difficulty is an etic perspective: analysts from “writer-responsible” cultures imagine the processing effort that would be necessary in their culture to make sense of “reader-responsible” texts. Indirect, inductive rhetorical styles do not cause problems for readers accustomed to them. Given that most academic writing in English is for an international audience, non-native English-speaking researchers – and indeed native English speakers too – should be free to adopt a range of styles, or some sort of heterogeneous hybrid, depending on their perceptions of their readers’ expectations. A further issue is whether researchers who have reservations about ‘Anglo’ styles of writing, e.g. in the social sciences or literary and cultural theory, should encourage non-native English speakers to imitate the noun-heavy, nominalized, passivized, syntactically-complex style dominant in these fields.

LEXICAL BUNDLES INDICATING AUTHORIAL PRESENCE: A CROSS-CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF NOVICE CZECH AND GERMAN WRITERS’ ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Novice Writers

With the widespread use of English as the lingua franca of academia, there is a growing need of research into how non-native speakers striving to be socialized in target academic discourse communities deal with variation in meaning and organization of academic texts across fi elds, languages and cultures. An important indicator of competent linguistic production is the mastering of the register- and genre-specifi c formulaic expressions termed lexical bundles, which are defi ned as sequences of three or more words with frequent co-occurrence in a particular context (Biber et al. 1999). While recent studies have addressed disciplinary and novice-expert differences in the use of lexical bundles, cross-cultural variation in bundle use remains underexplored. This paper investigates lexical bundles indicating authorial presence in a specialized corpus of Master’s degree theses from the fi elds of linguistics and methodology written by German and Czech university students. The aim of the study is to compare how novice Czech and German authors use lexical bundles indicating authorial presence, to consider whether and to what extent the novice writers have adapted their writing style to the conventions of Anglo- American academic writing, and to discuss the role of the L1 academic literacy tradition and instructions received in writing courses for the modelling of novice writers’ academic discourse. The analysis shows that the variety and frequency of interpersonal bundles in Czech and German novice writers’ discourse do not approximate to the standard of published academic texts in English. The fi ndings also indicate that while the considerable similarities in the way Czech and German novice writers use the target structures for constructing authorial presence refl ect their common roots in the Central European tradition of academic discourse, the divergences may be attributed to a difference in the degree of adaptation to Anglo-American writing conventions.

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