Abstract:
This genre-based study investigated the cross-disciplinary variations in the rhetorical structure of the Discussion sections of 104 applied linguistics and chemistry research articles (RAs), drawing upon Basturkmen’s (2009, 2012) framework and taking into account the new insights proposed by Bhatia (2004), Shehzad (2008), and Lim (2012). To this end, in addition to collecting quantitative data and conducting frequency and chi-square analyses, a number of semistructured interviews were also conducted with some distinguished chemistry scholars and applied linguistics experts to triangulate the data and get a fuller understanding of the quantitative results. Results of the chi-square analyses revealed significant variations in the way the authors in the 2 disciplines employed moves, steps, and substeps to realize the purpose of the Discussion sections. Findings might prove fruitful for postgraduate students and novice researchers in chemistry and applied linguistics to help them write more effective Discussion section in their research articles
Machine summary:
A Comparative Study of Generic Structure of Applied Linguistics and Chemistry Research Articles: The Case of Discussions1 Hassan Soodmand Afshar2, Mehdi Doosti3, & Hossein Movassagh4 Received: 25/08/2017 Accepted: 25/12/2017 Abstract This genre-based study investigated the cross-disciplinary variations in the rhetorical structure of the Discussion sections of 104 applied linguistics and chemistry research articles (RAs), drawing upon Basturkmen’s (2009, 2012) framework and taking into account the new insights proposed by Bhatia (2004), Shehzad (2008), and Lim (2012).
Therefore, due to its complex nature and importance, this genre-based study investigated the rhetorical structures (moves, steps, and substeps) of RA Discussions (RADs) in the two disciplines of applied linguistics (ALs) and chemistry with the aim of helping students and novice researchers write more effective Discussion sections.
However, they found the move ‘reporting results’ was an obligatory move in the Results section of the ALs RAs. They identified three optional moves in the Discussion section, as well, ‘summarizing the study,’ ‘evaluating the study,’ and ‘deductions from the research,’ which are mainly moves also found in the Conclusion section of RAs. Drawing upon Yang and Allison’s (2003) framework as the point of departure, Basturkmen (2009) investigated how expert and novice writers in the field of language teaching commented on the results of their research, focusing specifically on M4 ('commenting on results') of the framework.
4. Discussion Combining both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, this genre-based study investigated the cross-disciplinary variations in the generic structure of the Discussion sections of 52 ALs and 52 chemistry RAs, drawing upon Basturkmen’s (2009, 2012) framework and taking into account the new insights proposed by recent related research and the suggestions and findings of Bhatia (2004), Lim (2012), and Shehzad (2008).