1

Chapter 1

Introduction

How should research methods section be written in a research journal?What

considerations should research writers need to take into account in presenting research

methods in research journals?These queries raise important concerns as how one of

the important academic genres, the methods section of research articles, is put into its

correct form and shape. Also, it reveals great interest on how one shouldsystematically

acquire the academic English used of texts in various disciplines. To address these

queries,Genreanalysis thenbecame an important discipline in the world of academic

writing.

Through the years, the increasing interest in this discipline is motivated by a

need to provide models of academic and scientific texts for the students, so that they

can produce those texts appropriately. In recent years, discourse and genre analysis

have established itself as an important field of study within linguistics having

implications for applied linguistics, especially in the teaching and learning of languages,

mass communication, writing research, language reform and a number of other areas

related to professional and academic communication. Hence, over the years there has

been a considerable interest in genre-based analysis of different sorts of texts

specifically Research Articles (RA) since it is considered as one of the most essential

types of genre in any academic institution.

Holmes (1997) believe that regardless of academic disciplines,

academicians around the globe generally recognize the research article (RA) as the
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main channel of scientific or scholarly communication and the central genre of

knowledge production (Yang & Allison, 2003, p. 365). Due to the prestigious status of

the research paper in the eyes of the academic discourse community (Swales, 2004), it

is often the genre through which researchers make the results of their work known to

others, and further gain recognition for their position in the discourse community.

Publication in prestigious and high-ranking journals are therefore seen as a

means for discourse community members to attain a higher level in the research

community hierarchy, which may then translate into opportunities for career

advancement or research grants (Swales, 1990). Thus, it is understandable that

academic discourse communities generally strive to maintain the quality and standard of

the research article (Leki& Carson, 1997; Swales, 1990).

With respect to maintaining this quality,studies in the RAs of different disciplines

have suggested numerous generic structures of various sections of the RA, which

consist of a series of different moves and steps whereby, scholars and scientists need

to communicate their ideas and findings using publications which require them to have a

full grasp of the discourse communitys conventions (Martin, 2003). Genre analysis

therefore, is the analysis of language use in broader sense in order to account for not

only the way text is constructed but also for the way it is likely to be interpreted, used

and exploited in specific contexts to achieve specific goals where it involves rhetorical

moves of a special type of text written in a particular discourse community that gives

idea on both nave and experienced writer the overall characteristics and picture of a

genre to make, create and organize effective text in different academic pursuits like
 3

writing research articles(Bhatia, 2002). With this in mind, it can be said that a move is

a semantic unit that associates with the writers purpose.

Genre analysis of research articles thus appears to offer insights in enlightening

learners on the communicative functions and the linguistic features of academic texts.

So far as such texts are concerned, research articles are generally considered a genre

that embodies stringent academic requirements in terms of both textual organization

and linguistic choices (Lim, 2006).

In line with this field, research articles are among the genres which have

received extensive attention from researchers in move analysis studies.With the

popularity of research articles as important body of knowledge in the academe, many

researchers have considered it an interesting data for research and analysis.

Prominent studies on move analysis of research article introductions include Swales

(1971, 1980), result section by Brett (1994), and discussion section by Holmes (1997),

Lindeberg (1994) and Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995). However among these four

prototypical academic genre sections, comparatively less attention has been given to

methods (Bruce, 1983; Swales, 1990) which form an important component of both

qualitative and quantitative studies.Methods, seems tohave attracted the least

attentionwhere others have not focused as much scholarly attention to this section

(Dueas, 2007). Nevertheless,investigations into the Method section are important in

that it often functions as a thread that binds a particular research method with previous

research procedures, or the section itself with other key sections, especially the

Introduction and Results. Without a sound Method section, writers will not be able to

convince the readership of the validity of the means employed to obtain findings.
 4

Writers may also use the method section to strengthen the credibility of their findings to

be reported subsequently in the results section, to stifle potential criticisms, avoid

expected challenges to their research designs, and to ward off possible doubts about

both their results and related interpretations.

As highlighted above, studies of the RA Methods sections are scarce

nevertheless, a few studies have been found and to date I have not come across any

researches in the country that utilized method section as a corpora in genre analysis. It

is in this circumstance that this research has been founded to probe rhetorical moves

and linguistic features of research article methodology with a hope that this will

contribute to the body of knowledge concerning the rich topics on genre analysis and

research writing. More so,despite the significance of knowing and understanding the

different moves in Research Articles still, the question remains if different researchers

have employed or have familiarity of research article moves and steps in their research

writing particularly in their method sections. Do researchers come across with the

different pattern ofmoves and steps to be included in research methodology? This

credence therefore, prompted me to investigate how the researchersparticularly in the

three flagship courses of the University of Southern Mindanao (USM) employ rhetorical

moves and steps constituting the structure of the method section in the research articles

and to probe linguistic choices or featuressuch as cohesion in relation to the rhetorical

moves and constituent steps of the RAs. To give light with this matter, I was

encouraged to embark this study which generally aimed to providesome evidence on

the rhetorical organization and development of the methods section in RAs, focusing

ona corpus of texts from the three flagship courses of USM.

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Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to probe one of the prototypical academic

genre sections, the research article methods, of the three flagship courses of USM

utilizing the perspective of one of the categories of discourse analysis which is genre

analysis and whether these courses observe different or similar moves and steps in

presenting their research methodology. Since I have not come across with studies that

deal with the rhetorical moves and linguistic features of research article methods,

thisqualitative study hoped to unravel the rhetorical organization of research methods in

research journals of the three flagship courses of USM and eventually introduce the

framework to the institution as how research methods from various disciplines are put

into their appropriate form and shape in research journal basedon the moves and steps

identified.

As a linguist at the same time a researcher, my attempt to discover the rhetorical

structure of research article methods greatly influenced me to embark on this study to

bring awareness to research writers on the significance of genre analysis in academic

writing specifically when one aims to have his/her researches refereed. Hence, this

research endeavor envisions contributing to the rich body of knowledge in discourse

analysis and genre analysis.

The corpora were the highlight of the analysis where the two comprehensive

analyses of the RA Methods section outlined fromdifferent previous researches such as

Kanoksilopatham (2005) and Lim ( 2006)were taken into account as backbone of the

analysis.
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Research Questions
Recognizing the facts presented above particularly the scantiness of researches

in the country that dealt with rhetorical moves and linguistic features that transpired in

method sections, I was able to come up with two research questions that guided me

throughout this study:

1. What are the rhetorical moves and steps in the method section of

research articles in the University of Southern Mindanao?

2. What are the linguistic features found in the research article methods

that realized their rhetorical moves and steps?

Theoretical Lens

The theoretical conception of this study is seen in the perspective on John

Swales (1981, 1990) prototypical IMRD (Introduction, Methods,Results, Discussion)

structure for the RA (research article). Many linguists have undertaken the analysis of

the rhetorical structure of this genre. Specially, numerous have been the studies of the

Introduction in RAs from several disciplines written in English by native and non-native

speakers (i.e. Crookes 1985; Taylor and Tingguang 1991; Linderberg 1995;Nwogu

1997; Posteguillo 1999) as well as those which adopt a cross-cultural perspective(i.e.

Duszak 1994; Burgess 2002).

These studies generally conclude that the CARS model (i.e. Establishing a

territory, Establishing a niche, Occupying the niche) proposed by Swales (1990) is not

usually consistently applied, that is, that certain moves (sub-sections which fulfil a sub-

rhetorical function) and/or steps (minor sub-sections within the latter)tend to be deleted
 7

in particular fields and/or in particular national cultural contexts and that the order of

appearance of these moves and steps may be altered according to these two factors.

These findings, thus, seem to indicate that the rhetorical structure of the RA is to

some extent dependent on the discipline to which it belongs and/or the linguistic/cultural

context in which it is written. Hence, research articles specifically method section varies

across disciplines whereby some moves and steps are present or missing depending on

the fieldwhere the corpora are gathered. In fact, researchers such as Brett (1994)

pointed out that the Method sections in his corpus appeared to have three rhetorical

moves or tasks (Brett, 1994, p. 49): (1) to describe how the data have been obtained,

(2) to explain how the concepts and variables of the research work, and (3) to state but

not to explain the statistical techniques used in getting results in quantitative sociology.

Nwogu (1997) analysed 15 articles on medical research and identified three moves with

their constituent elements for medical Method sections: (1) describing data-collection

procedures, (2) describing experimental procedures, and (3) describing data-analysis

procedures and Lim (2006) in Method sections in the corpus of management research

articles contain three major moves: (1)describing data collection procedures, (2)

delineating procedures for measuring variables (i.e., describing them in detail), and (3)

elucidating data analysis procedures.

This study examined the rhetorical moves of methods sections of the three

flagship disciplines in the institution where I am currently affiliated: Veterinary Medicine,

Agricultural Sciences and Biology.As models differ, methods sections were searched

using the move names and not models proposed by the previous researchers who
 8

investigated method section move structures (Brett,1994; Nwogu,1997;Lim, 2006;

Kanoksilapatham, 2005;Wood, 1982) or the writing guidebook authors such as

Weissberg & Buker(1990) and Swales & Feak( 2000).

Importance of the Study

The findings of this study may bear relevance and significance to the

following groups of users in the educational institution:

For administrators,this study can be used as foundation in establishing strategies

to improve the pedagogical pursuit among teachers.This study might help Technical

Writing-Teachers for them to have adequate information on the pedagogical

significance of how should writing courses be tailored to meet the needs of students

encountering difficulties in associating linguistic features with communicative functions

of academic texts in various disciplines particularly in research writing.In addition, this

endeavor may open the awareness and interests of applied linguists to continue

whatever recommendations and implications may be given for further studies and

development particularly in academic genre.

Lastly, the result of this study could be used by the researchers for them to put

their studies in the right form and shape particularly in the methods section of their

research journals especially if it will be refereed in the international publication.

Definition of Terms

To establish common schema in the framework of this study the following words

are defined operationally and conceptually.

Genre is a term for grouping texts together, representing how writers typically

use language to respond to recurring situation (Hyland, 2004). A genre comprises a set
 9

of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative

purposes (Swales, 1990).

Genre Analysis is a process of looking at several samples of a particular genre

to analyse their similarities and differences in terms of their purposes, macro-structure

and language choice. It is the identification of the overall accepted linguistic

conventions, practice, style and restrictions in any given communicative event; it

focused on the identification of schematic units or move structure in any genre studies

(Nwogu,1997). One of the research line in genre analysis is move analysis. The move

analysis of a genre aims to determine the communicative purposes of a text by

categorising diverse text units according to the particular communicative purpose of

each unit. Each one of the moves where a text is segmented constitutes a section,

revealing a specific communicative function, but this is linked to and contributes to the

general communicative objective of the whole genre (Parodi, 2010). In this study, genre

analysis was utilized in order to determine the rhetorical moves and steps that form the

organization of research methods in research articles.

Rhetorical Move is a unit of language created by the writer and is realized by its

function or the purpose for which it is utilized in a discourse. A move can be classified in

the form of clause, sentence or paragraphs. Moves can be attributed to Swales (1990)

CARS (Create A Research Space) who presented the move structure of article

introductions as a generic structure or framework of a that writers employ in organizing

their paper.

Research Article Method Section in this research study, this section of

research article served as the corpora understudy where different moves and steps and
 10

linguistic features such as cohesion were identified. In the IMRAD structure of Swales

Methods is found next to introduction rhetorically speaking it describes approach to

answering research question (Campbell, 2010). It is when, where, and how was the

study done and what materials were used or who was included in the study groups.

(Sollaci and Pereira, 2004). Method section often functions as a thread that binds (1) a

particular research method with previous research procedures, or (2) the section itself

with other key sections, especially the Introduction and Results. Without a sound

Method section enables the writer to convince the readership of the validity of the

means employed to obtain findings in a research (Lim, 2006).

Cohesion is the property of unity in a written text or a segment of spoken

discourse that stems from links among its surface elements, as when words in one

sentence are repeated in another, and especially from the fact that some words or

phrases depend for their interpretation upon material in preceding or following text. It

refers to relations of meaning that exists within the text, and that define it as a text

(Halliday and Hassan, 1976)

Related Literature and Studies

Genre and Genre Analysis

Genre is considered to be one of the most engrained, albeit contentious, concept

in the field of linguistics and rhetoric. This, according to Hyland (2002) and Hyon (1996),

has prompted certain scholars to describe the study of genre in terms of a number of

distinct, yet overlapping, schools of thought.

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Bazerman (1988), Martin (1984), Miller (1984) and Swales (1990, 2004)

recognized genre as a social phenomenon, with texts with specific genres having

certain shared characteristics in terms of their language, organization, purpose, and

intended audience.

Martin (1984) specifically defined genre as a staged, goal-oriented, purposeful

activity in which speakers engage as members of their culture. Miller (1984) also

delineated genre as typified communicative action associated with recurrent situations

and which occurs in a specific discourse community. She argued that rhetorically sound

definition of genre must be centered not on the substance or the form of discourse but

on the action it is used to accomplish. This action, according to her, must involve

situation and motive.

Swales (1990), accepted as the leader in genre and move analysis of English for

Specific Purposes (ESP), also provided a comprehensive and essential definition of

genrethat has become the basis in shaping the schematic structure of discourse and

influences and constrains choice of content and style.Swalesdefined genre as a class of

communicative events commonly used by the members of a given community who

share some set of communicative purposes. Most often it is highly structured and

conventionalized with constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent,

positioning, form, and functional value. These constraints however are often exploitedby

the expert members of the discourse community to achieve private intentions within the

framework of socially recognized purpose/s.

Recognizing Swales definition, it can be said that several aspects must be

considered when defining genre; 1) a communicative event must be recognizable, 2)

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this event is characterized by certain communicative purposes, and 3) these purposes

must be understood by members of the professional or academic community of the

genre.

Bhatia (1993), following Swales definition, made a further elaboration and stated

that each genre is an instance of a successful achievement of a specific communicative

purpose using conventionalized knowledge of linguistic and discourse resources. Bloor

and Bloor (1993) also delineated genre as a specific product of a social practice which

can be described and taught because of several formal characteristics they have.

Other definitions where given by Jogthong (2001) and Richards and Schmidt

(2002). According to Jogthong, genre is a particular type of written discourse made

distinctive by its purpose and the discourse community for which it is intended.

Richards and Schmidt (2002) further delineated it as a type of discourse that occurs in a

particular setting, that has distinctive and recognizable patterns and normsof

organization and structure and that has particular and distinctive communicative

functions.

According to Hyon (1996), the development of genre owed much to three

research schools. These were North American New Rhetoric (NANR), Australian

Systemic Functional Linguistics, and English for Specific Purposes (ESP). NANR

studies, on one hand, focus on the social and ideological significance of genres.

Australian Functional Linguistics, on the other hand, investigates the broad genres of

teaching and learning, and emphasizes social context and function are as important as

text and form. ESP is interested in the theoretical and pedagogical aspects of language
 13

which made genres. In ESP, both written and spoken discourses are important and non-

native speakers of English in university settings are chosen as respondents.

For years, genre has been in the limelight of applied linguistics studies. It has

become a popular tool in analyzing non-literary discourse as well as for developing L1

and L2 instruction (Hyon, 1996). Hyland (2002) stated that genre approached had a

considerable impact on the ways one will understand discourse and in transforming

literacy education in different contexts around the world. He further stated that the

desire to study about genres is based on two reasons; to understand the relationship

between language and its context of use and to employ this knowledge in the service of

language and literacy education.

According to Swales (1990), genre analysis is the study of how language isused

within a particular setting. It focuses on issues such as rhetorical styles anddiscourse

types and relates research in sociolinguistics, text linguistics and discourseanalysis to

the study of specialist areas of language. Henry and Roseberry (2001) stated that the

general aim of genre analysis is to identify the moves and strategies ofa genre, the

allowable order of the moves, and the key linguistic features. The nextstep is to explain

why these features were chosen by expert users of the genre toachieve their

communicative purpose.

Although most researchers of genre analysis share the same interest in

linguisticanalysis, their individual backgrounds result in different methodologies. Bhatia

(1993) asserts that, in terms of the analysis of functional variation in language,

researchers applyone of three separate orientations to genre analysis: sociology,

psychology, or linguistics.
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The sociological orientation in genre analysis centers on how a particular genre

defines organizes and finally communicates social reality. This aspect of genre analysis

emphasizes that text by itself is not a complete object possessing meaning on its own; it

is to be regarded as an ongoing process of negotiation in the context of issues like

social roles, group purposes, professional and organizational preferences and

prerequisites, and even cultural constraints. Moreover, the sociological aspect of genre

analysis focuses on the conventional and often standardized features of genre

construction and offers relevant, though non-linguistic answers, to the oft-repeated

question, Why do members of what sociologists call secondary cultures write the way

they do?. Miller (1984) and Kress (1985) were two of those researchers who used the

sociological approach in their study.

Another approach in genre analysis is psycholinguistic in nature. This approach

focuses more on the tactical aspects, or strategies, of genre construction. It investigates

the cognitive structure of genres and strategies chosen by the writers to make their

writing more effective. These strategies might not conform to the conventional rules of

genres, but do not alter the main communicative purposes of the genres (Bhatia, 1993).

The linguistic orientation in genre analysis attempts to describe a linguistic

variation in genres. This includes register analysis, the study of lexical and grammatical

features in the texts, and rhetorical and discursive analysis. Scholars who have worked

on this area focused on different aspects of genre analysis. Barber (1962), Halliday,

McIntosh and Strevens (1964), Huddleston (1971), Gustafsson (1975), and Crystal and

Davy (1969) have worked on register or stylistic analysis, while Selinker, Lackstrom and
 15

Trimble (1972), Swales (1981) and Bhatia (1982) have studied rhetorical and discourse

organization in research articles and legal discourse (Bhatia, 1993).

One that has drawn great attention in the study of genre is English for Specific

Purposes or ESP genre analysis of written and spoken discourse in academic and

professional setting. Within ESP genre approaches, the aims of genre analysis have

generally been to examine what a discourse communitys goals are and how genre

features (structurally and lexico-grammatically) embody and help its members carry out

their communicative goals. Thus, as generally understood in ESP genre research, it is

communicative purpose (defined in relation to a discourse communitys shared goals)

that both gives rise to and provides the rationale for a genre, and shapes its internal

structure. It is communicative purpose that often serves as a starting point for ESP

genre analyses, which then proceed toward an analysis of a genres rhetorical moves

and steps, then to textual and linguistic features that carry out the moves and steps.

Swales (1981, 1990) and Bhatia (1993, 1997) represented ESP genre analysis. It

began with Swales pioneering works (Swales,1981, 1990) on the Introduction section of

RAs, and manyresearchers have used structural move analysis to explore the generic

patterns in genres such as academic RAs (Hopkins & Dudley-Evans, 1988) magazines

andnewspapers (Nwogu,1997), public reports (Harvey, 1995), letters of application

(Henry & Roseberry, 2001), and dissertation acknowledgements (Hyland, 2004).

Research Article Genre

The study of academic, scientific and professional discourse has flourished in the

last two decades (Flowerdew, 2002; Gunnarsson,2009). Much of the research

concerning genre focuses on the reading and writing needs of non-native speakers of
 16

English (NNES) in higher education (Holmes 1997; Hopkins & Dudley-Evans 1988;

Kanoksilapatham 2005; Peng 1987).The research article (RA) genre in particular has

drawn tremendous attention from researchers, with many studies of the rhetorical

structures or moves ,i.e. segments of text that express certain communicative functions,

of various sections of the research article (Stoller and Robinson, 2012; Swales, 2004).

Moreover, a lot of researchers made an effort to report the discourse structure of RAs

from individual sections to complete IMRD sections.

Research articles are generally considered a genre that embodies stringent

academic requirements in terms of both textual organization and linguistic

choices.Swales (1990) defined RA as a written text, although often containing non-

verbal elements, usually limited to a few thousand words that reports on some

investigations carried out by its author/s. In addition, the RA will usually relate the

finding within it to those of others and may also examine issues of theoryand/or

methodology. It is to appear or has repeated in a research journal or, less typically, in

an edited book-length collection of paper.

Studies of RAs tend to concentrate on two main areas. One is on the global

organizational structure or move structure of the research article, mainly following the

English for Specific Purpose (ESP) approach in particular Swales (1990) Create a

Research Space (CARS) model. Studies of the structure of research articles have

tended to concentrate on only one or two individual sections of the research article,

especially on the introduction (Ozturk, 2007; Samraj, 2002, 2008; Swales, 1981) and to

a lesser extent, on the discussion (Holmes, 1997; Peacock, 2002). A few studies

investigate the organizational structure of other sections of the research article, for
 17

example, the methods section (Lim, 2006) and the results section (Brett, 1994) or of the

research article as a whole (Kanosilapatham, 2005). Most of the studies on the structure

of RAs used Swales (1990) model.

The other focus of studies of research articles is on various grammatical and

stylistic features of the research article such as the use of passive and active voice (e.g.

Tarone, Dwyer, Gillette, and Icke, 1998), Tenses ( e.g. Malcolm, 1987), reporting verbs

(e.g. Thompson and Ye, 1991), and personal pronouns (e.g. Kuo, 1999. These studies

have provided significant knowledge of the research article genre. The linguistic

features investigated in most previous studies, however, tend to be scattered and there

are no empirical studies on how linguistic features are distributed across the moves of

the entire research article.

Ozturk (2007) whose works mainly focused on introduction section investigated

to compare the move structure of introductions between two sub-disciplines of applied

linguistics; second language acquisition and second language writing research. Samraj

(2002;2008) also examined the discourse structure of the introduction sections of

masters theses across different disciplines; wildlife behavior, conservation biology,

philosophy and linguistics.

Holmes (1997) analyzed the discussion section of History, Political Science, and

Sociology RAs. His findings showed no completely obligatory move. Also based on his

findings, he developed his modified Dudley-Evans (1988) model and developed his

own model which consisted of eight moves.

Lim (2006) examined the methods section of RAs from major business

management journals. The findings revealed that 3 moves and 12 steps were found in
 18

the RAs methods section. He also took the following references to identify the move

boundaries: linguistic features in the text to indicate the internal boundaries, more

obvious markers such as typographical features. With this, Lim is the only one in the

field who provided a very detailed move-and-step analysis linked to linguistic features,

following the ESP approach to genre.

Brett (1994) in his study of the results section of sociology RAs using Swales

model identified three moves: metatextual, presentation and comment moves. These

moves were further described by him in terms of function and lexical and grammatical

forms.

Very few researchers studied the complete rhetorical moves of RAs. Nwogu

(1997), who focused on medical science, examined the organization of information of

RAs from different medical research journals. The findings revealed an eleven move

schema in RAs. Further, each schema was found to embody constituent elements and

to be characterized by distinct features.

Yang and Allison (2003) also worked on presenting the main lines of genre

analysis of the macrostructures of RAs, though his focus was on Applied Linguistics

RAs. His studyreported a systematic genre analysis of the sections of Results,

Discussion,Conclusion and Pedagogic Implications in RAs and showed that these

sections tend torelate to one another. Altogether, 20 moves were identified in their

framework: 6moves for the Results section, 7 moves for the Discussion section, 3

moves for theConclusion section and 4 moves for the Pedagogic Implications section.

The findingsshowed that the format of RAs in applied linguistics is different from the

conventionalIMRD framework.
 19

Kanoksilapatham (2005) also worked on describing the whole structure of RAs,

specifically biochemistry research papers. In his study, he identified 15 moves of the

whole structure ofbiochemistry RAs using Swales (1990): 3 moves forthe Introduction

section, 4 for the Method section, 4 for the Results section, and 4 forthe Discussion

section. On the basis of her move analysis,a two-level rhetorical structure, moves and

steps, was proposed.

The Move Structure of Methods Sections

In genre studies, move is a term introduced by Swales (1981) to describe a

particular rhetorical or linguistic pattern, stage, or structure conventionally found in a text

or in a segment of a text. Specifically, Swales particularly developed genre analysis

based on rhetorical moves to describe the rhetorical organizational patterns of research

articles which are made up of distinct sections. Each section can be subdivided into

moves and each move can be broken into steps (Kanoksilaptham, 2005). Its goal is to

describe the communicative purposes of a text by categorizing the various discourse

units within the text according to their communicative purposes or rhetorical moves.

A move thus refers to a section of a text that performs a specific communicative

function. Each move not only has its own purpose but also contributes to the overall

communicative purposes of the genre. These purposes together, as articulated by

Swales, constitute the rationale for the genre, which in turn shapes the schematic

structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style,

with texts in a genre exhibiting various patterns of similarity in terms of structure, style,

content, and intended audience. In other words, Swales move-step model aims to

analyze a specific genre in a functional perspective.

 20

As mentioned earlier, RAs are generally considered a genre that embodies

stringent academic requirements in terms of both textual organization and linguistic

choices, and studies of these aspects have focused largely on the Introduction or the

Results and Discussion sections, but less attention has been given to Method sections.

Lim (2006) pointed out that investigations into the Method section are important

in that often functions as a thread that binds a particular research method with previous

research procedures or the section itself with other sections, especially the Introduction

and Results. He further stressed that without a sound Method section, writers will not be

able to convince the readership of the validity of the means employed to obtain findings.

Writers may use the Method section to strengthen the credibility of their findings to be

reported subsequently in the Results section, to stifle potential criticisms, to avoid

expected challenges to their research designs,and to ward off possible doubts about

both their results and relatedinterpretations.

While only a few authors seem to have investigated the move structure of RA

methods sections, their results are important regarding this study because of their

focus. Each author looked at a fairly small number of RAs from just one discipline. They

are Brett (1994), 20 sociology RAs; Nwogu (1997), 15 medicine RAs; Lim (2006), 20

management; Kanoksilapatham (2005), 12 biochemistry; and Wood (1982),10

chemistry. It is also significant to note that most of these studies employed Swales

(1990) model providing valuable insights into the rhetorical structure of individual

sections (IMRD) of research articles in various disciplines.

Brett (1994) pointed out that the Method sections in his corpus appeared to have

three rhetorical moves. These are: to describe how the data have been obtained, to
 21

explain how the concepts and variables of the research work, and to state but not to

explain the statistical techniques used in getting results in quantitative sociology.

In addition, Nwogu (1997) in his study of the Method sections of articles on

medical research identified three moves with their constituent elements. These moves

are: describing data collection procedures, describing experimental procedures, and

describing data analysis procedures. Further, in Lims (2006) study on the management

research articles Method section, he also identified three major moves: describing data

collection procedures, delineating procedures for measuring variables (ie., describing

them in detail), and elucidating data analysis procedures.

The results of studies of Brett (1994), Nwogu (1997) and Lim (2006) for the first

three disciplines, sociology, medicine and management were almost identical: the

structure wasdata collectionexperimentdata analysis.

Wood (1982) in his study of chemistry articles managed to show that there was a

typical rhetorical structure follow and, moreover, that there are even specific linguistic

realizations at a number of points in the rhetorical structure. Kanoksilapatham (2005)

who studied the whole structure of biochemistry research articles identified 15 moves.

Four of these moves were from the Method section; two moves are conventional and

the other two are optional. These moves were: describing materials, describing

experimental procedures, detailing equipment, and describing statistical procedures.

Findings forbiochemistry andchemistry were also very similar: thestructure

wasmaterialsequipmentprocedure. These similarities among certaindisciplines are

noteworthy, and led to wonder if the same applies acrossa broaderrange of disciplines,

thus the investigation reported in this paper.

 22

Research writing guides such as Weissberg&Buker(1990) or Swales &Feak

(2000) assert other methods section moves exist, including overview,

subjects/materials, location, and restrictions/limiting conditions. Somewhat less

importantis previous theorizing on the function, importance, and length of methods

sections.

Swales (2004) adds that Method sections in science they are heavily clipped,

explaining that this may happen because authors assume their readers already possess

sufficient knowledge. Regarding the humanities, Swales (1990) claims they have a

more careful step-by-step description of method. However, perhaps the usefulness of

these suggestionsthatscience methods sections arebecoming de-emphasized and

shorteris limited because they are based on looking at relatively few RAs.

The above descriptions of the move structure and function ofmethods

sectionsmay show that writing them is relatively uncomplicated, but this is not thecase

(Swales, 2004). This may beparticularly true for non-native speakers (NNS)(Paltridge,

1993; Wood, 2001), and if so NNS will have real difficulties publishing within their

discourse communities.

Research writing is not easy for native speakers(NS) either. These difficulties will

be even more acute if, as Vassileva (1997) asserts,NNS research writers tend to be

unaware of genre conventions, and these conventionsprobably differ across disciplines.

While it is suggested that NNS and NSresearch writers need toknow the move structure

of methods sections, few studies have investigated theirstructure, and they examined

only a small number of RAs from a few disciplines.Other authors describe function or

length and importance, though they looked almostexclusively at the sciences.

 23

Therehave recently been calls for further research; Lim (2006) asserts that

methods sectionsare crucial and that it is a need to look at their generic structure, which

has been neglected in the sciences. Kanoksilapatham (2005), referring to all disciplines,

states thatthere is still no clear model because methods sections have received scant

attention.

While move cycles appear in RA discussion sectionsDudley-Evans (1994)

describesthem as important, and Swales as "well-established" (1990)they seem not

to have been observed or predicted in methods sections.

It is then suggested that further empirical research into methods sections is

needed,and that such research should use larger corpora to assess variation across a

widerange of disciplines. The findings may tell much about the true nature of

methodsand also allow teachers of research writers to inform learners of typical

movesequences and cycles.

Lim (2006) in his research entitled Method sections of management research

articles: A pedagogically motivated qualitative study examined 20 articles from high-

status management journals to identify the communicative functions of the Method

sections in management research articles as reflected in rhetorical moves and

constituent steps, and to discover how individual moves and constituent steps are

realized in lexical and syntactic choices. These management RAs which were chosen

so as to represent a range of authors, issues, and subject areas were examined using

Swales (1990) model.

Lims findings revealed that Most Method sections in the corpuscontain three

major moves: describing data collection procedures, delineating proceduresfor

 24

measuring variables(i.e., describing them in detail), and elucidatingdata analysis

procedures.

Describing data collection procedures has the following constituent steps: 1.

Describing the sample which includes describing the location of the sample, describing

the size of the sample/population, describing the characteristics of the sample, and

describing the sampling technique or criterion ; 2. Recounting steps in data collection ;

3. Justifying the data collection procedure/s which consists of highlighting advantages of

using the sample and showing representativity of the sample.

Move 2. Delineating procedure/s for measuring variables consists of the following

constituents steps: 1. Presenting an overview of the design; 2. Explaining method/s of

measuring variables which includes specifying items in questionnaires/data bases

defining variables, and describing methods of measuring variables; and 3. Justifying the

method/s of measuring variables which consists of citing previous research method/s

and highlighting acceptability of the method/s.

Move3. Elucidating data analysis procedure/s includes: 1. Relating (or

recounting) data analysis procedure/s; 2. Justifying the data analysis procedure/s; and

3.Previewing results.

Kanoksilapatam (2005) in his study Rhetorical Structure of Biochemistry

Research Articles, identified 15 rhetorical moves three in the Introduction section, four

in the Methods section, four in the Results section, and four in the Discussion section.

These moves were numbered 115, reflecting the order inwhich they most often

appeared in the corpus. The model does not claim that thesemoves only occurred
 25

linearly in these positions; in fact, Move 4 and Move 5, Move 8and Move 9, and Move

10 and Move 11 were typically interwoven.

There are four moves identified in the biochemistry corpus: two moves are

conventional and the other are optional. The first move in the Method section is

describing materials which covers which includes the following steps: 1. Listing

materials explicitly itemizing materials or substances used in the study; 2. Detailing the

source of the materials identifying how these items are obtained; 3. Providingthe

background of the materials including the description, properties, or characteristicsof the

materials.

The second move in Method sections is describing experimental procedures,

methods and techniques usually protocoled. This move has three variations or steps.

Step 1: Documenting establishedprocedures recounts an experimental process that is

already established by previousresearchers. As a result of the standardization of

experimental procedure,simple reference to the specific name of the method or

procedure used to conductresearch is adequate. Occasionally, certain procedures are

unique or unorthodoxfor a particular study. In such cases, Step 2: Detailing procedures

is used to providedetailed description of the procedures to enable future research

replication. Move 5can also be realized by Step 3: Providing the background of the

procedures, providingjustification for the choice of technique or procedure, and

comments or observations made during the experiment.

The third move is detailing equipment which provides detailed information

regarding the setting of the apparatus used for a particular task in an experiment, the
 26

information crucial for future research replication. The last move found in Method

sections of biochemistry articles is describing statistical procedures.

Dueas (2007) in her study A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Generic Structure of

Business Management Research Articles: The method section identified 11 moves.

These moves were coded from moves 1 to 11. Based on the result of her analysis, it

was found out some new steps have been found that some of the steps proposed by

Nwogu (1997) and/or CollGarca (2002) and other previous researches have not

appeared in the corpus. As pointed out, this may be theresult of the different disciplinary

nature of the RAs analysed by Nwogu (1997) and the onesanalysed in the corpus and

the general character of Coll Garcas (2002) sequence which is positedas applicable to

a wide range of elds. Rather than outlining steps grouped under movesas Nwogu

(1997) and Coll Garca (2002) do, only steps are outlined in relation to thebusiness

management RAs analysed. This is a result of not perceiving that steps are regularly

encompassed under a superordinate move. The steps that have appeared at some

point in the Methods sections of the business management RAs in the comparable

corpus are: Describing the sample/the participants, Describing data Collection

procedure, Describing Data Collection results, Outlining Variables and Measures,

Describing Data Analysis Procedure, References to Previous Literature, Reference to

past research which follows a similar methodological procedure, Claiming Validity,

Reference to past research (consistency), Indicating a finding, Aim/structure of the

section.
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Cohesion

Discourse is more than a random set of utterances; it shows connectedness. A

central objective of linguists working on discourse level is to characterize this

connectedness. Linguists have traditionally approached this problem by looking at overt

linguistic elements and structure. In their famous cohesion in English, Halliday and

Hassan (1976) describe text connectedness in terms of reference , substitution, ellipsis,

conjunction and lexical cohesion. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976;13), these

explicit clues make a text a text. Cohesion occurs when the interpretation of some

element in the discourse is dependent on that of another. The following types of

cohesion are distinguished.

Reference: two linguistic elements are related in what they refer to.

Jan lives near the park. He often goes there

Substitution: a linguistic element is not repeated but is replace by a substitution item.

Daan love strawberry ice cream. He has one every day.

Ellipsis; one of the linguistic elements is omitted.

All the children had an ice cream today. Eva chose strawberry. Arthur has orange and Wilhem
too.

Conjunction: A semantic relation is explicitly marked.

Eva walked into town because she wanted an ice cream.

Lexical Cohesion; two elements share a lexical field (collocation

Why does this little boy wringgle all the time? Girls dont wringgle

It was hot. Daan was lining up for an ice cream.

The identification of coherence features is generally regarded as one of the

central issues in research writing. For Carstens (1995), research on textual aspects had

been put into limelight in the early 1980s. Halliday, and hassans cohesion in English
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(1976) had inspired studies such as De Beeuagrande and Dressler (1981), Azzouz

(2009), Ramasawmy (2004), Khany and Tazik (2001

On one hand, Introduction to text linguistics, provide a vivid criteria for

establishing of a text by advocating that the communicative success of a text is

anchored on seven standards of textuality to wit; cohesion, coherence, intentionality,

acceptability, contextuality, and intertextuality. Among these conventions, cohesion and

coherence received the greater attention in textual analysis.

Hence, the significance of cohesion and coherence in writing quality has

preoccupied researchesfor quite some time; they have considered the utilization of

cohesion in various genres of composition writing at different levels which includes

academic writing.

Hence, Aside from move analysis, Discourse analysis also includes analysis of

the linguistic features such as cohesion that contribute to the realization of move and

steps and to achieve the communicative goal of the text.

As for Brown and Yule (1989), text is a verbal record of a communicative event.

On the other hand, Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) consider a text as a

communicative occurrence which conforms to the seven standards of textuality. They

added that two of these conventions which is cohesion and coherence are textual in

nature. Morgan and Selner (1980) also shared that cohesive devices which are present

in a text is a result of cohesion and coherence that derives that text.

Halliday and Hassan (1976) disputed that the quality of coherence in a text is the

upshot of cohesive ties which exist in a text. They both explain coherence relations and

cohesive devices as linguistic mean that enables the writers achieve coherent texts.
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With this premise, cohesion is defined as component of text, which creates an

interpretable whole, rather than a set of unconnected sentences. Halliday and Hassan

(1976) emphasized that cohesion occurs where the interpretation of any items in the

discourse. They pointed out that cohesion is a semantic relationship between one

element and another in the text and some other elements that is essential to

interpretation.

They append that as an author develops a theme, an idea, or event, the cohesive

bonds create more than just pairs of linked terms. Each type of repetition of information

forms a chain and the idea within each chain together develop a topic.

They classified 5 categories which can provide a practical means for analyzing

texts. These are references, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion, the

first 3 types are categorized into grammatical cohesion. Lexical cohesion refers to

relations between any lexical item and some previously occurring lexical item in the text,

quite independently of the grammatical category of the items in question. Among these,

lexical cohesion is considered as the central device to make texts interpretable.

The first type of cohesions is reference. This cohesion makes up items in the

English Language which instead of being interpreted semantically, constitute reference

to make reference to something else for their interpretation (Halliday and Hassan,

1976). The reference of an item can be derived within text such as he in Jose loves

English. He always studies his lessons in English. He is a reference cohesion tie

because it shares the same referent as, and refers to, Jose. Moreover, reference

cohesion can be subdivided into three groups: pronominals or personal, demonstrative

and comparative reference.

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The category of personals includes three classes of personal pronouns,

possessive determiners and possessive pronouns. Demonstrative reference is

reference by means of location on the basis of proximity. Lastly, comparative reference

is indirect reference by means of identity or similarity. Grammatically, all reference items

excepts the demonstrative adverbs and some comparative adverbs, function within the

nominal group.

Azzouz (2009) stated that personal pronouns are the most common linguistic

element as referring devices in a textual environment. Using personal pronouns in

academic writing has been related to writers voice and the writers position in the

academic world.

Hyland (2001) states that the use of impersonality has been proposed by

manuals and textbooks as means of demonstrating scholarly persuasion and allowing

writers to speak to readers in an unmediated approach. The usage of personal

pronouns in scientific writing sees a development from traditional notion towards

recognition of this particular writing style. Martin (1995) further comments that writers

choice in announcing their presence in the academic field is viewed as a strategy that is

increasingly used by writers of the international English speaking community in

promoting and gaining accreditation on their claims in research. This is also supported

by Cherry (1998) claiming on the importance of self-representation in academic

discourse and Groom (1993) in his analysis of academic writing revealedthat the use of

pronoun indicates the importance of writers textual voice and states that writers should

clearly state their view when they are reporting the voice of an author or stating their

own expressions and personal point of views.

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The definite article the has usually been set separately, in English grammar, as

a unique member of a class, its only relative being the indefinite article a. This

happens because no other item in English behaves exactly like the. On the other

hand, it has important similarities with a whole group of other items, so that we need not

hesitate to classify it with the determiners and more specifically, with the specific

determiners, the class which includes the demonstratives and the possessives.

In writing, demonstratives are used when writers tend to use them to qualify

nouns. Basically, an article is an adjective. Like adjectives, articles modify nouns.A

definite article for instance indicates that its noun is a particular one (or ones) specific to

the listener or reader. It may be something that the speaker has already mentioned, or it

may be something uniquely specified or when the noun is specific or particular. The

signals that the noun is definite, that it refers to a particular member of a group while

article a/andenotes that its noun is not a particular one (or ones) identifiable to the

listener. It may be something that the speaker is mentioning for the first time, or its

clear-cut identity may be irrelevant or hypothetical, or the speaker may be making a

general statement about any such thing. A" and "an" signal that the noun modified is

indefinite, referring to any member of a group(Lynch et al., 2011).

The second type is substitution. It is cohesion in relation of sense identity rather

than a relation of reference identity. It is categorized into categories such as nominal

substitution, verbal substitution and clausal substitution.

Nominal substitution occurs where the presupposed element is a noun or a noun

phrase like I like the red car but I prefer the blue one.
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Verbal substitution occurs when the presupposed element is a verb or a verb

phrase. The presupposing element which denotes the substitution is usually the word

do and its various forms, i.e does,, did, and done like Every child like chocolate and

Jose does too.

Finally, clausal substitution occurs where the presupposed element is an entire

clause. The most recurrent presupposing element affecting this kind of substitution is

so as in :

Jose is not guilty of the crime.

I dont think so.

In this statement so replaces the whole sentence Jose is not guilty of the

crime.

The third type of lexical device is ellipsis. This pertains to the absence of a word,

a phrase or a clause which is understood within the utterance. In ellipsis cohesion, there

are three types depending on the syntactic category of the presupposed elements.

Ellipsis occurs when words are left out of a text and able to work out from the

surrounding text what is missing (Paltridge 2000). Ellipsis are categorized into three

namely; nominal ellipsis, verbal ellipsis, and clausal ellipsis. Nominal ellipsis occurs

when a noun or a noun phrase is presupposed. For example; These are my two

bracelets. I used to have five. In this example the word bracelets has been omitted and

can easily be understood or recovered from the context.

Verbal ellipsis occurs where a verb or verb phrase is presupposed. As

in:Speaker 1: did you do your assignments?Speaker 2: Yes, I did.

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Speaker twos answer is elliptical since his response is in congruence with

speaker ones question but is understood.

Clausal ellipsis occurs when both a noun or noun phrase and a verb or at least

part of a verb phrase, is deleted. It happens usually in yes/no questions as in:Speaker

1: Are you doing your assignment today?Speaker 2: Yes!

In this example, Mary is affirming the entire clause; you are doing your

assignments today?

The 4th type of lexical device is conjunction. This is achieved to have grammatical

cohesion texts which illustrate the relationship between sentences. They are totally

different from other cohesive ties that they reach the meaning by using other features in

the discourse. The logical relationships between clauses,between sentences, and

between paragraphs are usually expressedby conjunctions (Anderson, J. & Poole, M.,

1994). According to Nunan (1993),conjunctions are used to refer to the other parts of

the text in order to makes relationship between sentences to be comprehensively

understood. As Halliday and Hassan (1978) disclosed:

In describing conjunction as a cohesive device, we are focusing attention not on semantic

relation as such, as realized throughout the grammar of the language, but on one particular aspect of
them, namely the function they have of relating to each other linguistic elements that occur in succession
but are not related by other structural means.

Conjunction has 4 types- additive, adversative, causal and temporal. Items such

as in other words, however, meanwhile, and thus provide indicators of the relationship

between clauses. Conjunctive cohesion is pervasively used and most extensively dealt

with in grammar and composition writing. It is often referred to as transitional devices.

This type of cohesion differences from the other types of cohesive devices since it has
 34

no specifiable element in a situational context or text for its interpretation; it has its

inherent meaning.

Thus, Halliday and Hasan (1976) argued that conjunctive elements are cohesive

not in themselves but indirectly by virtue of the specific meanings; they are not

primarilydevices for reaching out into the preceding text, but they express certain

meanings which presuppose the presence of their components in the discourse. For

example; he took a cup of coffee after he woke up. The word after suggests sequence

that what is expressed in the first clause followed what is expressed in the second one.

Furthermore, words such as hence and so indicate that there is a preceding

segment of text presenting a cause or reason, a a following segment presenting a

result. In other words, relation between the two segments will be one of the reason-

result. Unlike reference, substitution and ellipsis cohesion ties, which are meant to

denote only one phoric relation at a time, conjunctionsopen in the directions at the

same time forward to where the writer intends to go backward to where he has been

(Gallo and Risik, 1973).

The fifth type of cohesive device is lexical cohesion. This type of cohesion plays

the most important form among cohesive ties (Hoey, 1991). He found out in his study

that around forty to fifty percent of cohesive ties of a text are comprised by lexical

cohesion. Lexical cohesion denotes that coherence can also exist without the use of

cohesive conjunction ties as:Young people are impulsive. Old people take their time.

Cohesion which is theintersentential component of a text, is realized through

texture, through specific features given to it by the text (Halliday and Hassan 1976). In

which cohesive effect is achieved by the selection of vocabulary.

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Lexical cohesion is the final type of cohesion categorized by Halliday and Hasan

(1976) in Cohesion of English. Among the types of cohesion identified, lexical cohesion

is not associated with ny syntactic classes of elements. It is therefore the most open

ended and least adequately defines of the five kinds. In lexical patterning, successive

sentences are expected to exhibit some relationships through vocabulary.

Collocation is a problematic issue of lexical cohesion since this type of cohesion is

realized through the association of lexical items that regularly co-occurs. For example:

Why does this little boy wriggle all the time? Girls dont wriggle.

Using Halliday and Hassans (1976) model in his study of cohesion and

coherence, Azzouz (2009) studied discourse analysis of Grammatical Cohesion in

Students writing; found out that conjunctions as a cohesive device are most known by

the learners however most of the conjunction devices are used appropriately.

Hernandez (2010) studied on the overall organization of the undergraduate

theses in USEP and found out that the research introductions patterns of numerous

definite articles and pronouns distributed throughout the corpora of the study. The

results further revealed thatAB English program was the most cohesive giving the most

number of cohesive resources present in the research introductions.

Abusharkh (2012) focused on Cohesion and Coherence in the Essay Writing of

Palestinian College Students results reveal that language transfer is a main factor that

impedes cohesion and coherence particularly by intermediate and low level students.

Ramasawmy 92004) studied Conjunctive Cohesionand Relational Coherence in

Students Composition. The results revealed that both conjunctive cohesion density and

relational coherence affect perceptions of writing quality.

 36

Liu and Qi (2010) dealt with A Contrastive Study of Textual Cohesion and

Coherence Errors in Chinese EFL Abstract Writing in Engineering Discourse. They

concluded that Chinese and English are surprisingly different in strategies of cohesion

and coherence, and such major cohesive and coherence errors committed repetitively

by most Chinese EFL students are more associated with their cultural transfer by

fossilization.

Tsarvas (2010) grammatical cohesion in argumentative essays by Norwegian

and Russian learners reported that the reference and conjunction are used pervasively

to establish cohesive relations that tie between sentences. Grammatical cohesion is no

to discern only between two adjacent sentences. Cohesive links are often established

by grammatical elements that occur in a sequence of sentences that are not adjacent.

The presence of intervening sentences often signals that a writer includes an additional

remark or an example. On the whole picture ofgrammatical cohesion shows that

reference and conjunction is more frequently used than substitution and ellipsis in

argumentative essays. I is assumed that lexical cohesion is more prevalent than the use

of grammatical reference in the essays o Russian learners.

To sum it up, cohesion and coherence play an important role in discourse

analysis as it is utilized in developing communicative purposes of research articles.

Cohesion provides relationship and connectedness between words rather than the

concepts of meanings. More so, cohesion is a objective element of a text.

Passivisation
The passive voice allows a writer to depersonalize information hence the

passive voice construction in research methodology is frequently used to allow one omit
 37

the agent placing the emphasis on the procedure, materials, method and how they were

done out carried out in the study. The use of the passive voice has the effect of

depersonalizing the information and thus making the tone more academic and

professional thus making the statement more objective (Weissberg and Bucker, 2010).

Tense of the Verb

The reason for the choice of simple past tense is that it is assumed that

researchers are describing work that has already been completed.The tense usually

used to describe the procedures that have been carried out in a research project.The

materials and methods section describes what you did and how you did that. Here, the

past is more natural because researchers are describing work that is already complete

at the time of writing (Joshi, 2014). Thus, it is simply a description of your actions. There

are however, two possible exceptions to the use of the simple past tense. Existing facts

and standard procedures are written in the simple present tense. e.g. Advanced

software is now available to test the amount of radon emitted. Some disciplines prefer

the use of the simple present tense to describe the methodology. If in doubt,Weissberg

and Bucker (2010) suggested check with your supervisor as he/she will be familiar with

the expectations of your discipline and to find out which style is preferred by your

discipline.

Verbals

In any type of writing, Participles help course through the meaning intended by

the writer to the understanding of the readers, since participles make clear references

and specification between ideas propounded. This has been affirmed by Granger (1997)

in her study On Identifying the Syntactic and Discourse Features of Participle Clauses in
 38

Academic English: Native and Non-Native Writers Compared, which revealed that

participles play an important role in foregrounding and backgrounding of information in a

given text.

In scientific writing, infinitives create a sense of detachment by the author from

the actions s/he describes. It can also be used to when speculating about a possible

consequence of ones research, or suggesting future directions (Scientific Writing Tips

from a Science Journalist. Knowing this, the research output from the articles

exemplified a more impersonal tone in writing or has a weak author presence, thus,

apparently more objective in style.

Moreover, infinitives facilitate comprehension in the sampled research

methodology since infinitives are discourse structuring devices that set and highlight the

authors thesis (Granger in Aarts, et. al 1997); while maintaining a more impersonal and

serious tone for objectivity (Nador, 2004).

In the research articles, gerund is used to name an activity rather than a person

or thing.Gerund facilitates the research writer to encode actions that are vivid, real,

ongoing or completed in the past.It represents the success of the subject of the main

verb(Murcia and Freeman, 2008). Gerund is also used to indicate state of being.

Delimitations and Limitations

This research study was guided with an aim to investigatethe rhetorical moves

and steps of the method section of research articles of the three flagship courses in the

University of Southern Mindanao such as biology, veterinary medicine and, agricultural

science. Different research journals from these disciplines selected randomly were

subjected for analysis since there are years that they failed to publish research journals.
 39

Comprehensive analyses of the RA Methods section outlined by Kanoksilopatham

(2005) and Lim (2006) served as the backbone of the analysisgiven that among the

previous researches that examined the method section of research articles; the moves

they identified run parallel to the moves and steps employedin the corpora understudy.

The parameters of the study focused on research articles that predominantly

demonstrate moves and steps in presenting research methodology that conform or suit

to the comprehensive analysis model of previous researches that I identified. However,

moves that are not found in previous model were considered as unique move of such

specific discipline. Since, the study only delved in with rhetorical moves and linguistic

features such as cohesion, it did not capture in general anymore the discourse and

some substantial features such as meaning, ideology, content of the corpora that can

still be studied. It only described superficial level of rhetorical organization such as

markers, expressions, and other linguistic signals that realized the moves and steps.

The analysis did not include other disciplines because the main concern of the study is

just to determine whether moves and steps are employed or evident in the research

methods and not to create models to all disciplines or courses in the university. The

three disciplines understudy just served as materials to reveal the moves, steps and

linguistic features.

Organization of the Study

The increasing interest in genre analysis as a discipline is motivated by a need to

supply models of academic and scientific texts for the students, so that they can

produce and tailor those texts appropriately when they engage in academic and

scientific writing.
 40

Generally, the aim of this pursuit is to describe and analyze the rhetorical moves

in the different sections of research articles particularly the methods section and to

provide more comprehensive account as how it is realized so that readers can easily

get the substance of what this research study intends to pursue. This qualitative

research then is comprised of the following chapters, a list of references and

appendices that give life blood to this paper.

Chapter 1 discusses the background as how this paper comes into shape and

form. It presents the overview of the emergence and importance of genre analysis as a

discipline of discourse analysis. It also includes the research questions which serve as a

guide in the conduct of the study, the theories and models that provide basis for the

analysis of the corpora, the research purpose for conducting the study, the studys

significance to various groups of individuals in the educational institution and the

definition of the terms that would provide understanding to readership. This chapter also

reviews all concepts essential in the study such as varied studies on genre analysis and

the findings of other related studies. Each variable in the study is comprehensively

elucidated to provide all details relevant to the study. The literatures written by theorists

and scholars and those conducted by the researchers are presented in order to

establish the relevance and the foundation in reality of the chosen research issue.

With this related literature and studies reviewed, I was provided with valuable

insights and concepts which are helpful in the present investigation. Specifically, the

review offered a better standpoint to the research objectives. Ideas regarding the

importance of conducting genre analysis are valuable information to determine how

students should and various individuals organize their academic and scientific texts.
 41

Furthermore, the review will provide the framework and implications of the present study

and of the results.

The second chapter describes the methods to be applied in the conduct of study.

It gives vivid picture on the research design that provides shape and form of the study. It

explains the design of the study, the role of the researcher, procedures to be

undertaken for the collection of data and its analysis giving emphasis on the valid

procedures in a qualitative study. Lastly, Trustworthiness and Credibility is also

elucidated in order to come up with effective and valid research output.

Chapter 3 presents comprehensive and full blown qualitative type of discussion

of the results involving genre analysis based on two comprehensive models of

Kanoksilapatham (2005) and Lim (2006) and Cohesion in English by Halliday and

Hassan (1976) as the mainstay of the study.

Chapter 4 summarizes the findings of the study, presents the conclusions

generated after the study was embarked and its implications to pedagogy, further

research and concluding remarks. It shows the foundation of findings based from the

related studies and literature and their divergence to other studies which were carried

out by other scholars.

42
 43

PROBES ON THE RHETORICAL MOVES IN METHODS SECTION

OF RESEARCH ARTICLES

___________________________________

A Dissertation
Presented to
The Faculty Graduate School
University of the Immaculate Conception
Davao City

___________________________________

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Education
Major in Applied Linguistics

____________________________________

Donnie M. Tulud

March 2015
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