Asserting or deflecting expertise? Exploring the rhetorical practices of master’s theses in the philosophy of education

Peters, Stephen

doi:10.1016/j.esp.2011.02.005

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 43 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A group of analyses have explored the structure and purposes of the introduction, LR and conclusion sections on theses produced by native English speaking writers (Ridley, 2000;Thompson, 2001Thompson, , 2009Bunton, 2002Bunton, , 2005Paltridge, 2002;Kwan, 2006;Flowerdew & Forest, 2009;Peters, 2011). A second set of studies has focused on the contexts of situation and culture of doctoral research work, comparing writings subject to different traditions (Cooley & Lewkowicz, 1997;Pecorari, 2006;LoCastro, 2008;Carbonell-Olivares, Gil-Salom & Soler-Monreal, 2009;Lim, Loi & Hashim, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Writers' positioning in literature reviews in English and Spanish computing doctoral theses

Gil-Salom

Soler-Monreal

2014

Journal of English for Academic Purposes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Writers' positioning in literature reviews in English and Spanish computing doctoral theses

Gil-Salom

Soler-Monreal

2014

Journal of English for Academic Purposes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Reaching this level of literacy, students can actively participate in their respective disciplinary communities through writing, presenting, and publishing papers (Tardy, 2005, p. 325). So, in addition to having school-based expertise --content knowledge of a field--, students need to develop scholarly expertise which involves the knowledge of disciplinary rhetorical practices since it is this latter type of expertise that underlies their membership in disciplinary communities and makes their knowledge-production activities and claims relevant (Geisler, 1994, as cited in Peters, 2011). This is where English-medium publications come into play because they give multilingual writers the opportunity to present their research to a wider audience and are part of the reward and promotion systems of academic institutions (Lillis & Curry, 2006;Polo & Varela, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Comparison of Thematic Choices and Thematic Progression Patterns in the Research Articles of Well-established and Emerging Disciplines

Babaii

Atai

Shoja

2016

IJAL

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Several studies have employed the theme-rheme construct to examine the generic profile of research articles (RAs). However, they have mostly focused on the subject matter and nature of disciplines, and other disciplinary characteristics as contextual factors which can impact the genre realization have not been considered in the discourse analysis research. This work, therefore, investigates thematic choices and thematic progression patterns in the RA in relation to the status of disciplines as well-established or emerging fields. To this end, a corpus of 240 RAs of mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, horticulture, and environmental science were analyzed using Halliday's (1994) framework of thematicity and McCabe's (1999) model of thematic progression (TP). The results showed significant differences in the distributions of unmarked and marked themes as well as the patterns of thematic progression between the well-established and emerging disciplines. Based on the findings of this study, we suggest further consideration of the status of disciplines in discourse studies which can serve disciplinary research and contribute to the body of research on science.

show abstract

“…What the students absorbed was largely the concepts and strategies of thesis writing (such as the move-step structure and the major rhetorical functions), and their meta-cognitive genre awareness in the learning process was mostly on the declarative level. This indicates that initiating novice research students into the meta-generic specifications of thesis writing could be an important role for EAP instruction to undertake as it currently does not seem to be explicitly addressed in their study programmes or by their supervisors in disciplines (Peters, 2011;Swales, 2004;Thompson, 2013).…”

Section: Discussion and Pedagogical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of EAP Genre-Focused Instruction in Preparing Novice Research Students for Thesis Writing: A Case Study

Wang¹

2023

IJEL

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although writing master’s theses are believed to be a major challenge for many L2 research students, there has been no extensive discussion about to what extent students are prepared for such advanced academic writing through learning in English for academic purposes (EAP) classes. This study investigated a group of novice research students learning to write master’s theses in an EAP course at a Chinese university and explored their progress in developing genre knowledge. Data were drawn from interviews, participants’ learning diaries, and their written texts. It was found that most learners had developed the macro-level formal genre knowledge, including the overall structure and content of thesis writing, and raised the declarative meta-cognitive genre awareness, but they had not yet grasped the tacit aspects of rhetorical knowledge, the micro-level formal knowledge, and the complicacy of process knowledge, including the abstract thinking processes, intertextuality, and the interpersonal meaning of academic texts, as well as the correspondent lexicogrammatical features. The nascent status of the students’ genre knowledge developed in the EAP class, and the role of EAP genre-focused instruction in preparing novice research students for their future thesis writing, are further discussed. It is suggested that thesis-focused EAP writing courses take advantage of explicit instruction to inform students about the meta-generic specifications of thesis writing and emphasize the multiple dimensions of genre knowledge development.

show abstract

Asserting or deflecting expertise? Exploring the rhetorical practices of master’s theses in the philosophy of education

Cited by 11 publications

References 43 publications

Writers' positioning in literature reviews in English and Spanish computing doctoral theses

Writers' positioning in literature reviews in English and Spanish computing doctoral theses

A Comparison of Thematic Choices and Thematic Progression Patterns in the Research Articles of Well-established and Emerging Disciplines

The Role of EAP Genre-Focused Instruction in Preparing Novice Research Students for Thesis Writing: A Case Study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About