Examining structure in scientific research articles : a study of thematic progression and thematic density
While scholars in the field of writing studies have examined scientific writing from multiple perspectives, interest in its thematic structure has been modest. Recent studies suggest that the themes in scientific writing tend to be anchored on one or a few points of departure. There has also been...
Saved in:
Main Authors: | , , |
---|---|
Other Authors: | |
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
2020
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/145269 |
Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
Language: | English |
Summary: | While scholars in the field of writing studies have examined scientific writing
from multiple perspectives, interest in its thematic structure has been
modest. Recent studies suggest that the themes in scientific writing tend to
be anchored on one or a few points of departure. There has also been an
attempt at quantification using the thematic-density index (TDI), although
this has only been tested on abstracts. In this study, we investigated the
thematic structure and TDIs of 30 research articles in biology. The results
revealed a progressive thematic pattern in the introduction section, followed
by an anchored development in the subsequent sections. The anchoring
was realized by the pervasive use of the first-person pronoun “we.” The
mean TDI was lowest in the introduction section (2.593) and highest in the
results section (7.095). The results were consistent across the articles in the
corpus, underscoring the uniform way in which the articles were thematically
structured, and in turn suggesting a core thematic pattern for scientific
research writing in general. Based on these findings, the authors suggest that
future studies compare the thematic structure of the introduction section
vis-à-vis the other sections, and investigate the possible factors resulting in
such a structure. |
---|