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...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Leong, Alvin Ping, Toh, Audrey Lin Lin, Chin, Soo Fun
Other Authors: School of Humanities
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
id sg-ntu-dr.10356-145269
record_format dspace
spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1452692020-12-16T06:00:44Z Examining structure in scientific research articles : a study of thematic progression and thematic density Leong, Alvin Ping Toh, Audrey Lin Lin Chin, Soo Fun School of Humanities Humanities::Language Theme Grammatical Voice 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. 2020-12-16T06:00:44Z 2020-12-16T06:00:44Z 2018 Journal Article Leong, A. P., Toh, A. L. L., & Chin, S. F. (2018). Examining structure in scientific research articles : a study of thematic progression and thematic density. Written Communication, 35(3), 286–314. doi:10.1177/0741088318767378 0741-0883 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/145269 10.1177/0741088318767378 3 35 286 314 en Written Communication © 2018 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. This paper was published in Written Communication and is made available with permission of SAGE Publications.
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Humanities::Language
Theme
Grammatical Voice
spellingShingle Humanities::Language
Theme
Grammatical Voice
Leong, Alvin Ping
Toh, Audrey Lin Lin
Chin, Soo Fun
Examining structure in scientific research articles : a study of thematic progression and thematic density
description 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.
author2 School of Humanities
author_facet School of Humanities
Leong, Alvin Ping
Toh, Audrey Lin Lin
Chin, Soo Fun
format Article
author Leong, Alvin Ping
Toh, Audrey Lin Lin
Chin, Soo Fun
author_sort Leong, Alvin Ping
title Examining structure in scientific research articles : a study of thematic progression and thematic density
title_short Examining structure in scientific research articles : a study of thematic progression and thematic density
title_full Examining structure in scientific research articles : a study of thematic progression and thematic density
title_fullStr Examining structure in scientific research articles : a study of thematic progression and thematic density
title_full_unstemmed Examining structure in scientific research articles : a study of thematic progression and thematic density
title_sort examining structure in scientific research articles : a study of thematic progression and thematic density
publishDate 2020
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/145269
_version_ 1688665628516286464