AN ANALYSIS OF CROSS-DISCIPLINE RESEARCH ARTICLE INTRODUCTION STRUCTURES THROUGH A MODIFIED CREATE-A-RESEARCH-SPACE (CARS) MODEL

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to identify a standard structural pattern of introduction sections of two different disciplines, i.e. research articles from English Language Teaching (ELT) and Civil Engineering (CE) corpora. Twelve articles were randomly chosen from four established journals of both disciplines namely; Language Learning (LL), Foreign Language Annals (FLA), Transportation (T) and Structural Survey (SS). Content analysis was manually conducted by incorporating the modified CARS model of Anthony’s (1999) in identifying the introductions’ rhetorical moves in both disciplines. Besides move structures, the headings, length and paragraphing element were highlighted for the comparison purposes. As a result, the rhetorical move of the modified model is totally applicable in CE corpora but it slightly fit the presented structural patterns in ELT research articles. Thus, it is noticeable that relying on this modified model has only given the general guide for authors of both disciplines. The model could be further revised in allowing ‘emerging’ patterns of any discipline writing styles and these findings can also be added to existing literature of interdisciplinary RA introduction genre analyses.Keywords: modified CARS model; introductions; structural pattern; genre analysis