Move 1b--literature review

      Citations are widely recognized as being an important and distinctive property of academic texts. As a consequence, the presence or absence of citations allows the casual reader to get an immediate sense of whether a text is an "academic" or "popular" one. Because citation is such an obvious surface phenomenon, it has been much discussed in the academic world. Indeed, there are several theories about the role and purpose of citations in academic texts. Some theories consider citation as tool for the authors themselves, either serving to create a research space (Swales, 1990) or to demonstrate expertise (Bavelas, 1978) and convince the authority of his or her article (Gilbert, 1977). Many theories, however, consider from the angle of previous writers. For example, Ravetz (1971) argued that citations operate as mutual reward, a form of "payment" to other authors. The main idea of these theories is that citations are used to show respect to the previous scholars and acknowledge their works.

Structure of Introductions in Academic Papers

First article:
DN: Database Name
CSA Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
TI: Title
Elements of Metalanguage in Students' Academic Texts
OT: Original Title
Metakalbos elementai akademiniuose studentu tekstuose
AU: Author
Alauniene, Zita; Valskys, Vidas
AF: Affiliation
Vilniaus pedagoginis u [mailto:zalauniene@gmail.com]
SO: Source
Zmogus ir Zodis, 2009, 11, 1, 5-12
IS: ISSN 1392-8600
DE: Descriptors
*Instructions (36360); *Academic Writing (00072); *Language for Special Purposes (42550); *Language Textbooks (44300); *Metalanguage (53150); *Writing Strategies (98780); *Writing Ability (98560)
AB: Abstract
Academic texts contain a certain kind of specific speaking --metalanguage, which is deployed by the author in order to explain the language of the text to the reader, to call attention to the more
important details of the research and to help better understand its structure. The article is a discussion of the instructions provided in
methodological publications for students on how elements of
metalanguage are expected to be used in their academic texts,
especially in final papers. The analysis performed on students' works
(mostly related to social sciences and humanities) indicates that
metalanguage elements are the most abundant in their introductory
parts -- the preface and the introduction. Metalanguage is usually
deployed as a means to define the object of the work, the relevance of
the subject, the aims and objectives of the work, as well as to
describe the composition of the work, materials used, and research
methods applied. Sometimes a hypothesis is provided additionally. The
issue of the research is formulated rather seldom. Apparently, more
efforts are made to include all the attributes (elements) that are
mandatory for introductory sections than to address the specific way
of metaspeaking, textual composition and cohesion instruments.
Metalanguage-related notes that would call the readers' interest are
particularly scarce. Nonetheless, the metalanguage elements applied
disclose students' ability to pay more attention to the essence and
completeness of the work, to structure text and to make descriptions
properly. Adapted from the source document
UD: Update 200910
LA: Language Lithuanian
JV: Journal Volume 11
PT: Publication Type Journal Article (aja)
JP: Journal Pages 5-12
JI: Journal Issue 1
PY: Publication Year 2009
KW: Keywords
academic texts, metalanguage, textual structure, methodical
AN: Accession Number 200916981
CP: Country of Publication Lithuania
CL: Classification
4121 applied linguistics; writing: instruction, acquisition, processes, and testing


Second Article:

DN: Database Name
CSA Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
TI: Title
The schematic structure of Spanish PhD thesis introductions
AU: Author
Carbonell-Olivares, Maria; Gil-Salom, Luz; Soler-Monreal, Carmen
SO: Source
Spanish in Context, 2009, 6, 2, 151-175
IS: ISSN
1571-0718
DE: Descriptors
*Spanish (81800); *Academic Writing (00072); *Discourse/Text Genres
(19280); *Text Structure (89200); *Text Analysis (89100); *Corpus
Analysis (15664)
AB: Abstract
Since the 1990s written academic genres have received considerable
attention in discourse and rhetorical studies, especially texts
written in English. Although few studies describe PhD theses as a
genre, some work has been carried out on their macrostructure and the
rhetorical moves of certain sections. In the Spanish literature, genre
studies on academic writing are scarce relative to those in English,
especially in the case of doctoral theses. We analyse the
introductions of 21 doctoral theses in computing written in Spanish
using Bunton's model (2002) for thesis introductions in English. The
results indicate that most of the steps in this model are applicable
to our corpus, but several new steps and sub-steps have been
distinguished to account for the observed moves of Spanish PhD thesis
introductions. The complexity of the thesis introduction is related to
the scope and depth of the research carried out for a doctoral thesis,
the need to display extensive knowledge of the field and to justify
the relevance of the research. Adapted from the source document
UD: Update
201002
LA: Language
English
JV: Journal Volume
6
PT: Publication Type
Journal Article (aja)
JP: Journal Pages
151-175
JI: Journal Issue
2
PY: Publication Year
2009
AN: Accession Number
201003647
CP: Country of Publication
Netherlands
CL: Classification
4611 discourse analysis/text linguistics; text linguistics

Make a time schedule

Graduate students have more time to do things other than attending classes, especially in engineering field. They can spent 4 days a week doing research on their own computer without going to school. But with the fact of far away from parents' concern, they can also spend time at any thing they are interested in. There are always parties, games, and other activities that needs a lot of time. The problem is, many graduate students still lack the capability in balancing study and playing. Some of them just hang up online or go shopping all days until before the deadline of the assignments. They finish the task in a hurry with low quality. The reason is that they often feel there is much time left so there is no problem if they do something less important first. But when they realize that they should spend some time on study, the day has passed. And they think, "Well, I can do it tomorrow." But situation continues the next day. One way to help is to set up a time schedule and follow it every day. When there is no class, do homework first and place activities in evening, shopping only on weekends, and so on. One benefit of such a time schedule is that it will ensure students to study and finish homework on time with higher quality. By following it, there will be no need to worry about tomorrow's deadline when hanging out with friends.