Rhetorical Structure Challenges Facing Egyptian Researchers in Writing English Research Articles for International Publication | ||||
| هرمس | ||||
| Article 5, Volume 10, Issue 2, April 2021, Page 9-38 PDF (584.36 K) | ||||
| Document Type: المقالة الأصلية | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/herms.2021.199260 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Author | ||||
| Ahmed Alaa Eldin* | ||||
| Faculty of Arts, Cairo University | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| This study has aimed to identify the rhetorical structure challenges facing Egyptian researchers in writing their Scientific, Technical, and Medical (STM) research to be published in international journals. In order to publish a research article (RA) internationally, the researcher should be able to write in an organized and convincing way. Egypt's status concerning the quality and quantity of research publications internationally needs improvement. Therefore, there is a need to provide guidelines and specified educational programs for Egyptian researchers to help overcome the rhetorical challenges they face while writing research in English. The rhetorical structure of unedited first drafts of 20 STM RAs, selected based on a set of criteria, was analyzed based on 3 models of analysis: Swales' Create A Research Space (CARS) model (1990; 2012) to analyze the Introduction and the Discussion sections, Peacock's model (2011) to analyze the Methods section, and Kanoksilapatham's model (2007) to analyze the Results section. Overall, the analysis showed that 90% of the analyzed RAs had rhetorical structure issues, whether in fulfilling main moves or abiding by the standard order of moves. The most problematic sections were found to be the Introduction and the Discussion. These findings, thus, highlight areas of difficulty to Egyptian researchers and hence help provide guidance to avoiding them, which is ultimately a step towards improving the status of Egypt's scientific research. | ||||
Highlights | ||||
The analysis of the rhetorical structure of the unedited first drafts of 20 STM RAs written by Egyptian researchers revealed numerous challenges facing the researchers in writing their RAs. The rhetorical structure was analyzed using Swales' Create A Research Space (CARS) model (1990; 2012), Peacock's model (2011), and Kanoksilapatham's model (2007). The analysis showed that the rhetorical structure was very much challenging to the Egyptian researchers, especially in the Introduction and Discussion sections. All in all, these findings highlight the main areas of difficulty to Egyptian researchers, and hence guidance can be provided towards avoiding them. Specifically tailored educational programs and guidelines can be crafted for Egyptian researchers to help them overcome the rhetorical challenges they face while writing research in English. Academic writing is a skill that can be acquired, and writing RAs in proper language and organization can save time, effort, and cost, which is ultimately a step towards improving the status of Egypt's scientific research. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Genre; Genre Analysis; Academic Discourse; Rhetorical Structure; CARS Model | ||||
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