Home> Archive> 2012> Volume 2 Number 6 (Nov. 2012)
IJSSH 2012 Vol.2(6): 480-487 ISSN: 2010-3646
DOI: 10.7763/IJSSH.2012.V2.152

Providing an Overview of the Research Context: Pedagogical Implications for the Writing of Research Reports in Applied Linguistics

Jason Miin-Hwa Lim

Abstract—Instructors who have taught a course on Englishfor academic purposes at tertiary level may have found thatnovice students encounter numerous problems comprehendingthe different parts of the Method section of a research report.While it is difficult for second language learners to understandthe Method section because of the numerous inter-connectedinformation elements found in it, we can envisage thecomplexity faced by these learners attempting to write thedifferent elements in the section. As part of the effort to unpackthe complexity involved, this study uses a genre-basedanalytical framework to identify the different rhetoricalstrategies and language mechanisms involved in ‘providing anoverview of the research context’, which constitutes a majorcommunicative move that is often confused with otherrhetorical segments in experimental research reports in appliedlinguistics. Aside from the quantitative data showing the extentto which this rhetorical move is deployed, the qualitativeanalysis of the writers’ textual data and specialist informants’spoken data has yielded a repertoire of useful communicativefunctions and language mechanisms that can be systematicallypresented and explained to second language learnersattempting to read and write the Method section of anexperimental research report.

Index Terms—Methodological overview, research methods,teaching materials, writing instruction.

Jason Miin-Hwa Lim is with the Malaysian University of Sabah (e-mail:drjasonlim@gmail.com).

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Cite: Jason Miin-Hwa Lim, "Providing an Overview of the Research Context:Pedagogical Implications for the Writing of ResearchReports in Applied Linguistics," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 2, no. 6, pp. 480-487, 2012.

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