Article: Information and argument patterns in the Introduction sections of sociology research papers
Cheng, W.-N., & Khoo, C.S.G. Khoo. (2022). Information and argument patterns in the Introduction sections of sociology research papers. Iberica, 44 (December), 127-154. https://doi.org/10.17398/2340-2784.44.127 Abstract. This study analyzed the information-argument structure of the Introduction sections of sociology research papers, to identify differences across three types of sociology research: Investigative research, Development and Evaluation research, and Descriptive research. The information-argument analysis framework bears some resemblance to rhetorical structure frameworks following Swales’ CARS model, but focuses on the argumentative aspect of text and how information is used to support argument claims. The coding scheme specifies information types, subdivided into those that imply an argument claim and those that play the role of argument support. Seventy papers were sampled from ten sociology journals for analysis. Sequential association rule mining was used to identify sequential information-argument patterns. The study identified significant differences in information-argument profile across the three types of research papers, as...
Information-Argument-Rhetorical Structure Framework for discourse analysis of research papers
XML tagging resources for discourse analysis of research papers using the Information-Argument-Rhetorical Structure framework is available for download from DR-NTU (Data) (the data repository of the Nanyang Technological University) . The Information-Argument-Rhetorical Structure framework specifies 3 layers of discourse analysis: Information structure analysis: a tag indicates a semantic role in one of the semantic frames (e.g. Research-relation frame, Comparison frame, etc.). Argument structure analysis: a tag indicates a type of argument claim, or type of argument support/premise. Rhetorical structure analysis: a tag indicates a rhetorical function, modeled after Swale’s (1990) Creating a Research Space (CARS) model The framework was derived from an analysis of the Abstract, Introduction and Literature Review sections of 30 sociology, mechanical engineering and bioscience research papers (10 each). The framework was applied to an additional 100 sociology research papers, and refined. Further work on mechanical engineering and bioscience papers are planned. A major step in...
Symposium on Academic Writing, Reading & Thinking
Symposium on Teaching & Research on Academic Writing, Reading & Thinking Date of event: Fri, 29th Sep. 2017 Venue: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Organisers: Dr Chris Khoo & Dr Sujata Kathpalia, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore For more information: see blog page, or Facebook event . Description: Academic writing encompasses all the types of discursive writing that undergraduate and graduate students engage in to satisfy academic requirements at tertiary education institutions. It includes writing essays, literature surveys, research reports and theses. Academic writing also covers writing of research and scholarly papers for journal and conference publications by faculty and PhD students. Academic writing is difficult for students to learn and do well, and difficult for teachers to teach. Thinking is inseparably intertwined with writing. Not only do different subtypes of academic writing require different kinds of thinking, the different sections of a research report require different kinds of thinking and writing...
Article: Literature review writing: How information is selected and transformed
Jaidka, K., Khoo, C.S.G., & Na, J.C. (2013). Literature review writing: How information is selected and transformed. Aslib Proceedings, 65(3), 303-325. Abstract Aim. This paper reports a study of researchers’ preferences in selecting information from cited papers to include in a literature review, and the kinds of transformations and editing applied to the selected information. This is a part of a larger project to develop an automatic summarization method that emulates human literature review writing behaviour. Research Questions. How are literature reviews written – where do authors select information from, what types of information do they select and how do they transform it? What is the relationship between styles of literature review (integrative and descriptive) and each of these variables (source sections, types of information and types of transformation)? Method. We analyzed the literature review sections of 20 articles from the Journal of the American Society for Information Science...
Article: Analysis of the macro-level discourse structure of literature reviews
Khoo, C.S.G., Na, J.-C., and Jaidka, K. (2011). Analysis of the macro-level discourse structure of literature reviews. Online Information Review, 35(2), 255-271. Abstract Purpose . The purpose of this study is to analyze the macro-level discourse structure of literature reviews found in information science journal papers, and to identify different styles of literature review writing. Though there have been several studies of human abstracting, there are hardly any studies of how authors construct literature reviews. This study is carried out in the context of a project to develop a summarization system to generate literature reviews automatically. Method. A coding scheme was developed to annotate the high-level organization of literature reviews, focusing on the types of information. Two sets of annotations were used to check inter-coder reliability. Findings. It was found that literature reviews are written in two distinctive styles, with different discourse structures. Descriptive literature reviews summarize individual...