Establishing a Niche in Research: Rhetorical Strategies in Undergraduate and Postgraduate Writings in the Department of English, University of Cape Coast

Abstract

One key means of negotiating entry into a particular discourse in a research community is via the problem statement section in both research articles and dissertations/theses. Students are mostly confronted with the challenge of establishing a research space. This paper investigates the rhetorical strategies employed by Language students in the Department of English, University of Cape Coast, to establish a niche in their introduction sections. A total of fifty-two introductions were collected from both undergraduate dissertations and postgraduate theses. The data was subjected to a qualitative content analysis. The results of the analysis indicated that both undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) students employed Indicating a Gap as their best choice to establish a niche, with the PGs using it more than the UGs. Both groups of students used Establishing Problem and Need as their next preferred option to create a research space. However, it was only the PGs who used Counter-claiming as the third strategy. These findings of this study have implications for the scholarship on students’ academic writing and pedagogy.

Previous studies have several limitations …: Indonesian Doctoral Students’, Indonesian Academics’, and International Authors’ Research Gap Strategies in ELT Research Article Abstracts and Introductions

“…In writing RAs, authors should propose novel contributions of their research to the advancement of knowledge. Novelty in research functions to help avoid the repetition of already existing knowledge (Ankomah & Afful, 2019). One solution for showing the novelty of research is by presenting research gap(s).…”

“…Hyland's framework (2000) The RA introduction also plays an important role in allowing the author to establish a territory, establish a niche, and occupy the niche (Swales, 1990(Swales, , 2004. This section demands that authors explicitly justify areas that are worthy of study and show their position in the study being conducted (Ankomah & Afful, 2019). In this regard, Swales ' (1990, 2004) Creating a Research Space (CARS) models have been regarded as breakthroughs in guiding non-native and novice authors in writing their introduction sections.…”

“…The curriculum developers have also provided several courses in which the objectives demand the students to produce RAs. Moreover, researchers, who focus on genre analysis of RAs, have also been in the limelight because their reports contribute to the advancement of knowledge, particularly in writing RAs (Ankomah & Afful, 2019;Hu & Liu, 2018;Irawati, Saukah, & Suharmanto, 2018;Kawase, 2018;Keshavarz, Atai, & Barzgar, 2007;Parnawati, Basthomi, & Ruslan, 2017;Rahman, Darus, & Amir, 2017;Rochma, Triastuti, & Ashadi, 2020;Samraj, 2005;Swales, 1990;Swales, 2004;Tanko, 2017). However, in the context of non-native English countries, such as Indonesia, understanding the rhetorical style of English RA is still lacking (Arono & Arsyad, 2019;Arsyad, Purwo, Sukamto, & Adnan, 2019, Khany, Aliakbari, & Mohammadi, 2019Su & Wood, 2012;Yonezawa, 2015).…”

The language of evaluation in academic writing research in Ghana, 2000-2020: A synthesis

“…An emerging area in EAPP research in Ghana, genre studies have assumed two dimensions while addressing directly or implicitly the issue of language of evaluation: a) the staging of moves in introductions (e.g. Adika, 2014;Ankomah & Afful, 2019;Coker & Coker, 2012;Daniels, 2017;Davies, 2014), conclusion (Adzimah, 2019), and b) the move analysis of specific genres such as titles, acknowledgements, and other part-genres. First, Adika (2014) takes a genre approach (CARS model) to analyse 59 introductions of RAs published in Legon Journal of the Humanities, from 2005 to 2010.…”

“…Some studies on establishing a niche show that Ghanaian writers prefer 'Indicating a gap" to other rhetorical strategies (Adika, 2014;Coker & Coker, 2012;Davis, 2014) in the framing of statement of the problem, which has a huge evaluative potential. Ankomah and Afful's (2019) study on establishing a niche utilized two groups of students, undergraduate and postgraduate. This paper investigates the rhetorical strategies employed by Language students in the Department of English, University of Cape Coast, to establish a niche in their introduction sections.…”