ENGLISH FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES (UB00502)

SEMESTER 2, 2018/2019
GROUP ASSIGNMENT
SECTION 4

PREPARED FOR:
BETHY LEE

PREPARED BY:
NO. NAME MATRIX NUMBER SIGNATURE

1. CHELSEA ROSE HADDY BB18110652

2. WAN NAJWA BINTI WAN MOHD BS17110181

BAKRI

SUBMISSION DATE:

5th MAY 2019__

Table of Contents

Page

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Abstract

The introduction section in a journal article is said to be a crucial rhetorical function that

justifies the study being reported (Samraj, 2005). The aim of writing an introduction in a research

article is to give readers the perspective they need to understand the specific information coming

in the next few sections. As we compare the introduction section of two different disciplines;

discipline A: applied science; environmental science and discipline B: social science; economic

science. A total of 12 articles from two disciplines namely economics study and environmental

science study were collected. In each discipline there are two journal articles and three research

articles were collected from each journal articles. These articles were selected from a website

called science direct.com respectively to the disciplines. Only articles that were published in 2019

and are related to the two disciplines chosen had to be selected. Some articles have a high or

low frequency of the information element concerned. There are also similarities found between

the two articles in terms of the frequencies of the information element concerned. Unfortunately,

there are limitations while doing our research such as less amount of sample articles and limited

knowledge on the articles. Due to these limitations, it is suggested that more articles should be

compared on the elements and that we should fully understand the articles picked for significant

results.

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1. Introduction

A research article is defined as a paper written by an investigator to characterize a

research study that he or she has concluded (Weissberg and Buker, 2005). Over the last 20 years,

numerous studies on academic writing have been dedicated to the research article, specifically

its structure, social construction and historical evolution (Samraj, 2002). Studies have shown that

the structure of a research article begins with an introduction (e.g Swales, 1981, Swales, 1990,

Swales and Najjar, 1987) followed by methods (e.g. Bruce, 1983, Swales, 1990), results (e.g.

Brett, 1994, Thompsom, 1993), discussions (Hopkins & Dudley-Evans, 1988) and even the

abstracts (Salager-Meyer, 1990, Salager-Meyer, 1992). One aspect of the research articles that

has been most studied is the introduction.

Coincidentally, the focus of this research is on the introduction section of research articles.

The elements in an introduction can be split into five parts; general statements, specific statement

about of the aspect of the problem, statement that indicate the need for more investigation, very

specific statements giving the purpose of the study and an optional statement that gives a value

for carrying out the study (Weissberg and Buker, 2005). The aim of writing an introduction in a

research article is to give readers the perspective they need to understand the specific information

coming in the next few sections. Introductions provide a first impression, builds credibility with

your readers and prepare your readers for the research article’s content. According to a previous

study by Samraj (2005), he proposed that “studies of introductions in research articles have made

it clear that a crucial rhetorical function of introductions is to justify the study being reported”.

The purpose of this research is to compare the introduction section, particularly the gap

indication, research questions and purpose statements of two different disciplines; discipline A:

1
applied science; environmental science and discipline B: social science; economics and examine

the amount of each elements appearing in the introduction section of the articles in both

disciplines. Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that combines biological,

physical and information sciences to the study of the environment while economics studies the

production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. Comparing the introduction

section of these two articles from two different disciplines enable us to explore how much these

two disciplines differ from each other in their article introductions.

To date, there are no specific studies that compare the introduction section of these two

disciplines. This research also aims to find the similarities and differences between the article

introductions between environmental science and economics. After analyzing the introduction

part of both disciplines, the results of our analysis reveal similarities in terms of the gap indication

and the purpose statement. Research questions in the article introductions of both disciplines are

hardly found.

2
2. Methodology

A total of 12 articles from two disciplines namely economics study and environmental

science study were collected. In each discipline there are two journal articles and three research

articles were collected from each journal articles. These journal articles were selected from a

website called science direct.com respectively to the disciplines. The two journals selected for this

study, namely International journal of production economics and Journal of Asian economics for

social science course of economics, meanwhile Journal of Marine Policy and Journal of Marine

Pollution Bulletin for course of environmental science. Selection criteria of these articles included

that they were published in 2019, related to the two disciplines chosen and followed the IRMD

structure.

Twelve articles were extracted from both of the disciplines studied. Next, those articles

were analyzed based on three elements which are gap indication, purpose statement and research

question. All these data were collected and tabulated in respect to the three elements mentioned;

table 1 shows the frequency and the percentage of texts containing gap indications, purpose

statements and research questions in the articles on Economics and Environmental Science and

Table 2 shows the example of information elements in the research articles related to Economics

and Environmental Science; respected to specific field of study. This is to see the distinct

difference between applied science research articles and social science research articles based on

the three elements, namely gap indication, purpose statement and research question.

3
 There are no special equipment needed during the analyzing process of 12 articles as all

the data obtained were done manually. Firstly, we started by reading and understanding the 12

research articles. Next, we examine the three elements, particularly the gap indication, purpose

statement and the research question that are found in the introduction section of the 12 articles.

of two disciplines. Once we have identified the three elements found in the introduction section,

we analyzed the frequencies and calculated the percentages of texts containing the three

elements and tabulated the data into two different disciplines. The two tables obtained from the

analyzed data will be discussed further in the result and discussion sections of this report.

4
3. Results

The elements that appear in all or most of the articles in each discipline is the purpose

statement (100%) as shown in table 1. This element is important to introduce the reader to the

importance of the topic being studied. Other than that, the purpose statement exposes the goal

or the objective of the study.

The research question is rarely used in the articles of each discipline. This may be due to

the article being descriptive. 50% of the articles include the information element concerned in

each discipline. Some articles have a high or low frequency of the information element concerned,

for example, the purpose statement. This is because the writer may have more than one purpose

for writing the journal while some writers only have one purpose.

The similarities found between the two articles in terms of the frequencies of the

information element concerned is the purpose statement. As seen in table 1, both journal articles

have a percentage of 100% for purpose statement. Meanwhile, the differences found between

the two articles would be the research question. The journal articles of environmental science has

a percentage of 0% for its research question while the journal articles of economics has 16.7%.

differences in the availability of the research question could be ascribed to some features about

the two disciplines. Environmental Science is an applied science while Economics is a social

science. The writing style in the applied sciences seeks to explain complex phenomena in clear ,

straightforward text that minimizes authorial bias. In the social sciences, the research questions

establishes the means by which some readers should answer the “So What?” question. Some of

writing style in the social sciences are not very straightforward and would use the research

question instead to give them a clear statement on the literature review.

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 Discipline A: Applied Science (Environmental Science)
Frequency Gap indication Purpose statement Research question
RA 1 1 4 0
RA 2 1 1 0
RA 3 0 3 0
RA 4 0 2 0
RA 5 2 2 0
RA 6 0 4 0
RAs 1-6 4 16 0
No. of articles 3 6 0
Percentage of articles (%) 50.0 100.0 0
Discipline B: Social Science (Economics)
Frequency Gap Indication Purpose Statement Research Question
RA 7 1 2 0
RA 8 1 1 0
RA 9 0 1 0
RA 10 0 2 0
RA 11 0 2 1
RA 12 1 1 0
RAs 7-12 3 9 1
No. of articles 3 6 1
Percentage of articles (%) 50.0 100.0 16.7
Table 1: Frequencies and percentages of texts containing gap indicators, purpose statements
and research questions in the articles on Economics and Environmental Science.

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 Information Discipline Instance
Element/ stage
Gap indication Economics However, as stated by Tiwary et al. (2015), these initiatives
have largely focused on investment in new technology, in
developing energy-efficient equipment and facilities while the
reduction that could be achieved from a supply chainand
logistics perspective has been subject to less attention.

However, measurement of CG and detailed analysis of the nexus between CG

and financial performance (FP) remains an underdeveloped
area particularly with respect to Asian MFIs. The general
literature on CG highlights the importance of studying the
direction of causality between CG and performance. This is still
an under researched area in the microfinance literature.
Environmenta Cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), and mercury (Hg) are general heavy
l science metal toxicants, and cause toxicology renal effects at high
concentrations: but there is not enough information on
the health risk of low dose exposure to these compunds (kim
et. al., 2015)
Caspian littoral countries adopted policies such as sturgeon
fishing ban for commercial purposes to restore sturgeon
populations, but results have not been satisfactory
enough to compensate for the loss of stocks due to lack of
practical coordination, and the populations continue to decline.
Purpose Economics This paper focuses on understanding the carbon footprint
statement associated with international maritime container supply chains.
This paper analyzes the impact of the key contributing
factors on the longer term variation of CO2 emissions in global
container shipping.
Environmenta In this study, we investigated the effect of M. japonicus
l science crab on the contamination source through expression analysis
of the key chitinase genes, which are most for the exoskeleton
formation of M. japonicus crab, because the chitin exoskeleton
of crab is continuously exposed to environmental pollution.
The aim of this study is to investigate the effect on chitin
exoskeleton of mud crab following according to heavy metals
in the estuarine sediments.
Research Economics This study aims to answer an important research question:
question Do foreign investors behave differently than domestic
investors during times of crisis?
Environmenta -
l science
Table 2: Examples of information elements in the research articles related to Economics and
Environmental Science.

7
 Table 2 shows two examples of each elements found in the article introductions of two

different disciplines. These examples were obtained from the twelve articles after analyzing the

data. There are keywords found in the information elements that can help in determining the

elements found in the article introductions. For instance, gap indication will usually use words

that describe the distinction between variables or factors. As seen in the Economics’ discipline,

the words and sentences like “…results have not been satisfactory enough…” explains the

distinction and the gap between the variables. Moving on to the next element, the purpose

statement. Purpose statement is one of the most appeared element in every research articles

where it indicates the aim and the purpose of the research articles. Words like “The aim of

this study…", “The purpose of the study…” describes the element. The last element

concerned is the research question. Based on the tabulated data, research questions are rarely

found especially in the Environmental Science study. It is easy to determine a research question

as it is usually in a form of a question.

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Discussion

The research aims to compare the introduction section, particularly the gap indication,

research questions and purpose statements of two different disciplines; discipline A: applied

science; environmental science and discipline B: social science; economic science and to examine

the amount of each elements appearing in the introduction section of the articles in both

disciplines. Fortunately, the objective of this paper has been achieved. We were able to find

significant results after comparing the article introductions of both disciplines. It was found that

the major findings of this study is the purpose statement which were found in all the twelve

articles. It is also an important information element found in the articles of the two disciplines

because it states the aim of why the study is conducted. In the other hand, the research question

was rarely found in the articles of both disciplines.

Our second objective of this paper which is to find the similarities and differences between

the article introductions between environmental science and economics has also been achieved.

We were able to find the similarities of the article introductions of both discipline which is the

purpose statement element and the gap indication element. We were also able to find the

differences of the article introductions of both discipline which is the availability of the research

question. Only research articles from the economics study has the research question element

while there are none in the environmental science study.

It is unclear at this point if the use of research question is a recent development in the

evolution of research articles in the Environmental Science study. However, in our opinion, we

think that the differences in the availability of the research question could be ascribed to some

features about the two disciplines. Environmental Science is an applied science while Economics

9
is a social science. The writing style in the applied sciences seeks to explain complex phenomena

in clear , straightforward text that minimizes authorial bias. In the social sciences, the research

questions establishes the means by which some readers should answer the “So What?” question.

Some of writing style in the social sciences are not very straightforward and would use the

research question instead to give them a clear statement on the literature review.

Unfortunately, there are some limitations when doing our research. One of them being

(1) the selections of only 12 sample articles, the comparison of only 3 elements in an introduction

section and (2) limitations in knowledge on the articles picked. Selecting only 12 sample articles

does give us the results we need to find out. However, the results are not very significant. For

instance, the purpose statement elements and the gap indication elements appearing in the article

introductions of both disciplines have the same percentage which is 100% and 50% respectively.

There are not much differences found between these two disciplines in their article introductions

aside from the availability of the research questions.

As for the second limitation, comparing only 3 elements in the article introductions of both

disciplines don’t give very significant results. The 3 elements can be easily found in the 12 articles.

However, it does not show how the two disciplines can greatly differ from each other in terms of

their introduction section.

The third limitation is a personal limitation. Since the articles chosen should be articles

related to our field of study, which is Environmental Science and Economics, it is hard to fully

understand the articles of these two fields as the two disciplines uses scientific terms that we

have not learned yet and the usage of difficult words in the articles. This can cause us to overlook

some of the 3 elements found in the articles. Therefore, we have a hard time to find for more

significant results in the article introductions of both disciplines.

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 For future studies, it is recommended to find for more articles to make comparing of the

elements of the introduction section easier. It is also recommended to compare more elements

of the introduction section so that significant differences can be found between the two disciplines.

Besides that, researchers who wants to to do a research regarding this topic should try to

understand the articles that they have picked. Find a more simple research article topics without

hard scientific terms. Bring a dictionary to refer to when stumbling upon difficult words in the

articles picked.

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References

Bailey, S. (2018). Academic Writing: A Handbook for International Students (5th ed.) New York:
Routledge.

Cargill, M., & O’ Connor, P. (2009). Writing Scientific Research Articles: Strategy and Steps, 5-7,
10, 37-40. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Samraj, B. (2005). An Exploration of a Genre Set: Research Article Abstracts and Introduction in
Two Disciplines. English for Specific Purposes 24, 141-56.

Samraj, B. (2001, October 30). Introductions in research articles: Variations across disciplines.
Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889490600000235.

Swales, John M. (2004). Research Genres: Exploration and Application, 226-234. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Swales, John M. (2017, December 23). Strengthening move analysis methodology towards
bridging the function-form gap. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889490617303332.

Weissberg, R., & Buker, S. (2005). Writing up Research: Experimental Research Report Writing
for Students of English. Selangor: Prentice Hall Regents.

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Appendix

Figure 1.0: The two selected journal articles from the Environmental Science field,
Marine Pollution Bulletin (Left) & Marine Policy (Right).

Figure 1.1 The two selected journal articles from the Economics field,
International Journal of Production Economics (left) & Journal of Asian Economics
(right).

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Figure 2.0: The three selected research articles in the Marine Pollution Bulletin journal.

14
15
Figure 2.1: The three selected research articles in the Marine Policy journal.

16
Figure 3.0: The three selected research articles in the International Journal of
Production Economics journal.

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Figure 3.1: The three selected research articles in the Journal of Asian Economics
journal.

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