Beverly Lewin

Like the sound of the proverbial tree falling in a forest with no human audience, research that is not ultimately published is 'unheard' and forever lost. Moreover, published research that is not reported well may not stand a chance in today's competitive academic world. Those whose first language is not English bear a double burden in trying to make themselves heard and understood. "Writing Readable Research" tries to help users create texts that are easy to read, interesting, and dynamic, yet conform to current standards of English, to criteria of the fields of social science, and to conventions of society in general. This book gives attention to all the layers of scientific writing, from nitty-gritty problems in grammar and punctuation to sensitive interpersonal issues such as criticism of other authors and advancing one's own claims. It can be used as part of a course or independently by students. Since the intended users of this textbook are novice writers, whether graduate students or new faculty members, the practical issues are spelled out. On the other hand, since these writers are also sophisticated scientists, the book addresses their need to understand the theoretical rationale and historical background for some of the guidelines. Although "Writing Readable Research" concentrates on journal articles, it also provides valuable advice on the preparation of talks and posters for conferences, abstracts, and professional letters. Most of all, it is enhanced with a little humor, lots of authentic examples from published texts, and some challenging tasks for students to complete, presented in an easy-to-read layout.

Like the sound of the proverbial tree falling in a forest with no human audience, research that is not ultimately published is 'unheard' and forever lost. Moreover, published research that is not reported well may not stand a chance in today's competitive academic world. Those whose first language is not English bear a double burden in trying to make themselves heard and understood. "Writing Readable Research" tries to help users create texts that are easy to read, interesting, and dynamic, yet conform to current standards of English, to criteria of the fields of social science, and to conventions of society in general. This book gives attention to all the layers of scientific writing, from nitty-gritty problems in grammar and punctuation to sensitive interpersonal issues such as criticism of other authors and advancing one's own claims. It can be used as part of a course or independently by students. Since the intended users of this textbook are novice writers, whether graduate students or new faculty members, the practical issues are spelled out. On the other hand, since these writers are also sophisticated scientists, the book addresses their need to understand the theoretical rationale and historical background for some of the guidelines. Although "Writing Readable Research" concentrates on journal articles, it also provides valuable advice on the preparation of talks and posters for conferences, abstracts, and professional letters. Most of all, it is enhanced with a little humor, lots of authentic examples from published texts, and some challenging tasks for students to complete, presented in an easy-to-read layout.

This volume provides a detailed and explicit account of the genre of social science research articles. While previous literature has analyzed some aspects of the research genre separately, this book presents a comprehensive model, which characterizes the generic, registerial and discoursal options as they interweave within a text.

This volume provides a detailed an explicit account of the genre of social science research articles. While previous literature has analysed some aspects of the research genre separately, this book presents a comprehensive model which characterizes the generic, registerial and discoursal options as they interweave within a text. Another important contribution of the analysis is the formulation of explicit realization statements that relate the abstract categories of move and act (as described by Swales) to the way these units are actually created by lexical and grammatical choices. The realization networks draw on the work of systemic functional linguistics, primarily Halliday, Hasan, Martin and Ventola. The added emphasis in this study is that research texts are ultimately persuasive texts, and genre 'constraints' can be tightened or loosened in response to the rhetorical dimension. The description of the social science research genre is important both for those teaching English to speakers and readers of other languages and for researchers in discourse structure. For teachers, the detailed analysis of texts and the method for determining realization rules will help in guiding students who must understand and produce research articles. For researchers, the qualitative and quantitative analyses show how the different levels of abstraction, from the genre itself to its moves, acts and wordings, are related to each other. Lastly, this analysis can serve as a model for future descriptions of other academic and professional genres.