Aspects of Article Introductions, Michigan Classics Ed.

by John M. Swales

Overview

Aspects of Article Introductions has bee reissued to make it more easily available than it has ever been, particularly for the use of university libraries and for younger and newer practitioners and researchers in the rapidly expanding and increasingly global field of EAP.

The original Aspects of Article Introductions appeared in fall 1981 as a ring-bound 90-page monograph. The “publisher” was the Language Studies Unit at the University of Aston in Birmingham. Although essentially an “underground” work, it has remained a relevant part of the short intellectual history of English for Academic Purposes, particularly as genre-based or genre-driven approaches to EAP research and pedagogical practice have become  more popular. Its longevity is also a testament to the genre analysis work of John Swales, but in addition, the research article has become the most influential genre in most areas of scholarship, and introductions are at least supposed to be read first and to be designed in such a way as to attract as large readership as possible.

“If I were asked to list the most influential texts in applied linguistics over the last 30 years, John Swales' Aspects of Article Introductions would be in the top three or four. This was a seminal work which not only presented a novel way of analysing texts and a commentary on academic discourse, but one which helped to establish a foundation for the massive interest we see today in describing the structure and features of academic articles. This is not just a text which offers us a glimpse of an intellectual history, but it remains full of fascinating insights and observations about texts and the workings of academic discourse. While the ideas may have evolved and the genre it describes moved on, both the style of writing and the methodology it describes are as fresh and as revealing as anything written on the topic since.”                                                                                   —-Ken Hyland, Hong Kong University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780472034741
Publisher:	University of Michigan Press
Publication date:	06/02/2011
Edition description:	Michigan Classics Edition
Pages:	104
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.30(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Reissue 1

Chapter 1 Introduction 11

1.1 Rationale 11

1.2 The Data 16

1.3 Questions of Approach and Method 17

Chapter 2 Thoughts on Overall Structure 22

2.1 Toward a 4-Move Schema 22

2.2 A Possible Structure for a Major Type of Article Introduction 28

Chapter 3 Move 1?Establishing the Field 30

3.1 General Observations 30

3.2 Asserting Centrality 33

3.3 Other Methods of Field Establishment 35

3.4 Area Cross-Check 37

Chapter 4 Move 2?Summarizing Previous Research 39

4.1 Move 2?Openings 39

4.2 Referencing 41

4.3 Orientation and Tense 46

4.4 Oster's Hypotheses on Tense in Previous Research Descriptions 55

Chapter 5 Move 3?Preparing for Present Research 58

5.1 Gap-Indications 58

5.2 Question-Raising 61

5.3 Finding-Extensions and Missing Third Moves 64

5.4 Area Cross-Check and Conclusions 66

Chapter 6 Move Introducing Present Research 68

6.1 Teleological Fourth Moves 68

6.2 Descriptive Fourth Moves 73

6.3 Two Problematic Introductions 76

6.4 Area Cross-Check and Conclusions 80

Chapter 7 Two Metaphors 82

Chapter 8 Pedagogical Implications 88

References 93