This volume examines rhetorical conventions employed in mechanical engineering research to understand the knowledge-making principles of the discipline, as well as their expression within the research article. In particular, the study analyses the organisational pattern of mechanical engineering research articles using Swales's conceptualisation of moves and steps. In addition, the research identifies the phraseology associated with specific moves and steps. The study draws on a corpus of 120 mechanical engineering research articles, equally distributed across two sub-disciplines (mechanical systems and thermal-fluids engineering), three research traditions (experimental, theoretical and mixed methods), and two publication periods (2002-2006 and 2012-2016). It adopts an integrated methodology, intertwining various approaches and perspectives including corpus linguistics, move analysis, discourse analysis and interviews to address two main strands of research enquiry: (i) What are the properties of the rhetorical structures in terms of range, frequency, and length for each section of mechanical engineering research articles? (ii) What effect does sub-discipline, research tradition and publication date have on the rhetorical structure of research articles?

This volume examines rhetorical conventions employed in mechanical engineering research to understand the knowledge-making principles of the discipline, as well as their expression within the research article. In particular, the study analyses the organisational patterns of mechanical engineering research articles using Swales’s conceptualisation of moves and steps. In addition, the research identifies the phraseology associated with specific moves and steps. The study draws on a corpus of 120 mechanical engineering research articles, equally distributed across two sub-disciplines (mechanical systems and thermal-fluids engineering), three research traditions (experimental, theoretical and mixed methods), and two publication periods (2002–2006 and 2012–2016). It adopts an integrated methodology, intertwining various approaches and perspectives including corpus linguistics, move analysis, discourse analysis and interviews to address two main strands of research enquiry: (i) What are the properties of the rhetorical structures in terms of range, frequency, and length for each section of mechanical engineering research articles? (ii) What effect does sub-discipline, research tradition and publication date have on the rhetorical structure of research articles?

Academic discourse has recently become a blooming field of research for linguists interested in genre and discourse analysis, as well as pragmatics. The methodology and conventions employed in academic discourse, however, vary across cultures to a certain degree, and often represent obstacles for publishing in international journals for authors whose native language is not English, as top journals tend to centre on the Anglo-Saxon academic writing norms. This is one of the major reasons why national academic discourses need to be linguistically profiled and studied and contrastively compared against these norms. This volume contributes to this very objective by shedding light on academic discourse as effectuated in various, mostly Balkan countries, and contrasts it against the corresponding western, English discourse. Furthermore, academic discourse is studied through a variety of genres it can assume, such as research articles, conference proceedings, and university lectures. Through exploring the cultural differences in academic discourse and the standards of international academic writing, this volume offers readers a chance to become better equipped in publishing abroad. Opening with a chapter focusing on the general structure of research articles and national writing habits as a potential hindrance to publishing abroad, the book goes on to study the rhetorical structure of the abstracts, introductions and conclusions of research articles in linguistics, economics and civil engineering. The second part of the book deals with hedging, contrastively studied in international and national journals, with the following chapters studying cohesion as accomplished in academic writing. Part three deals with the syntactic and semantic features of academic discourse. This book will be of particular interest to linguists interested in genre and discourse analysis in general and academic discourse, and will also appeal to scholars from other research backgrounds wishing to familiarise themselves with international and national academic conventions, and thus overcome the hurdles relating to academic writing conventions when publishing abroad.

Academic discourse is a rapidly growing area of study, attracting researchers and students from a diverse range of fields. This is partly due to the growing awareness that knowledge is socially constructed through language and partly because of the emerging dominance of English as the language of scholarship worldwide. Large numbers of students and researchers must now gain fluency in the conventions of English language academic discourses to understand their disciplines, establish their careers and to successfully navigate their learning. This accessible and readable book shows the nature and importance of academic discourses in the modern world, offering a clear description of the conventions of spoken and written academic discourse and the ways these construct both knowledge and disciplinary communities. This unique genre-based introduction to academic discourse will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying TESOL, applied linguistics, and English for Academic Purposes.

In this volume, Mark Waldo argues that writing across the curriculum (WAC) programs should be housed in writing centers and explains an innovative approach to enhancing their effectiveness: focus WAC on the writing agendas of the disciplines. He asserts that WAC operation should reflect an academy characterized by multiple language communities--each with contextualized values, purposes, and forms for writing, and no single community's values superior to another's. Starting off with an examination of the core issue, that WAC should be promoting learning to write in the disciplines instead of writing to learn, Waldo proposes: *housing WAC in comprehensive writing centers independent of any other department; *using dialogue and inquiry rather than prescriptive techniques in the WAC program's interaction with faculty in other disciplines; and *phasing out writing assessment that depends on one test measuring the writing abilities of students from all disciplines. In the process of making his case, Waldo discusses tutor training, faculty consultancy, and multilayered assessment programs. In addition to presenting the theoretical and practical advantages of discipline-based WAC programs, he also offers clear and compelling evidence from his own institution that supports the success of this approach to writing instruction. Demythologizing Language Difference in the Academy: Establishing Discipline-Based Writing Programs will be of interest to writing program and WAC administrators; writing center administrators; graduate students studying composition; and educators and graduate students involved in WAC initiatives, research, and study.