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Managing general and specific information in introductions
Pergamon
English for Specific Purposes, Vol. 14. No. 1, pp. 59-75, 1995 Copyright 0 1995 The American University Printed in the USA. All rights resew&l 0889.4906195 $9.50 + .OO
0889.4906(94)00026-3
Managing General and Specific Information in Introductions Renu Gupta Abstract - Introductions to research articles are structured such that there is a flow of information from general to more specific levels of information. This structure can present problems for student writers because they need to simultaneously handle the hierarchical as well as the linear structure of the discourse. This paper examines the introductions written by three international graduate students and identifies three problems: choice and statement of the macrotheme, oscillation between levels of information, and inclusion of over-specific information. Such introductions create problems for both the writer, during the writing process, and for the reader who is processing the text. The revision of these introductions and the role played by the writing conference are also discussed.
Introduction Introductions are an integral part of a research paper, but they are extremely difficult to write. Student writers who are often able to formulate the body of their term papers fairly successfully find that the introduction remains a stumbling block; they are either unable to see the purpose of the introduction or unable to realize it in their own introductions. There are various reasons why introductions present such a problem for writers. In terms of the process, the introduction is usually written last. The writer than has to move out of the details of the experiment or argument given in the paper and retrace the logic of thought that came prior to it. In addition, the introduction represents the link between the audience and the writer’s work; introductions are successful insofar as they are able to bridge the gap between the intended reader’s knowledge base and the research paper. Analyses of the structure and linguistic features of introduction help us understand and teach student writers how to frame introductions. Swales (1981,1984, 1990a) has shown through detailed analyses that the introductions of scientific research articles can be partitioned into three moves: field establishment and description of previous research, gap indication, and introduction of present research. The linguistic features typically found in each move have been identified by Gnutzman and Oldenburg (1991). These descriptions of
Address correspondence Technological University,
to: Renu Gupta, School of Arts/English Language Singapore 1025, e-mail: guptarCanievax.nie.ac.sg.
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& Applied Linguistics,
Nanyang
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typical introductions help student writers by presenting them with a template they can follow (see, for example, textbooks such as Huckin & Olsen 1991). Despite these descriptions, student writers, and nonnative writers in particular, find it difficult to structure their introductions in a manner that makes the text coherent for the reader. Their problems arise from two sources: the structuring of discourse and the overall structure of the introduction. Discourse, especially expository prose, is organized both hierarchically and linearly, i.e., the text is arranged hierarchically but the sentences are written (and read) linearly (Hinds 1979). At the same time, introductions have an overall structure that appears to be specific to introductions and is treated as such in textbooks. Textbooks such as Oshima and Hogue (1991: 78-79) describe the overall structure of the introduction as a funnel, with the most general information at the beginning, gradually narrowing in level of generality until it ends with the specific research question that will be tackled in the body of the paper. A potential problem for student writers that has been noted by Wilkinson (1991) is the choice of end-points in this funnel: they may begin with information that is too general (given the audience) or they may become too specific towards the end of the introduction, by going into the details of the paper. Thus, the student writer is expected to structure an introduction so that it follows a general-to-specific format, as well as devise a hierarchical structure and simultaneously check the linear progression of the discourse. The problems this presents for nonnative writers will be examined in this paper.
Structuring Discourse We have stated that expository prose is organized both hierarchically and linearly (Hinds 1979). The hierarchical structure of texts can be seen in a unit, such as a paragraph, where the sentences are not a random collection but have a unified orientation. Hinds depicts this relationship as a tree, where the superordiiate node represents the ‘topic’of the unit under which the sentences are collected. This is not necessarily the only method of organizing texts. In looking at the thematic progression of texts, Danes (1974) identified three possible methods: (a) linear, where each theme becomes the rheme of the following sentence: (b) constant, where one theme has several rhemes embedded below it; and (c) derived, in which themes are derived from a hypertheme. While Type (a) can be used to organize texts (Fries 1983), it appears to be less common than Type (b) for expository prose. Type (b), where several rhemes are subordinated to a single theme, is commonly used in scientific texts (Danes 1974); it is also similar to the hierarchical structure found in expository prose by Hinds (1979). This hierarchical structure is not confined to scientific texts but can be applied and expected of expository prose from other nonscientific disciplines too. In the case of nonnative readers, the frequency of use of this structure gives them a handle on the writing process. Such a hierarchical structure does not hold merely at the paragraph level;
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Introductions
Martin (1993) finds this true of larger sketches of text where subsections, chapters and even books are organized in the same way so that they have themes at a higher level of organization, called Macro-Themes. Since the introduction to a research article can be considered a distinct subsection, readers expect it to follow the same conventions, namely, to have a clear macrotheme under which various themes are developed; these themes, in turn, would have a collection of ideas grouped under them. Although the paragraph or subsection is organized hierarchically, the sentences are written sequentially and read linearly. One model which incorporates the hierarchical structure of discourse with the linear order of the elements is found in the Linguistic Discourse Model developed by Polanyi (1985, 1988). Polanyi’s model captures the structural and semantic relations among the units of a discourse by describing the left-to-right, clause-by-clause construction of a discourse parse tree. Figure 1 illustrates one such tree. Because the parser processes discourse from left to right, nodes to the left are considered closed or inaccessible, and incoming information can be attached only to right-hand nodes. If a speaker/writer wants to add information to a node that has already been abandoned or closed, a new node has to be created and the connection with the old unit made explicit. When new information does not fit under any existing open node (as, for example, when there is a change of topic), a new node has to be created at a structurally higher level and on the right-hand side of the tree. This model explains how, although sentences are organized hierarchically under a themeimacrotheme, they can be added linearly to the text in such a way that the text remains a unified whole. In one sense, this model mimics the behavior of a reader processing text, who reads the sentences linearly but has to integrate the information into a preexisting text structure. For student writers, this hierarchical-plus-linear structure may pose problems. Not only does each sentence have to add new information, but it also has to fit into the overall discourse scheme. This requires considerable control over the writing process, which student writers usually do not have. In this paper, I examine the hierarchical and linear structure of introductions written
closed
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clo ed
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A closed
Figure
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1. A Discourse Tree showing open and closed nodes (from Polanyi 1985).
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by L2 students. The lack of coherence in these introductions can be traced to the poor structuring of the information, which is a result of the conflicting demands of the hierarchical and linear structure. Students’ concern with linear structuring leads them to ignore the overall hierarchical structure, resulting in poorly articulated macrothemes. Data Collection
and Analysis
The data come from term papers written by three international graduate students studying at a university in the U.S. The papers were written for regular graduate-level courses in the students’ specific fields; at the same time, these papers served as one of their assignments for a required writing course in an ESL program, for which I was the instructor. These three papers were chosen because they are the clearest examples of the kinds of problems other students had with their introductions. The three students came from different disciplines; Carmen from Latin American studies, Toru from political science, and Minoru from organic chemistry. For Carmen and Toru, this was their first quarter in an American university and, hence, their first attempts at writing a paper in English. Minoru was in his second year at the university, and he was writing up a progress report on his experiments. For the writing course, students gave drafts of their papers to the instructor, discussed them in a writing conference, and re-worked them as necessary. In several cases, due to time pressure from their regular course-work, students handed in revised drafts without feedback from their writing instructor. For each introduction, only the problem sections have been analyzed; the text of the entire introduction is available in the appendices. For the analysis, the theme of each clause/sentence was identified and the progression of the ideals was diagrammed using Polanyi’s Discourse Model. In the case of Toru’s introduction, I have numbered the clauses/sentences in the text to make it easier to follow the linear progression of the ideas. The three papers exhibit problems at two levels: at the topmost level there are problems with the macrotheme, and at lower levels there is a wealth of specific detail that more properly belongs in the body of the paper. In addition, there are abrupt transitions between levels of information, posing problems not only for the writer but also for the reader. Carmen’s Introduction Carmen had to write a paper on the late colonial period in Spanish America for a course in Latin American history. Her introduction is given in Appendix 1; here, I have analyzed only those paragraphs (Paragraphs 3 and 4) that present a structural problem. Paragraph 3 of the introduction lays out the intention of Carmen’s essay. Paragraph 4, on the other hand, merely lists random points that she will develop in the body of the paper.
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[Draft 1 Paragraphs
3 & 41
The purpose of the essay is to show the character of the late colonial Spanish societies. We intend to depict a society in a process of change: with old and new trends in tension. We want to show part of the map and film. We also want to suggest some consequences of this process. The society was in a process of change. It was organized hierarchically. The society was fragmented and particularly at the end of the colonial period was unbalanced. This was caused by the Bourbonic policies, the internal economic structure, two competing ideologies: the medieval and the enlightened, the structure of the societies, and the relationships among different regions. Some of the results of these processes of change were societies with tight upper classes and huge part of the population of low income, the consolidation of an unequal distribution of the wealth, societies nerve fully integrated, Europe and U.S. as a mirror or model, the importance of the church never completely apart, and the incipient relevancy of the army, the recognition of some regional identity. This process would give the basis for the revolutions of independence. The result of the process was not in accordance to the Enlightened model. Different cultures and institutions with roots in opposite ideologies will survive. The pre-Columbian, the medieval order, and the enlightened order were in tension. As a result of this process of change the ancient, the old and the new were found in a new relationship.
The information in these two paragraphs can be represented as shown in Figure 2. From Figure 2, we can see the first problem Carmen has: she never explicitly states the macrotheme of the two paragraphs, and the reader is left to infer that the macrotheme is something such as, the character of the Spanish colonial societies gave the basis for the independence movements. After a partial statement of this macrotheme, Carmen moves to Level 2. Here she needs to set up 4 nodes, but in Paragraph 3 she succeeds in setting up only 3 nodes: the structure of the society, the changes, and their consequences. We have to wait for the end of the introduction in Paragraph 4 to get a statement of the fourth node, i.e., the new relationshi&. The reader, then, has to re-organize the scheme of the introduction. A third problem arises when Carmen is tempted into developing one of the nodes at Level 3 by extending it into Level 4 (i.e., the competing ideologies are the medieval and the enlightened). Thus, there are several reasons why this introduction may confuse a reader. Since two crucial nodes are either implicit or stated too late in the text, the reader has to make inferences as well as re-organize the mental representation of the text. Next, since the writer oscillates between Levels 2 and 3, the reader is never clear about the level the information is at and what the development of the argument is. An additional problem, but this time for the writer, can be seen in the way the information the enlightened model is handled. In Node 2, Level 4 Carmen first mentions the enlightened model; she picks up this tread later at the end of the paragraph (this was not in accordance with the enlightened model) but under a different node - Node 4. Here Carmen is trying to link items in
L*v.l 1
of societies
was
Figure 2. Carmen’s introduction.
basis of revolutions]
[Character
Introductions
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different nodes, one of which has been blocked off by an intervening node Node 3. For this link to work successfully, at Node 4 Carmen needs to go back up the tree to the macrotheme, and then go down through Node 2. This particular problem does not merely present problems of coherence for the reader; it also creates extraordinary difficulties for the writer because the connections have to be forced. Due to lack of time, Carmen handed in a revised draft without any feedback from the instructor. Paragraph 3 of this new version is reproduced below: it shows none of the structural problems of the first version. [Draft 2 Paragraph 31 The purpose of this essay is to show the character of the late Spanish colonial societies at the end of the eighteenth century. The question that underlies our paper is how were the societies informed in a way that give the basis for the independence movements? Is not our objective to explain these movements. We want to explain the structure of these societies, the changes that affected them in the period, and the results of that process of changes. We will explain how the society was taking four variables into account: race, membership to a corporate body, wealth, and gender. We will also explain the changes of the society takiig the introduction of the enlightenment as a catalyst. The reason that we propose this is that it broke the balance that Thomism had achieved in colonial society. The relevance of the paper is the emphasis put on the ideological system helps better to understand the structure of these societies and the processes of change.
In this second version, Carmen has clearly articulated the macrotheme and deleted over-specific information. In fact, her first version is less an introduction than a memory dump for points she may forget. Toru’s Introduction
Toni’s introduction displays problems similar to Carmen’s with lack of a macrotheme, depth of information, and node of attachment. His introduction comes from a paper titled “The Role of Japan in Industrial Asia in the 1990s: The changing relations among Japan, the U.S. and Asia,” which was written for a course on the rise of industrial Asia. In his paper, he argues that the U.S. set up the current Asian economic situation, that this role should now be assumed by Japan, and that there are several factors that Japan should consider in playing this new role. His entire introduction is reproduced below, with the sentences numbered for the analysis. Draft 1 (1) Asian economy, including Japan, recorded a remarkable growth after World War II. (2) Economic success started from Japan in the 1950s (3) and expanded to the ANIEs and then to ASEAN. (4) These economic developments increased
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the interdependence between Japan and Asian countries mainly through trade and investment. (5) But these countries did not achieve such economic recovery and development only by themselves, but with the help of the US, which played an indispensable role as an absorber of exports and as a supplier of capital, technology, and security. (6) However, certain changes can be observed in these roles of the US since the middle of the 197Os, such as trade conflicts with Asian countries and, more recently, regional approaches to the world economy. (7) These changes may have negative intluence on the healthy and stable economic growth of the region, (8) In this kind of situations, [sic] Japan, as a major economic power of the region must take certain actions. (9) Since the interdependence between Japan and Asia is increased like today, there is a significant necessity for Japan to promote the economic development of Asian countries, and consequently to keep its own prosperity and security, with maintaining a smooth relation with the U.S. (10) Many books have been written regarding the role of Japan in Asia (ex. Tsuchiya 1987, Eguchi 1988, MIT1 1990, Okiioto 1990), (11) but in this paper, I would like to reconstruct Japan’s role (12) with a classification of absorber (13) and supplier, (14) in consideration with the change of the U.S. role in Asia. In giving this economic policy proposal, (15) very recent changes, (16) such as decrease of capital outflow from Japan due to the “collapse of bubble economy,” (17) and the third meeting of APEC held in November of this year, will also be examined. In this paper, (18) the changes of role of the U.S., as a absorber of exports and supplier of capital, technology in Asian region, will be examined first, (19) then the role Japan should play will be examined accordingly, and finally (20) what Japan should request to Asian countries and the U.S. in carrying out these new Japan’s role more effectively will be studied.
For the reader who expects introductions to research articles to follow the conventions laid out in Swales’ 3 Moves, this introduction presents a problem. Sentences l-7 in Paragraph 1 clearly establish the context through Move 1, Step 1 while Sentence 10, as a summary of the research, signals Move 1, Step 3. The reader assumes that the intervening sentences, i.e., Sentences 8-9, are part of Move 1 and their purpose is to establish the context. It is only at the end of Paragraph 2/‘beginning of Paragraph 3, where the purpose of the paper is stated explicitly, that one realizes that Sentences 8-9 are not meant as background to the paper but are the actual thesis of the paper and are, in fact, part of Move 3. At this point - halfway through the introduction - the reader has to reconstruct the mental representation of the paper so that what was first read as part of the background information and an established fact now becomes the argument to be developed in the paper. One solution to this problem is to eliminate Sentence 9 altogether. This would allow Toru to remain on the topic of the Role of Japan and cite the relevant research without revealing the details of the proposal. However, in Paragraph 2 a similar problem with location and movement between details resurfaces. Figure 3 represents one possible analysis of the introduction; the numbers at each node represent the clause/sentence number in the text which conveys that information. Numbers in bold type show clauses/sentences of particular
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Introductions [Changes in Economic Roles]
Level 1
Level 2
mole of the US] 04)
Level 3
w
What Japan needs
Policy Proposal
IO do (9) Level 4
Absorber (12)
Supplier
Recent changes (15)
(13)
capital
Level 5
(16)
APEC (17)
Figure 3. Toru’s introduction.
interest for the analysis. The diagram begins with sentence 8, where the major problems begin. It is difficult to identify the macrotheme of the text because Toru does not set up the themes hierarchically but uses a linear method of development. We can see this process of chaining in Sentences 5-7 where role of the U.S. is picked up from Sentence 5 to become Changes in the role of the U.S. in Sentence 6, which then operates as the theme of Sentence 7. The alternative is to deduce the macrotheme on the basis of lexical repetition; since the words role and changes are repeated in Paragraph 1, the reader can infer that the macrotheme is either Changes in economic roles or Role of Japan. Either way, Toru faces the same problems in structuring the information.’ In Sentences 8-9, Toru states the specific role Japan should play; it is the argument that he will develop later in the paper. By stating it at the end of Paragraph 1, he gets it out of the way, hoping to pick it up later. This creates a problem for him because he can only attach incoming information to righthand nodes. On two occasions (Sentences 14 and la), he attaches information to the node Role of the U.S., which is on the left-hand side and has been closed Off.
A second problem with such a structure is that in order for connections to be made, the writer has to move between differing levels of information. In the transition between Sentences 17 and 18, there is an abrupt jump from Level 5
1 Two independent raters disagreed on the macrotheme of the text: however, both came to the same conclusion as I did about the analysis, i.e., that (a) too many specific details were given under the node Role of/spun, and (b) the writer kept returning to the left-hand node.
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up to Level 2, which confuses the reader about the level of information being offered. Again, in Sentence 20, there is a return to Levels 2 and 3; this transition to a higher level pulls the introduction together but at the same time it makes obvious that the entire section under Policy Proposal is an add-on, with details that may be too specific for an introduction. From the perspective of the reader, this introduction is very confusing. To solve the problem, a clear macrotheme needs to be set up and information slotted in from left to right nodes, rather than being attached to nodes that the reader had mentally closed off. In addition, information should not be developed to the depth Toru did. In the writing conference, we were able to tackle only the final problem, i.e., depth of information. Toru had developed one of the nodes as far as Level 5 descending into specific details of his paper. This specificity was so obvious that when I pointed to Paragraph 2, Toru immediately picked out Sentences 15-17 and said they needed to be taken out of the introduction. The other problems with the introduction - i.e., lack of macrotheme and returns to the left-hand node - could not be tackled for lack of time. Minoru’s
Introduction
Of the three papers, Miioru’s paper in organic chemistry underwent the most extensive revisions; over a period of 2 months, the paper went through seven drafts. Minoru was writing his paper for publication; at the same time, it was to serve as a progress report for his supervisor. In this paper, Miioru was reporting on the results of experiments in three areas: (a) 1,6-enynes with 5-membered rings; (b) 1,7-enynes; and (c) the potential of TCPCHFB as a catalyst. Draft 1 is given below: [Draft 11 The cycloisomerization of 1,6-enynes to 1,3-enynes and/or 1,4dienes catalyzed by palladium TCPC (Tetrakis(carbomethoxy)cyclopentadien) has been studied by Trost et aI (Path a in Scheme 1).
[Figure given here] During this study, the cycloisomerization of 1,6-enynes to another, 1,3dienes was also found to take place (Path b). This rearrangement was proposed to proceed via a four-membered carbocyck intermediate.’ Evidence for this mechanism was obtained when a more electron deficient catalyst than TCPC, TCPCHFB, was used. Nevertheless, more experimental data are required to support the mechanism and to demonstrate the utility of the catalyst. I would Iike to show another example of the four-membered ring system (7 or 8) and other reactions of both 1,6-enynes containing a five membered ring and 1,7-enynes which have a substituted six-membered ring. Also, the potential exists for a stereospecitic C-C bond formation in the cycbzation to form 3. If a stereospecific cycloisomerization can occur, then this
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Introductions C-C bond formation would be a new, easy, and useful way to create the chiral center in the ring system. So, a new chiral palladium catalyst was designed and investigated.
In this introduction, Minoru chose to begin by citing his supervisor’s work on 1,6-enynes. Accordingly, in Sentence 1 he sets up cycloisomerization of 1,6enynes as the macrotheme and develops this in Sentence 2. Within the context of his research into 1,6-enynes, 1,7-enynes, as well as the new catalyst, 1,6-enynes is too specific for a macrotheme. The problems of attaching his research questions to such a specific macrotheme are illustrated in Figure 4. Under this hierarchical structure, there is no coherent way to slot in the three research questions. Hence, the first two writing conferences wrestled with formulating a hierarchical structure under which all three research questions could be subsumed. Minoru’s solution was to create a new macrotheme at a higher level of generality, i.e., ring formations (cycloisomerization) which he introduced through the phrase “It is well-known that. . . ” In the revised version, Sentence 1 was expanded into an entire paragraph: [Draft 2 Paragraph 11 It is well-known that ring formations are attained under very mild conditions by intramolecular carbametalations. Previous work has shown that tetrakis (methoxycarbonyl) palladacyclopentadiene (TCPC) has a high catalytic ability in ring formations. TCPC can catalyze 1,6-enynes to three different types of products: a) enyne cyclization products: cyclic 1,3- and/or 1,4-dienes, b) rearrangement products: cyclic 1Jdienes and c) 2 + 2 + 2 cycloaddition products.
In order to arrive at this macrotheme, Minoru had to make decisions about what information could be included under it and how the sentences were to Cycloisomerization of 1,6-enynes
Level 1
Products
Level 2
-I
y st
is TCPC 1,3-enynes
Level 3
Level 4
Type 1
1,4-enyne
Type 2
Level 5 Level 6
Evidence from TCPC (htb) Figure 4. Mioru’s introduction: Draft 1.
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proceed. Here, the instructor’s lack of specialist knowledge helped. Because I did not have the necessary technical background, I was unable to make the kinds of inferences that readers automatically make with poorly written texts. Minor-u had to diagram the flow of the argument and make all links explicit to me. Through this process of diagramming and my constant demands for explicitness, he was forced to make decisions about the information in the introduction. As early as Draft 2, he recognized that although certain information may have been interesting to him as researcher, it was tangential to the argument and needed to be deleted. One example is the sentence This rearrangement was proposed to proceed via a four-membered
carbocyclic intermediate.
It was easier to show him how crucial information had been hidden and needed to be highlighted; for example, one of his research questions dealt with the use of TCPCHFB as a catalyst but the word was mentioned only twice: once in its full form (but embedded in a relative clause) and later more ambiguously as the catalyst. By Draft 3, the status of TCPCHFB had risen to a complete node at Level 2. At this stage he set up ring formations as the macrotheme, under which he contrasted the effects of TCPC and TCPCnFB (Fig. 5). Until the structure and macrotheme had been negotiated, both the student and the writing instructor were dealing with surface linguistic features and not making much headway. Once the macrotheme and structure had been formulated, Minor-u was able to proceed, revising the introduction one paragraph at a time. Draft 7 (see Appendix 3), which he eventually submitted to his supervisor, differs from Draft 1, not just in form but also in the amount of content because he deleted certain experiments from this paper, choosing to write them up in a separate paper at a later stage.
The Writing Conference The three papers analyzed above show three distinct problems, of which the most persistent was the generation and statement of the macrotheme. Carmen does not make the macrotheme clear to the reader, but her second draft, produced under time pressure, clearly states the macrotheme. In Minoru’s case, it was the choice of an appropriate macrotheme that was the problem. Ring formations
Alternative catalyst effective catalyst
/\
effect on 1,6-enyne
1,6-enyne Smembered
fi (a) Figure
ring
(b)
Cc)
5. Minoru’s introduction:
Final draft
1,7-enyne
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In addition to the macrotheme, the slotting in of information presented problems for the student writers. Both Carmen and Toru attached information to nodes that had been closed off, thereby forcing the reader to reformulate the mental representation. A third problem was the tendency Carmen and Toru had to include information that was over-specific for an introduction. The diagrams show that certain nodes are developed to a great extent; the information contained under these nodes properly belongs in the body of the paper, as it gives details of certain points that the writers develop later. The writing conferences solved these problems to varying degrees. The easiest problem to tackle was the third one, i.e., the inclusion of over-specific information. When over-specific information occurs at lower levels and in a separate chunk, it is easily identified by the reader. Thus, when Carmen and Toru got the chance to re-read their introductions, they found that such information was not appropriate; they were also easily deleted as they were in a separate chunk. Carmen did this revision on her own and Toru was easily able to identify the target sentences once the problem had been explained to him. The writing conference played a more direct role in helping the students generate the macrotheme, particularly for students such as Minoru whose first draft used an inappropriate macrotheme. Minoru’s was not an isolated case but came up repeatedly with students from disciplines as diverse as applied mechanics and dance education. These students appear to focus on the linear ordering of information at the expense of the hierarchical structure. Thus, the writing conferences focussed on setting up the structure of the introduction, and from there working toward the generation of an appropriate macrotheme. The student and instructor worked together to diagram the information that the student wanted to include in the introduction. The next step was to decide what information to retain given the knowledge base of the intended audience. In the final step, we reorganized the information, created a more general macrotheme if necessary, and then the student would use the information as the themes of sentences in the introduction. By being forced to attend to the hierarchical structure of the information, the students broke out of their mindset about the content. While this method was time-consuming, it was more effective than arguing about the content, where the students were clearly more competent than the writing instructor in their disciplines. When the focus is shifted away from the content, students are more open to suggestions from a language instructor. The time spent on structuring the paper and generating the macrotheme also pays off in the long run because students find subsequent papers easier to structure and more easily accepted by their professors. Conclusion Student writers, particularly non-native writers, face problems structuring their introductions because of the dual demands imposed by the linear and hierarchical nature of texts. In the papers analyzed above, we see three prob-
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lems that students writers face in managing different levels of information: they may leave the macrotheme implicit or make statements that are too specific; and the transitions between levels of information are also forced, placing demands both on the writer and on the reader who has to reprocess the text. Swales (1990b) describes how non-native writers organize the structure of their introductions to conform to the convention of the 3 Moves. The papers analyzed above show that student writers can also face another set of problems: they more or less follow the 3-Move structure but have difficulty at a general level in identifying a conceptual hook and then handling the more local flow of information in the introduction. These problems are not necessarily confined to the introductory section of research articles; since the discussion/ conclusion section uses the same funnel-shaped structure (but in reverse), student writers are likely to face similar problems with information management in the concluding sections of their research articles. When faced with such texts, readers assume that the problem lies with the writer’s inadequate command of English. University professors who have to reach such introductions then refer the student to the ESLiEFL department for remediation. However, the writing teacher cannot merely focus on the surface errors and polish the grammar and lexis; the problems go deeper and concern the structure of the text. To make such introductions more coherent to the reader, the student and teacher have to set up an appropriate framework where the macrotheme is clearly articulated, the information flows smoothly from one level to another, and there are no distracting diversions into the details of the paper. Once this has been done, the student seems more able to write an acceptable introduction and professors seem more amenable to the ideas in the paper. (Revised version received August 1994) Acknowledgements
- I would like to thank Lubna Alsagoff and Connie Rylance for their encouragement and suggestions.
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Huckin, T. N., & Olsen, L. A. (1991). Technical writing andprofessional communication for nonnative speakers of English. New York: McGraw-Hill. Martin, J. R. (1993). Life as a noun: Arresting the universe in science and humanities. In M. A. K. Halliday & J. R. Martin (Eds.), Writing science: Literacy and discursive power. London: Falmer Press. Oshima, A. & Hogue, A. (1991). Writing Academic English. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Polanyi, L. (1985). A theory of discourse structure and discourse coherence. Chicago Linguistic Society, 21 (l), 306-322. Polanyi, L. (1988). A formal model of the structure of discourse. Journal of Pragmatics,
12, 601-638.
Swales, J. M. (1981). Aspects of article introduction (ESP Monographs No. 1). University of Aston, UK. Swales, J. M. (1984). Research into the structure of introductions to journal articles and its application to the teaching of academic writing. In R. Williams, J. Swales, &J. Kirkman (Eds.), Common ground: Shared interests in ESP and communication studies. Oxford: Pergamon. Swales, J. M. (1990a). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. SwaIes, J. (1990b). Nonnative speaker graduate engineering students and their introductions: Global coherence and local management. In U. Connor & A. M. Johns (Eds.), Coherence in writing: Research and pedagogoical perspectives. Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Wilkinson, A. M. (1991). The scientist’s handbook for writing papers and dissertations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Appendix 1 Carmen’s Introduction A map of a late colonial city looks like the corpse of a once living society. The cities were mostly laid out in a grid pattern. Everything is perfectly defined and divided. They had a big Plaza Major, and surrounding it there are the founding institutions: The palace of the government, the Church, the Cabildo. The hierarchies were clearly established. The city was planned in accordance to an immutable, universal, natural order: the expression of Thomism. The centers of power were planned to be in the center of the city. The society spun around them: was the expression of an urban society. A film of a late colonial city, although impossible, would have shown the social relationships and the breaches of a changing society. The Spanish viceroy coming into his office in his Spanish carriage driven by a black man dressed with european clothes. The priests in their dark habits walking across the ‘Plaza Mayor.’ A woman entering the church to hear Maitines accompanied by their servants. The black slave carrying a Peruvian dog (perro pila) to warm the woman feet. The migrants would be wondering along the park. A militar harassing some mestizos. The film would reveal the ideology along the park. The purpose of the essay is to show the character of the late colonial Spanish societies. We intend to depict a society in a process of change: with old and new trends in tension. We want to show part of the map and film. We also want to suggest some consequences of this process. The society was in a process of change. It was organized hierarchically. The society was fragmented and particularly at the end of the colonial period was unbalanced. This was caused by the Bourbonic policies, the internal economic structure, two competing ideologies: the medieval
R. Gupta and the enlightened, the structure of the societies, and the relationships among different regions. Some of the results of these processes of change were societies with tight upper classes and huge part of the population of low income, the consolidation of an unequal distribution of the wealth, societies never fully integrated, Europe and U.S. as a mirror or model, the importance of the church never completely apart, and the incipient relevancy of the army, the recognition of some regional identity. This process would give the basis for the revolutions of independence. The result of the process was not in accordance to the Enlightened model. Different cultures and institutions with roots in opposite ideologies will survive. The pre-Columbian, the medieval order, and the enlightened order were in tension. As a result of this process of change the ancient, the old and the new were found in a new relationship.
Appendix 2 Toru’s Introduction Draft 1 (1) Asian economy, including Japan, recorded a remarkable growth after World War II. (2) Economic success started from Japan in the 1950s (3) and expanded to the ANIEs and then to ASEAN. (4) These economic developments increased the interdependence between Japan and Asian countries mainly through trade and investment. (5) But these countries did not achieve such economic recovery and development only by themselves, but with the help of the US, which played an indispensable role as an absorber of exports and as a supplier of capital, technology, and security. (6) However, certain changes can be observed in these roles of the US since the middle of the 197Os, such as trade conflicts with Asian countries and, more recently, regional approaches to the world economy. (7) These changes may have negative influence on the healthy and stable economic growth of the region. (8) In this kind of situations, Japan, as a major economic power of the region must take certain actions. (9) Since the interdependence between Japan and Asia is increased like today, there is a significant necessity for Japan to promote the economic development of Asian countries, and consequently to keep its own prosperity and security, with maintaining a smooth relation with the U.S. (10) Many books have been written regarding the role of Japan in Asia (ex. Tsuchiya 1987, Eguchi 1988, MIT1 1990, Okimoto 1990), (11) but in this paper, I would lie to reconstruct Japan’s role (12) with a classification of absorber (13) and supplier, (14) in consideration with the change of the U.S. role in Asia. In giving this economic policy proposal, (15) very recent changes, (16) such as decrease of capital outflow from Japan due to the “collapse of bubble economy,” (17) and the third meeting of APEC held in November of this year, will also be examined. In this paper, (18) the changes of role of the U.S., as a absorber of exports and supplier of capital, technology in Asian region, will be examined first, (19) then the role Japan should play will be examined accordingly, and finally, (20) what Japan should request to Asian countries and the U.S. in carrying out these new Japan’s role more effectively will be studied.
Appendix 3 Minoru’s Introduction Draft 7 It is well-known that ring formations are attained under very mild conditions by intramolecular carbametalations. Previous work has shown that tetrakis (methoxycarbonyl) palladacyclopentadiene (TCPC) has a high catalytic ability in ring formations. TCPC can catalyze, 1,6-enynes to three different types of products: a) enyne cyclization products: cyclic 1,3- and/or 1,4dienes, b) rearrangement products: cyclic 1,3dienes and c) 2 + 2 + 2 cycloaddition products. [Figure given here] Although these pathways have been studied extensively, questions still remain about the rearrangement. Studies have been done on 1,6 enynes with 6 or 7 membered rings showing the
Introductions
75
rearrangement but there is not study on 1,6 enyne with a five membered
ring. In addition, it may be possible to study the rearrangement of the 1,7 enyne. One major obstacle has been the selection of a suitable catalysts which has the necessary selectivity to give the pathways. Although TCPC gives the rearrangement it is not selective enough. Studies have been conducted to improve the selectivity for the rearrangement and the heptafluorobutyl ester analogue, TCPCuFB, which is a more electron deficient catalyst than TCPC, was found to be more selective. TCPCHFB IS able to produce the rearrangement of 1,6-enynes containing a six- or seven-membered ring. There are, however, still questions about whether we can use TCPCHFB for the rearrangement of 1,6-enynes with a five-membered ring. In addition, the use of TCPCHFB with 1,7 enynes needs to be studied.
Renu Gupta is a Lecturer in the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her interests include reading/writing processes in English as a Second Language.
English for Specific Purposes, Vol. 14. No. 1, pp. 59-75, 1995 Copyright 0 1995 The American University Printed in the USA. All rights resew&l 0889.4906195 $9.50 + .OO
0889.4906(94)00026-3
Managing General and Specific Information in Introductions Renu Gupta Abstract - Introductions to research articles are structured such that there is a flow of information from general to more specific levels of information. This structure can present problems for student writers because they need to simultaneously handle the hierarchical as well as the linear structure of the discourse. This paper examines the introductions written by three international graduate students and identifies three problems: choice and statement of the macrotheme, oscillation between levels of information, and inclusion of over-specific information. Such introductions create problems for both the writer, during the writing process, and for the reader who is processing the text. The revision of these introductions and the role played by the writing conference are also discussed.
Introduction Introductions are an integral part of a research paper, but they are extremely difficult to write. Student writers who are often able to formulate the body of their term papers fairly successfully find that the introduction remains a stumbling block; they are either unable to see the purpose of the introduction or unable to realize it in their own introductions. There are various reasons why introductions present such a problem for writers. In terms of the process, the introduction is usually written last. The writer than has to move out of the details of the experiment or argument given in the paper and retrace the logic of thought that came prior to it. In addition, the introduction represents the link between the audience and the writer’s work; introductions are successful insofar as they are able to bridge the gap between the intended reader’s knowledge base and the research paper. Analyses of the structure and linguistic features of introduction help us understand and teach student writers how to frame introductions. Swales (1981,1984, 1990a) has shown through detailed analyses that the introductions of scientific research articles can be partitioned into three moves: field establishment and description of previous research, gap indication, and introduction of present research. The linguistic features typically found in each move have been identified by Gnutzman and Oldenburg (1991). These descriptions of
Address correspondence Technological University,
to: Renu Gupta, School of Arts/English Language Singapore 1025, e-mail: guptarCanievax.nie.ac.sg.
59
& Applied Linguistics,
Nanyang
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typical introductions help student writers by presenting them with a template they can follow (see, for example, textbooks such as Huckin & Olsen 1991). Despite these descriptions, student writers, and nonnative writers in particular, find it difficult to structure their introductions in a manner that makes the text coherent for the reader. Their problems arise from two sources: the structuring of discourse and the overall structure of the introduction. Discourse, especially expository prose, is organized both hierarchically and linearly, i.e., the text is arranged hierarchically but the sentences are written (and read) linearly (Hinds 1979). At the same time, introductions have an overall structure that appears to be specific to introductions and is treated as such in textbooks. Textbooks such as Oshima and Hogue (1991: 78-79) describe the overall structure of the introduction as a funnel, with the most general information at the beginning, gradually narrowing in level of generality until it ends with the specific research question that will be tackled in the body of the paper. A potential problem for student writers that has been noted by Wilkinson (1991) is the choice of end-points in this funnel: they may begin with information that is too general (given the audience) or they may become too specific towards the end of the introduction, by going into the details of the paper. Thus, the student writer is expected to structure an introduction so that it follows a general-to-specific format, as well as devise a hierarchical structure and simultaneously check the linear progression of the discourse. The problems this presents for nonnative writers will be examined in this paper.
Structuring Discourse We have stated that expository prose is organized both hierarchically and linearly (Hinds 1979). The hierarchical structure of texts can be seen in a unit, such as a paragraph, where the sentences are not a random collection but have a unified orientation. Hinds depicts this relationship as a tree, where the superordiiate node represents the ‘topic’of the unit under which the sentences are collected. This is not necessarily the only method of organizing texts. In looking at the thematic progression of texts, Danes (1974) identified three possible methods: (a) linear, where each theme becomes the rheme of the following sentence: (b) constant, where one theme has several rhemes embedded below it; and (c) derived, in which themes are derived from a hypertheme. While Type (a) can be used to organize texts (Fries 1983), it appears to be less common than Type (b) for expository prose. Type (b), where several rhemes are subordinated to a single theme, is commonly used in scientific texts (Danes 1974); it is also similar to the hierarchical structure found in expository prose by Hinds (1979). This hierarchical structure is not confined to scientific texts but can be applied and expected of expository prose from other nonscientific disciplines too. In the case of nonnative readers, the frequency of use of this structure gives them a handle on the writing process. Such a hierarchical structure does not hold merely at the paragraph level;
61
Introductions
Martin (1993) finds this true of larger sketches of text where subsections, chapters and even books are organized in the same way so that they have themes at a higher level of organization, called Macro-Themes. Since the introduction to a research article can be considered a distinct subsection, readers expect it to follow the same conventions, namely, to have a clear macrotheme under which various themes are developed; these themes, in turn, would have a collection of ideas grouped under them. Although the paragraph or subsection is organized hierarchically, the sentences are written sequentially and read linearly. One model which incorporates the hierarchical structure of discourse with the linear order of the elements is found in the Linguistic Discourse Model developed by Polanyi (1985, 1988). Polanyi’s model captures the structural and semantic relations among the units of a discourse by describing the left-to-right, clause-by-clause construction of a discourse parse tree. Figure 1 illustrates one such tree. Because the parser processes discourse from left to right, nodes to the left are considered closed or inaccessible, and incoming information can be attached only to right-hand nodes. If a speaker/writer wants to add information to a node that has already been abandoned or closed, a new node has to be created and the connection with the old unit made explicit. When new information does not fit under any existing open node (as, for example, when there is a change of topic), a new node has to be created at a structurally higher level and on the right-hand side of the tree. This model explains how, although sentences are organized hierarchically under a themeimacrotheme, they can be added linearly to the text in such a way that the text remains a unified whole. In one sense, this model mimics the behavior of a reader processing text, who reads the sentences linearly but has to integrate the information into a preexisting text structure. For student writers, this hierarchical-plus-linear structure may pose problems. Not only does each sentence have to add new information, but it also has to fit into the overall discourse scheme. This requires considerable control over the writing process, which student writers usually do not have. In this paper, I examine the hierarchical and linear structure of introductions written
closed
closed
closed
closed
clo ed
closed
closed
A closed
Figure
closed
closed
open
1. A Discourse Tree showing open and closed nodes (from Polanyi 1985).
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by L2 students. The lack of coherence in these introductions can be traced to the poor structuring of the information, which is a result of the conflicting demands of the hierarchical and linear structure. Students’ concern with linear structuring leads them to ignore the overall hierarchical structure, resulting in poorly articulated macrothemes. Data Collection
and Analysis
The data come from term papers written by three international graduate students studying at a university in the U.S. The papers were written for regular graduate-level courses in the students’ specific fields; at the same time, these papers served as one of their assignments for a required writing course in an ESL program, for which I was the instructor. These three papers were chosen because they are the clearest examples of the kinds of problems other students had with their introductions. The three students came from different disciplines; Carmen from Latin American studies, Toru from political science, and Minoru from organic chemistry. For Carmen and Toru, this was their first quarter in an American university and, hence, their first attempts at writing a paper in English. Minoru was in his second year at the university, and he was writing up a progress report on his experiments. For the writing course, students gave drafts of their papers to the instructor, discussed them in a writing conference, and re-worked them as necessary. In several cases, due to time pressure from their regular course-work, students handed in revised drafts without feedback from their writing instructor. For each introduction, only the problem sections have been analyzed; the text of the entire introduction is available in the appendices. For the analysis, the theme of each clause/sentence was identified and the progression of the ideals was diagrammed using Polanyi’s Discourse Model. In the case of Toru’s introduction, I have numbered the clauses/sentences in the text to make it easier to follow the linear progression of the ideas. The three papers exhibit problems at two levels: at the topmost level there are problems with the macrotheme, and at lower levels there is a wealth of specific detail that more properly belongs in the body of the paper. In addition, there are abrupt transitions between levels of information, posing problems not only for the writer but also for the reader. Carmen’s Introduction Carmen had to write a paper on the late colonial period in Spanish America for a course in Latin American history. Her introduction is given in Appendix 1; here, I have analyzed only those paragraphs (Paragraphs 3 and 4) that present a structural problem. Paragraph 3 of the introduction lays out the intention of Carmen’s essay. Paragraph 4, on the other hand, merely lists random points that she will develop in the body of the paper.
Introductions
63
[Draft 1 Paragraphs
3 & 41
The purpose of the essay is to show the character of the late colonial Spanish societies. We intend to depict a society in a process of change: with old and new trends in tension. We want to show part of the map and film. We also want to suggest some consequences of this process. The society was in a process of change. It was organized hierarchically. The society was fragmented and particularly at the end of the colonial period was unbalanced. This was caused by the Bourbonic policies, the internal economic structure, two competing ideologies: the medieval and the enlightened, the structure of the societies, and the relationships among different regions. Some of the results of these processes of change were societies with tight upper classes and huge part of the population of low income, the consolidation of an unequal distribution of the wealth, societies nerve fully integrated, Europe and U.S. as a mirror or model, the importance of the church never completely apart, and the incipient relevancy of the army, the recognition of some regional identity. This process would give the basis for the revolutions of independence. The result of the process was not in accordance to the Enlightened model. Different cultures and institutions with roots in opposite ideologies will survive. The pre-Columbian, the medieval order, and the enlightened order were in tension. As a result of this process of change the ancient, the old and the new were found in a new relationship.
The information in these two paragraphs can be represented as shown in Figure 2. From Figure 2, we can see the first problem Carmen has: she never explicitly states the macrotheme of the two paragraphs, and the reader is left to infer that the macrotheme is something such as, the character of the Spanish colonial societies gave the basis for the independence movements. After a partial statement of this macrotheme, Carmen moves to Level 2. Here she needs to set up 4 nodes, but in Paragraph 3 she succeeds in setting up only 3 nodes: the structure of the society, the changes, and their consequences. We have to wait for the end of the introduction in Paragraph 4 to get a statement of the fourth node, i.e., the new relationshi&. The reader, then, has to re-organize the scheme of the introduction. A third problem arises when Carmen is tempted into developing one of the nodes at Level 3 by extending it into Level 4 (i.e., the competing ideologies are the medieval and the enlightened). Thus, there are several reasons why this introduction may confuse a reader. Since two crucial nodes are either implicit or stated too late in the text, the reader has to make inferences as well as re-organize the mental representation of the text. Next, since the writer oscillates between Levels 2 and 3, the reader is never clear about the level the information is at and what the development of the argument is. An additional problem, but this time for the writer, can be seen in the way the information the enlightened model is handled. In Node 2, Level 4 Carmen first mentions the enlightened model; she picks up this tread later at the end of the paragraph (this was not in accordance with the enlightened model) but under a different node - Node 4. Here Carmen is trying to link items in
L*v.l 1
of societies
was
Figure 2. Carmen’s introduction.
basis of revolutions]
[Character
Introductions
65
different nodes, one of which has been blocked off by an intervening node Node 3. For this link to work successfully, at Node 4 Carmen needs to go back up the tree to the macrotheme, and then go down through Node 2. This particular problem does not merely present problems of coherence for the reader; it also creates extraordinary difficulties for the writer because the connections have to be forced. Due to lack of time, Carmen handed in a revised draft without any feedback from the instructor. Paragraph 3 of this new version is reproduced below: it shows none of the structural problems of the first version. [Draft 2 Paragraph 31 The purpose of this essay is to show the character of the late Spanish colonial societies at the end of the eighteenth century. The question that underlies our paper is how were the societies informed in a way that give the basis for the independence movements? Is not our objective to explain these movements. We want to explain the structure of these societies, the changes that affected them in the period, and the results of that process of changes. We will explain how the society was taking four variables into account: race, membership to a corporate body, wealth, and gender. We will also explain the changes of the society takiig the introduction of the enlightenment as a catalyst. The reason that we propose this is that it broke the balance that Thomism had achieved in colonial society. The relevance of the paper is the emphasis put on the ideological system helps better to understand the structure of these societies and the processes of change.
In this second version, Carmen has clearly articulated the macrotheme and deleted over-specific information. In fact, her first version is less an introduction than a memory dump for points she may forget. Toru’s Introduction
Toni’s introduction displays problems similar to Carmen’s with lack of a macrotheme, depth of information, and node of attachment. His introduction comes from a paper titled “The Role of Japan in Industrial Asia in the 1990s: The changing relations among Japan, the U.S. and Asia,” which was written for a course on the rise of industrial Asia. In his paper, he argues that the U.S. set up the current Asian economic situation, that this role should now be assumed by Japan, and that there are several factors that Japan should consider in playing this new role. His entire introduction is reproduced below, with the sentences numbered for the analysis. Draft 1 (1) Asian economy, including Japan, recorded a remarkable growth after World War II. (2) Economic success started from Japan in the 1950s (3) and expanded to the ANIEs and then to ASEAN. (4) These economic developments increased
R. Gupta
the interdependence between Japan and Asian countries mainly through trade and investment. (5) But these countries did not achieve such economic recovery and development only by themselves, but with the help of the US, which played an indispensable role as an absorber of exports and as a supplier of capital, technology, and security. (6) However, certain changes can be observed in these roles of the US since the middle of the 197Os, such as trade conflicts with Asian countries and, more recently, regional approaches to the world economy. (7) These changes may have negative intluence on the healthy and stable economic growth of the region, (8) In this kind of situations, [sic] Japan, as a major economic power of the region must take certain actions. (9) Since the interdependence between Japan and Asia is increased like today, there is a significant necessity for Japan to promote the economic development of Asian countries, and consequently to keep its own prosperity and security, with maintaining a smooth relation with the U.S. (10) Many books have been written regarding the role of Japan in Asia (ex. Tsuchiya 1987, Eguchi 1988, MIT1 1990, Okiioto 1990), (11) but in this paper, I would like to reconstruct Japan’s role (12) with a classification of absorber (13) and supplier, (14) in consideration with the change of the U.S. role in Asia. In giving this economic policy proposal, (15) very recent changes, (16) such as decrease of capital outflow from Japan due to the “collapse of bubble economy,” (17) and the third meeting of APEC held in November of this year, will also be examined. In this paper, (18) the changes of role of the U.S., as a absorber of exports and supplier of capital, technology in Asian region, will be examined first, (19) then the role Japan should play will be examined accordingly, and finally (20) what Japan should request to Asian countries and the U.S. in carrying out these new Japan’s role more effectively will be studied.
For the reader who expects introductions to research articles to follow the conventions laid out in Swales’ 3 Moves, this introduction presents a problem. Sentences l-7 in Paragraph 1 clearly establish the context through Move 1, Step 1 while Sentence 10, as a summary of the research, signals Move 1, Step 3. The reader assumes that the intervening sentences, i.e., Sentences 8-9, are part of Move 1 and their purpose is to establish the context. It is only at the end of Paragraph 2/‘beginning of Paragraph 3, where the purpose of the paper is stated explicitly, that one realizes that Sentences 8-9 are not meant as background to the paper but are the actual thesis of the paper and are, in fact, part of Move 3. At this point - halfway through the introduction - the reader has to reconstruct the mental representation of the paper so that what was first read as part of the background information and an established fact now becomes the argument to be developed in the paper. One solution to this problem is to eliminate Sentence 9 altogether. This would allow Toru to remain on the topic of the Role of Japan and cite the relevant research without revealing the details of the proposal. However, in Paragraph 2 a similar problem with location and movement between details resurfaces. Figure 3 represents one possible analysis of the introduction; the numbers at each node represent the clause/sentence number in the text which conveys that information. Numbers in bold type show clauses/sentences of particular
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Introductions [Changes in Economic Roles]
Level 1
Level 2
mole of the US] 04)
Level 3
w
What Japan needs
Policy Proposal
IO do (9) Level 4
Absorber (12)
Supplier
Recent changes (15)
(13)
capital
Level 5
(16)
APEC (17)
Figure 3. Toru’s introduction.
interest for the analysis. The diagram begins with sentence 8, where the major problems begin. It is difficult to identify the macrotheme of the text because Toru does not set up the themes hierarchically but uses a linear method of development. We can see this process of chaining in Sentences 5-7 where role of the U.S. is picked up from Sentence 5 to become Changes in the role of the U.S. in Sentence 6, which then operates as the theme of Sentence 7. The alternative is to deduce the macrotheme on the basis of lexical repetition; since the words role and changes are repeated in Paragraph 1, the reader can infer that the macrotheme is either Changes in economic roles or Role of Japan. Either way, Toru faces the same problems in structuring the information.’ In Sentences 8-9, Toru states the specific role Japan should play; it is the argument that he will develop later in the paper. By stating it at the end of Paragraph 1, he gets it out of the way, hoping to pick it up later. This creates a problem for him because he can only attach incoming information to righthand nodes. On two occasions (Sentences 14 and la), he attaches information to the node Role of the U.S., which is on the left-hand side and has been closed Off.
A second problem with such a structure is that in order for connections to be made, the writer has to move between differing levels of information. In the transition between Sentences 17 and 18, there is an abrupt jump from Level 5
1 Two independent raters disagreed on the macrotheme of the text: however, both came to the same conclusion as I did about the analysis, i.e., that (a) too many specific details were given under the node Role of/spun, and (b) the writer kept returning to the left-hand node.
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up to Level 2, which confuses the reader about the level of information being offered. Again, in Sentence 20, there is a return to Levels 2 and 3; this transition to a higher level pulls the introduction together but at the same time it makes obvious that the entire section under Policy Proposal is an add-on, with details that may be too specific for an introduction. From the perspective of the reader, this introduction is very confusing. To solve the problem, a clear macrotheme needs to be set up and information slotted in from left to right nodes, rather than being attached to nodes that the reader had mentally closed off. In addition, information should not be developed to the depth Toru did. In the writing conference, we were able to tackle only the final problem, i.e., depth of information. Toru had developed one of the nodes as far as Level 5 descending into specific details of his paper. This specificity was so obvious that when I pointed to Paragraph 2, Toru immediately picked out Sentences 15-17 and said they needed to be taken out of the introduction. The other problems with the introduction - i.e., lack of macrotheme and returns to the left-hand node - could not be tackled for lack of time. Minoru’s
Introduction
Of the three papers, Miioru’s paper in organic chemistry underwent the most extensive revisions; over a period of 2 months, the paper went through seven drafts. Minoru was writing his paper for publication; at the same time, it was to serve as a progress report for his supervisor. In this paper, Miioru was reporting on the results of experiments in three areas: (a) 1,6-enynes with 5-membered rings; (b) 1,7-enynes; and (c) the potential of TCPCHFB as a catalyst. Draft 1 is given below: [Draft 11 The cycloisomerization of 1,6-enynes to 1,3-enynes and/or 1,4dienes catalyzed by palladium TCPC (Tetrakis(carbomethoxy)cyclopentadien) has been studied by Trost et aI (Path a in Scheme 1).
[Figure given here] During this study, the cycloisomerization of 1,6-enynes to another, 1,3dienes was also found to take place (Path b). This rearrangement was proposed to proceed via a four-membered carbocyck intermediate.’ Evidence for this mechanism was obtained when a more electron deficient catalyst than TCPC, TCPCHFB, was used. Nevertheless, more experimental data are required to support the mechanism and to demonstrate the utility of the catalyst. I would Iike to show another example of the four-membered ring system (7 or 8) and other reactions of both 1,6-enynes containing a five membered ring and 1,7-enynes which have a substituted six-membered ring. Also, the potential exists for a stereospecitic C-C bond formation in the cycbzation to form 3. If a stereospecific cycloisomerization can occur, then this
69
Introductions C-C bond formation would be a new, easy, and useful way to create the chiral center in the ring system. So, a new chiral palladium catalyst was designed and investigated.
In this introduction, Minoru chose to begin by citing his supervisor’s work on 1,6-enynes. Accordingly, in Sentence 1 he sets up cycloisomerization of 1,6enynes as the macrotheme and develops this in Sentence 2. Within the context of his research into 1,6-enynes, 1,7-enynes, as well as the new catalyst, 1,6-enynes is too specific for a macrotheme. The problems of attaching his research questions to such a specific macrotheme are illustrated in Figure 4. Under this hierarchical structure, there is no coherent way to slot in the three research questions. Hence, the first two writing conferences wrestled with formulating a hierarchical structure under which all three research questions could be subsumed. Minoru’s solution was to create a new macrotheme at a higher level of generality, i.e., ring formations (cycloisomerization) which he introduced through the phrase “It is well-known that. . . ” In the revised version, Sentence 1 was expanded into an entire paragraph: [Draft 2 Paragraph 11 It is well-known that ring formations are attained under very mild conditions by intramolecular carbametalations. Previous work has shown that tetrakis (methoxycarbonyl) palladacyclopentadiene (TCPC) has a high catalytic ability in ring formations. TCPC can catalyze 1,6-enynes to three different types of products: a) enyne cyclization products: cyclic 1,3- and/or 1,4-dienes, b) rearrangement products: cyclic 1Jdienes and c) 2 + 2 + 2 cycloaddition products.
In order to arrive at this macrotheme, Minoru had to make decisions about what information could be included under it and how the sentences were to Cycloisomerization of 1,6-enynes
Level 1
Products
Level 2
-I
y st
is TCPC 1,3-enynes
Level 3
Level 4
Type 1
1,4-enyne
Type 2
Level 5 Level 6
Evidence from TCPC (htb) Figure 4. Mioru’s introduction: Draft 1.
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proceed. Here, the instructor’s lack of specialist knowledge helped. Because I did not have the necessary technical background, I was unable to make the kinds of inferences that readers automatically make with poorly written texts. Minor-u had to diagram the flow of the argument and make all links explicit to me. Through this process of diagramming and my constant demands for explicitness, he was forced to make decisions about the information in the introduction. As early as Draft 2, he recognized that although certain information may have been interesting to him as researcher, it was tangential to the argument and needed to be deleted. One example is the sentence This rearrangement was proposed to proceed via a four-membered
carbocyclic intermediate.
It was easier to show him how crucial information had been hidden and needed to be highlighted; for example, one of his research questions dealt with the use of TCPCHFB as a catalyst but the word was mentioned only twice: once in its full form (but embedded in a relative clause) and later more ambiguously as the catalyst. By Draft 3, the status of TCPCHFB had risen to a complete node at Level 2. At this stage he set up ring formations as the macrotheme, under which he contrasted the effects of TCPC and TCPCnFB (Fig. 5). Until the structure and macrotheme had been negotiated, both the student and the writing instructor were dealing with surface linguistic features and not making much headway. Once the macrotheme and structure had been formulated, Minor-u was able to proceed, revising the introduction one paragraph at a time. Draft 7 (see Appendix 3), which he eventually submitted to his supervisor, differs from Draft 1, not just in form but also in the amount of content because he deleted certain experiments from this paper, choosing to write them up in a separate paper at a later stage.
The Writing Conference The three papers analyzed above show three distinct problems, of which the most persistent was the generation and statement of the macrotheme. Carmen does not make the macrotheme clear to the reader, but her second draft, produced under time pressure, clearly states the macrotheme. In Minoru’s case, it was the choice of an appropriate macrotheme that was the problem. Ring formations
Alternative catalyst effective catalyst
/\
effect on 1,6-enyne
1,6-enyne Smembered
fi (a) Figure
ring
(b)
Cc)
5. Minoru’s introduction:
Final draft
1,7-enyne
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In addition to the macrotheme, the slotting in of information presented problems for the student writers. Both Carmen and Toru attached information to nodes that had been closed off, thereby forcing the reader to reformulate the mental representation. A third problem was the tendency Carmen and Toru had to include information that was over-specific for an introduction. The diagrams show that certain nodes are developed to a great extent; the information contained under these nodes properly belongs in the body of the paper, as it gives details of certain points that the writers develop later. The writing conferences solved these problems to varying degrees. The easiest problem to tackle was the third one, i.e., the inclusion of over-specific information. When over-specific information occurs at lower levels and in a separate chunk, it is easily identified by the reader. Thus, when Carmen and Toru got the chance to re-read their introductions, they found that such information was not appropriate; they were also easily deleted as they were in a separate chunk. Carmen did this revision on her own and Toru was easily able to identify the target sentences once the problem had been explained to him. The writing conference played a more direct role in helping the students generate the macrotheme, particularly for students such as Minoru whose first draft used an inappropriate macrotheme. Minoru’s was not an isolated case but came up repeatedly with students from disciplines as diverse as applied mechanics and dance education. These students appear to focus on the linear ordering of information at the expense of the hierarchical structure. Thus, the writing conferences focussed on setting up the structure of the introduction, and from there working toward the generation of an appropriate macrotheme. The student and instructor worked together to diagram the information that the student wanted to include in the introduction. The next step was to decide what information to retain given the knowledge base of the intended audience. In the final step, we reorganized the information, created a more general macrotheme if necessary, and then the student would use the information as the themes of sentences in the introduction. By being forced to attend to the hierarchical structure of the information, the students broke out of their mindset about the content. While this method was time-consuming, it was more effective than arguing about the content, where the students were clearly more competent than the writing instructor in their disciplines. When the focus is shifted away from the content, students are more open to suggestions from a language instructor. The time spent on structuring the paper and generating the macrotheme also pays off in the long run because students find subsequent papers easier to structure and more easily accepted by their professors. Conclusion Student writers, particularly non-native writers, face problems structuring their introductions because of the dual demands imposed by the linear and hierarchical nature of texts. In the papers analyzed above, we see three prob-
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lems that students writers face in managing different levels of information: they may leave the macrotheme implicit or make statements that are too specific; and the transitions between levels of information are also forced, placing demands both on the writer and on the reader who has to reprocess the text. Swales (1990b) describes how non-native writers organize the structure of their introductions to conform to the convention of the 3 Moves. The papers analyzed above show that student writers can also face another set of problems: they more or less follow the 3-Move structure but have difficulty at a general level in identifying a conceptual hook and then handling the more local flow of information in the introduction. These problems are not necessarily confined to the introductory section of research articles; since the discussion/ conclusion section uses the same funnel-shaped structure (but in reverse), student writers are likely to face similar problems with information management in the concluding sections of their research articles. When faced with such texts, readers assume that the problem lies with the writer’s inadequate command of English. University professors who have to reach such introductions then refer the student to the ESLiEFL department for remediation. However, the writing teacher cannot merely focus on the surface errors and polish the grammar and lexis; the problems go deeper and concern the structure of the text. To make such introductions more coherent to the reader, the student and teacher have to set up an appropriate framework where the macrotheme is clearly articulated, the information flows smoothly from one level to another, and there are no distracting diversions into the details of the paper. Once this has been done, the student seems more able to write an acceptable introduction and professors seem more amenable to the ideas in the paper. (Revised version received August 1994) Acknowledgements
- I would like to thank Lubna Alsagoff and Connie Rylance for their encouragement and suggestions.
REFERENCES Danes, F. (1974). Functional sentence perspective and the organization of the text. In F. Danes (Ed.), Papers on functional sentence perspective. The Hague: Mouton. Fries, P. (1983). On the status of theme in English: Arguments from discourse. In J. S. Petofi & E. Sozer (Eds.), Micro and macro connexity oftexts. Hamburg: Buske. Gnutzman, C., & Oldenburg, H. (1991). Contrastive text linguistics in LSPResearch: Theoretical considerations and some preliminary findings. In H. Schroeder (Ed.), Subject-oriented texts: Languages for special purposes and text theory. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hinds, (1979). Organizational patterns in discourse. In T. Givon (Ed.), syntax and Semantics (Vol. 12: Discourse and Syntax). New York: Academic Press.
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Huckin, T. N., & Olsen, L. A. (1991). Technical writing andprofessional communication for nonnative speakers of English. New York: McGraw-Hill. Martin, J. R. (1993). Life as a noun: Arresting the universe in science and humanities. In M. A. K. Halliday & J. R. Martin (Eds.), Writing science: Literacy and discursive power. London: Falmer Press. Oshima, A. & Hogue, A. (1991). Writing Academic English. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Polanyi, L. (1985). A theory of discourse structure and discourse coherence. Chicago Linguistic Society, 21 (l), 306-322. Polanyi, L. (1988). A formal model of the structure of discourse. Journal of Pragmatics,
12, 601-638.
Swales, J. M. (1981). Aspects of article introduction (ESP Monographs No. 1). University of Aston, UK. Swales, J. M. (1984). Research into the structure of introductions to journal articles and its application to the teaching of academic writing. In R. Williams, J. Swales, &J. Kirkman (Eds.), Common ground: Shared interests in ESP and communication studies. Oxford: Pergamon. Swales, J. M. (1990a). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. SwaIes, J. (1990b). Nonnative speaker graduate engineering students and their introductions: Global coherence and local management. In U. Connor & A. M. Johns (Eds.), Coherence in writing: Research and pedagogoical perspectives. Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Wilkinson, A. M. (1991). The scientist’s handbook for writing papers and dissertations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Appendix 1 Carmen’s Introduction A map of a late colonial city looks like the corpse of a once living society. The cities were mostly laid out in a grid pattern. Everything is perfectly defined and divided. They had a big Plaza Major, and surrounding it there are the founding institutions: The palace of the government, the Church, the Cabildo. The hierarchies were clearly established. The city was planned in accordance to an immutable, universal, natural order: the expression of Thomism. The centers of power were planned to be in the center of the city. The society spun around them: was the expression of an urban society. A film of a late colonial city, although impossible, would have shown the social relationships and the breaches of a changing society. The Spanish viceroy coming into his office in his Spanish carriage driven by a black man dressed with european clothes. The priests in their dark habits walking across the ‘Plaza Mayor.’ A woman entering the church to hear Maitines accompanied by their servants. The black slave carrying a Peruvian dog (perro pila) to warm the woman feet. The migrants would be wondering along the park. A militar harassing some mestizos. The film would reveal the ideology along the park. The purpose of the essay is to show the character of the late colonial Spanish societies. We intend to depict a society in a process of change: with old and new trends in tension. We want to show part of the map and film. We also want to suggest some consequences of this process. The society was in a process of change. It was organized hierarchically. The society was fragmented and particularly at the end of the colonial period was unbalanced. This was caused by the Bourbonic policies, the internal economic structure, two competing ideologies: the medieval
R. Gupta and the enlightened, the structure of the societies, and the relationships among different regions. Some of the results of these processes of change were societies with tight upper classes and huge part of the population of low income, the consolidation of an unequal distribution of the wealth, societies never fully integrated, Europe and U.S. as a mirror or model, the importance of the church never completely apart, and the incipient relevancy of the army, the recognition of some regional identity. This process would give the basis for the revolutions of independence. The result of the process was not in accordance to the Enlightened model. Different cultures and institutions with roots in opposite ideologies will survive. The pre-Columbian, the medieval order, and the enlightened order were in tension. As a result of this process of change the ancient, the old and the new were found in a new relationship.
Appendix 2 Toru’s Introduction Draft 1 (1) Asian economy, including Japan, recorded a remarkable growth after World War II. (2) Economic success started from Japan in the 1950s (3) and expanded to the ANIEs and then to ASEAN. (4) These economic developments increased the interdependence between Japan and Asian countries mainly through trade and investment. (5) But these countries did not achieve such economic recovery and development only by themselves, but with the help of the US, which played an indispensable role as an absorber of exports and as a supplier of capital, technology, and security. (6) However, certain changes can be observed in these roles of the US since the middle of the 197Os, such as trade conflicts with Asian countries and, more recently, regional approaches to the world economy. (7) These changes may have negative influence on the healthy and stable economic growth of the region. (8) In this kind of situations, Japan, as a major economic power of the region must take certain actions. (9) Since the interdependence between Japan and Asia is increased like today, there is a significant necessity for Japan to promote the economic development of Asian countries, and consequently to keep its own prosperity and security, with maintaining a smooth relation with the U.S. (10) Many books have been written regarding the role of Japan in Asia (ex. Tsuchiya 1987, Eguchi 1988, MIT1 1990, Okimoto 1990), (11) but in this paper, I would lie to reconstruct Japan’s role (12) with a classification of absorber (13) and supplier, (14) in consideration with the change of the U.S. role in Asia. In giving this economic policy proposal, (15) very recent changes, (16) such as decrease of capital outflow from Japan due to the “collapse of bubble economy,” (17) and the third meeting of APEC held in November of this year, will also be examined. In this paper, (18) the changes of role of the U.S., as a absorber of exports and supplier of capital, technology in Asian region, will be examined first, (19) then the role Japan should play will be examined accordingly, and finally, (20) what Japan should request to Asian countries and the U.S. in carrying out these new Japan’s role more effectively will be studied.
Appendix 3 Minoru’s Introduction Draft 7 It is well-known that ring formations are attained under very mild conditions by intramolecular carbametalations. Previous work has shown that tetrakis (methoxycarbonyl) palladacyclopentadiene (TCPC) has a high catalytic ability in ring formations. TCPC can catalyze, 1,6-enynes to three different types of products: a) enyne cyclization products: cyclic 1,3- and/or 1,4dienes, b) rearrangement products: cyclic 1,3dienes and c) 2 + 2 + 2 cycloaddition products. [Figure given here] Although these pathways have been studied extensively, questions still remain about the rearrangement. Studies have been done on 1,6 enynes with 6 or 7 membered rings showing the
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rearrangement but there is not study on 1,6 enyne with a five membered
ring. In addition, it may be possible to study the rearrangement of the 1,7 enyne. One major obstacle has been the selection of a suitable catalysts which has the necessary selectivity to give the pathways. Although TCPC gives the rearrangement it is not selective enough. Studies have been conducted to improve the selectivity for the rearrangement and the heptafluorobutyl ester analogue, TCPCuFB, which is a more electron deficient catalyst than TCPC, was found to be more selective. TCPCHFB IS able to produce the rearrangement of 1,6-enynes containing a six- or seven-membered ring. There are, however, still questions about whether we can use TCPCHFB for the rearrangement of 1,6-enynes with a five-membered ring. In addition, the use of TCPCHFB with 1,7 enynes needs to be studied.
Renu Gupta is a Lecturer in the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her interests include reading/writing processes in English as a Second Language.