L2.1.2: Academic Text Types

• Academic Text Types (Callie & Zaytseva, 2013)

  • BA/MA Dissertation
  • Research Paper
  • Reading Report
  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Review
  • Proposal
• Communicative goal/purpose

  • General purpose
  • Specific purpose
  • Skills
  • Stance
• Features

  • structural
  • length
  • functional
• BA/MA dissertation, DISS

  • general purpose: informational – inform, explain, interpret
  • specific purpose: presents detailed account of original research (orreplication / extension of previous research) in view of state-of-the-art
  • skills: author demonstrates ability to carry out theoretical and/orempirical research that may include developing a research design, collecting, filtering, analyzing, critically interpreting data; author demonstrates ability to present results in an organized, meaningful way
  • stance: author’s opinion/evaluation not usually overt, but mayoccur in literature review
• BA/MA dissertation, DISS

  • structural: structured into predictable sections (usually with subheadings); may include the following structural elements: abstract, introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion, conclusion
  • length: varies
  • functional: entire text serves to answer one or more research questions; contains original data, or compiles existing data for the purpose of providing new interpretation(s)
• Research Paper, RPA

  • general purpose: informational – inform, explain, interpret
  • specific purpose: presents piece of original research (small case study or replication / extension of previous study)
  • skills: author demonstrates ability to carry out theoretical and/orempirical research that may include developing a researchdesign, as well as collecting, filtering, analyzing, critically interpreting data; author demonstrates ability to present results in an organized, meaningful way
  • stance: author’s opinion/evaluation not usually overt, but mayoccur in literature review
• Research Paper, RPA

  • structural: structured into predictable sections (usually with subheadings); may include the following structural elements: abstract, introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion, conclusion
  • length: shorter than dissertation / thesis; varie
  • functional: entire text serves to answer one or more research question; contains original data, or compiles existing data for the purpose of providing new interpretation (s)
• Reading Report, RR

  • general purpose: informational – inform, describe, (assess)
  • specific purpose: critically describes structure, content and significance of published research
  • skills: author demonstrates ability to understand and summarizecomplex text coherently
  • stance: author’s opinion/evaluation may be present, but is notforegrounded and does not appear to drive text
• Reading Report, RR

  • structural: not structured into sections (no subheadings)
  • length: short, approx. 600 words
  • functional: most space is devoted to description rather than critical assessment; not driven by an original thesis or research question
• Summary, SUM

  • general purpose: informational – describe
  • specific purpose: summarizes content of published research
  • skills: author demonstrates ability to understand and summarizecomplex text coherently
  • stance: author’s opinion/evaluation absent
• Summary, SUM

  • structural: not structured into sections (no subheadings)
  • length: shorter than reading report; varies
  • functional: entirely descriptive, no critical assessment; not driven by an original thesis or research question
• Abstract, ABS

  • general purpose: informational – inform
  • specific purpose: captures the essence of published research (i.e. the why, how, and what, e.g. research focus, methodology results/findings, conclusion and recommendations); should help reader to quickly ascertain purpose, content and usefulness of publication
  • skills: author demonstrates ability to extract and provide essential information in an exhaustive and compelling way
  • stance: author’s opinion/evaluation absent
• Abstract, ABS

  • structural: not structured into sections; appears at beginning of text itaccompanies; may also occur as stand-alone entity instead of fullpaper
  • length: rather short (approx. 100-250 words), rarely exceeding 500 words
  • functional: self-contained piece of writing, can be understood independently from accompanying publication
• Review, REV

  • general purpose: informational – inform, describe and evaluate/assess
  • specific purpose: presents brief descriptive summary and evaluation/assessment of effectiveness, validity, or usefulness of published research; may offer recommendations for improvement
  • skills: author demonstrates ability to understand significance ofpublication and to evaluate/assess its quality
  • stance: author’s opinion/evaluation foregrounded, drives text
• Review, REV

  • structural: usually not structured into sections, but may distinguish between descriptive summary of content and evaluation (with accompanying subheadings)
  • length: varies
  • functional: driven by an evaluation of published research as to its methodology, quality of data, findings and line of argumentation (often interwoven with descriptive account)
• Proposal, PRO

  • general purpose: informational – inform, describe, argue
  • specific purpose: proposes potential study: puts forth one or more research questions that author wishes to explore in order to further understanding of given topic; provides information about how proposed study will be tackled methodologically
  • skills: author demonstrates ability to convincingly argue for relevance, significance and manageability of proposed study
  • stance: author’s opinion/evaluation not usually overt, but may occur in literature review
• Proposal, PRO

  • structural: ollowing structural elements: introduction, literature review, research questions, proposed methodology
  • length: varies
  • functional: does not present or synthesize new data, but may include projected results; links back to relevant literature and/or previous studies; justifies the need for and outlines methods of data collection