Macrostructures and rhetorical moves in energy engineering research articles written by Chinese expert writers

Abstract

Abstract Primarily motivated by the pedagogical question whether it is feasible to incorporate non-native English-speaking subject specialists support in China to address students research article (RA) publication difficulties, this paper investigates the extent to which Chinese expert writers RAs conform to the established conventions of international scientific communities in terms of macrostructure and rhetorical moves. The investigation uses a self-compiled corpus of representative energy engineering RAs published by authors on Elsevier’s 2016 list of “most cited Chinese researchers”. Results show that (i) 86% of the RAs choose the IM[RD]C macrostructure, although other variant forms of the standard IMRD structure are used; (ii) nine of the twelve moves identified are obligatory, with frequencies highly comparable to the results of previous research on science and engineering RAs; and (iii) most of the steps in the moves are optional or quasi-obligatory, indicating that the Chinese expert writers not only rigorously follow the established conventions of international scientific communities but also use rhetorical strategies flexibly. Therefore, they could justifiably play a role in addressing novice researcher writers publication challenges. The findings also throw light on the disciplinary culture of research writing in energy engineering, which could be taken into consideration by EAP practitioners.