Rhetorical Structure of Research Articles in Agricultural Science

Although the rhetorical structure of research articles (RA) has been extensively examined from individual sections to complete IMRD sections regarding different disciplines, no research has been addressed to the overall rhetorical structure of RAs as a whole entity in the field of agricultural science. In this study, we analyzed 45 agricultural science RAs, using Kanoksilapatham’s (2005) model as an analytical tool. A sixteen-move structure was identified, 3 for the Introduction section, 5 for the Methods section, 4 for the Results section and 4 for the Discussion section, respectively. The rhetorical structure found in this study extends and refines previous models. In particular, the occurrences of moves in the sections of Methods and Results appear to be discipline-dependent. These results seem to indicate that the rhetorical structure of agricultural science RAs tend to have their own pattern, so that this study should benefit non-native scientists in general and non-native scientists in agricultural science in particular, not only allowing them to understand RAs better, but also helping them in their competition for international publication.