Rhetorical structure, sequence, and variation: A step‐driven move analysis of applied linguistics conference abstracts

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) practitioners have widely adopted Swales' (1990) move analysis to investigate the rhetorical construction of various academic genres, particularly research article part‐genres. While this research has deepened our understanding of academic genre practices, advances in move analysis methods have uncovered important research considerations. Following Moreno and Swales' (2018) advocacy for step‐level analysis, the current study presents a move‐step framework and systematic rhetorical move‐step analysis of 625 conference abstracts accepted to the 2017 American Association of Applied Linguistics Conference. Findings reveal that five of the seven moves in the resulting framework were highly frequent, and two dominant move‐sequence patterns emerged. The findings can provide EAP instructors and students with useful insights into discursive and rhetorical practices associated with the genre.