How do writers evaluate their own empirical research? A genre-based inquiry into economics journal papers

Genre literature has indicated that academic discourse communities commonly uphold established conventions with regard to the writing of research articles in their respective disciplines. Recent studies have also acknowledged that disciplinary differences exist in the writing of research articles, and this has resulted in numerous investigations into the specific genre features of this text type in various academic fields. An interesting area which has been identified in past research is a rhetorical move that evaluates the study being reported. To date, however, this move on self-evaluation has not been examined at length in a core academic discipline such as economics. Using the latest Swalesian move-step analytical framework, this study aims to analyse the communicative functions of this move in empirical economics research articles and identify its constituent steps. The textual analysis of this investigation was triangulated by a qualitative analysis of spoken data elicited from specialist informants in the field of economics. Our results indicate that self-evaluation of a study is, by and large, a principal or quasi-obligatory move although each of its three steps is optional in economics research reports. These three constituent steps collectively play a pivotal role in putting the research into perspective for the reader after research results are presented. The findings of this study have contributed to the advancement of genre knowledge in that they have shed some light on how instructors can design relevant teaching materials aimed at helping learners to foreground the value of their studies in the later portions of their research reports. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.