The introduction section of research articles in English and Turkish: The case of educational sciences – a preliminary study

Abstract

Readers’ decisions about the relevance and significance of research presented in a journal article areoften influenced by the introduction section. Several factors contribute to authors’ writing of effectiveintroductions. This descriptive study aimed to explore strategies used by English and Turkish authors inthe introduction section of educational sciences research articles published between 2012 and 2018.Towards this end, the creation of a research space (CARS) model and authorial voice were investigated ina 358,068-word collection of 62 journal articles (31 Turkish & 31 English). Results showed that theEnglish collection revealed more frequent use of the submoves in CARS. Additionally, it included othermoves (i.e., announcing principal findings and description of the methodology used) which were absent inthe Turkish collection of text. The authors of the English introductions and those of the Turkishintroductions also differed from each other significantly in their use of authorial voice. The former usedthe active voice more often than the passive voice. There was also some use of personal pronouns in theEnglish texts while they were never used in the Turkish texts. These results point to a general pattern ineducation research article introductions in English and Turkish. The results imply that authors' lack ofattention to these trends when writing in a foreign language may result in limited visibility in theirfields. It is, therefore, recommended that scholars and training students should be informed about theways they could navigate these issues within their discourse communities.