This article provides quantitative data to establish the relative, perceived burden of writing research articles in English as a second language. Previous qualitative research has shown that scientists writing English in a second language face difficulties but has not established parameters for the degree of this difficulty. A total of 141…

The research article is a staple genre in the economy of scientific research, and although research articles have received considerable treatment in genre scholarship, little attention has been given to the important development of Registered Reports. Registered Reports are an emerging, hybrid genre that proceeds through a two-stage model of peer…

While scholars in the field of writing studies have examined scientific writing from multiple perspectives, interest in its thematic structure has been modest. Recent studies suggest that the themes in scientific writing tend to be anchored on one or a few points of departure. There has also been an attempt at quantification using the…

The Internet has helped to change who writes about science in the news, how news is written, and how it is taken up by different audiences. However, few studies have examined how these changes have impacted the uptake of scientific claims in online news writing. This case study explores how online news genres take up knowledge claims from a…

Claims that the contextual nature of "results" sections in scientific articles remains largely unexplored. Examines scientific publications by biochemists. Identifies six rhetorical moves common to such articles. Demonstrates the rhetorical nature of science writing. (HB)

Scholars in the field of writing and rhetorical studies have long been interested in professional writing and the ways in which experts frame their research for disciplinary audiences. Three decades ago, rhetoricians incorporated stasis theory into their work as a way to explore the nature of argument and persuasion in scientific discourse.…

States that scientific journal article introductions usually open with standard moves that introduce the community to new findings in specific literature. Presents a study in which 4 articles on chaos theory were analyzed--then 12 scientists were asked to think aloud while reading them. Emphasizes that scientific readers reacted differently.…

Drawing on a text-based ethnography of digital writing in a biology laboratory, this article examines the text trajectory of a scientific manuscript and a scientific team's related writing for public audiences, including for citizen scientists. Using data drawn from texts, observations, interviews, and related artifacts, the author examines how…

Rhetorical figures of speech provide important analytical frames to chart how arguments operate within genres and within genre ecologies. Varieties of the figure prolepsis allow for the rendering of future time or fact in the present, which can be a powerful rhetorical inducement toward social and political action. In this article, we examine how…

This article outlines findings from a case study investigating attitudes toward English as the dominant language of scientific research writing. Survey and interview data were collected from 55 Latin American health and life scientists and 7 North American scientific journal editors connected to an intensive scholarly writing for publication…

In this article, I argue that technical reporting and documentation processes function to mitigate uncertainty and enable complex systems in the endeavor of big science. The argument draws on two years of field research investigating technical reporting and documentation processes at a federally funded supercomputing center dedicated to scientific…

Negotiating membership within a disciplinary community is as much an exercise in rhetorical facility as it is content expertise. Where individuals reside in the hierarchy of membership is determined by not only what they talk and write about, but how. Yet, there are many factors that can impact newcomers' acculturation into a disciplinary…

This study investigates the added burden Mexican and Taiwanese non-native English speaker (NNES) researchers perceive when writing research articles in English as a second language (L2) compared with their experience of first language (L1) science writing. 148 Mexican and 236 Taiwanese researchers completed an established survey of science writing…

It is in the interest of scholarly journals to publish important research and of researchers to publish in important journals. One key to making the case for the importance of research in a scholarly article is to incorporate value arguments. Yet there has been no rhetorical analysis of value arguments in the literature. In the context of…

New media are having a significant impact on science communication, both on the way scientists communicate with peers and on the dissemination of science to the lay public. Science blogs, in particular, provide an open space for science communication, where a diverse audience (with different degrees of expertise) may have access to science…