Research Information System
Iberica, vol.42, pp.85-114, 2021 (AHCI)
This cross-disciplinary paper explores the ways in which writers promote their
research articles in the highlights section of journals available online as a digital
academic genre. A corpus of highlights from 300 research articles was randomly
selected from journals in two major domains of knowledge, hard sciences and
soft sciences. The corpus contained texts from the fields of (1) Chemistry and
(2) Computer Science representing hard sciences and from (3) Linguistics and (4)
Management representing soft sciences published in reputable journals in 2018
and 2019. The corpus was analysed in terms of the promotional and rhetorical
moves based on a model developed by the researchers using the uAM Corpus
Tool. The results show that despite similarities in the use of rhetorical moves, for
example, Promoting the results (Move 4) as the most frequently used move in both
corpora, there were disciplinary variations in the highlights section. Whereas
hard science majors give secondary importance to promoting the value (Move 2) of
their research, soft science majors promoted the scene of the study (Move 1) in the
highlights. Analyses of the cyclical patterns of the highlights reveal that whereas
hard sciences researchers combined promoting the results with promoting the
methodological issues (Move 3), soft sciences writers showcased their results as well
as promoting background information (Move 1) related to their actual research.