Rhetorical Moves in Research Article Discussions: Does the Quartile Value of a Journal Matter?

Abstract

Journal rankings are assumed to represent the quality of a publication, and research articles published in differently ranked journals are therefore expected to display different rhetorical patterns in their discussion sections. However, studies investigating the rhetorical patterns of discussion sections in research articles published in journals across different quartiles remain limited. This study was conducted to determine whether the journal quartile values influence the rhetorical moves and rhetorical patterns in the discussion sections of research articles on ELT. A mixed-methods approach using content analysis, following Drisko and Maschi (2016), was applied in this research. The data were selected from 80 discussion sections of research articles on ELT that followed the IMRD pattern and were published in internationally reputable journals across different quartiles, based on the SCImago database of 2023. The rhetorical moves in each discussion section were identified and coded following Peacock’s rhetorical move framework (2002). Quantitative analysis was conducted to determine the frequency of rhetorical move occurrences across different quartiles of journals and to identify the rhetorical pattern commonly found in each classification. The results reveal that higher-quartile journals use more complete rhetorical moves, while the lower-quartile journals tend to apply limited rhetorical moves. Consequently, this result leads to different patterns of rhetorical moves commonly found in the discussion sections of research articles published in journals across different quartiles. It is concluded that the quartile values of journals affect the use of rhetorical moves and lead to the development of common discussion-section patterns across different journal quartiles, which also contribute to well-structured research articles. The results have implications for academic writing courses, especially regarding current trends in the rhetorical structure of the discussion section of research articles based on the quartile value of the journals.