Rhetorical structure of introduction chapter in Vietnamese English-majored undergraduate’s theses

Abstract

This research investigates the rhetorical structure of the Introduction chapter of English major undergraduate theses, adopting Swales’ Create-A-Research-Space framework (Swales, 1990, 2004). The data encompassed Introduction chapters of 30 theses written by English-majored students at a university in Vietnam. Move analysis was used to identify the frequencies of moves, steps, and patterns. Results indicated that all the introduction chapters in the corpus conform strictly to three moves in the model. However, students tend to employ fewer steps, in which gap-indication and result-presentation steps are not given sufficient attention. Findings from this research offer pedagogical implications for embedding the rhetorical genre structure of the thesis in writing courses for English major students. The study also recommends integrating critical thinking skills in the educational program at B University and other institutions of similar contexts to sharpen their scientific mindset in academic writing skills.