Generic Structure of Literature Reviews in Research Articles: Iranian and International Journals (Research Paper)

Investigating the rhetorical patterns of research article (RA) sections elucidates the complex nature of academic literacy, especially, for non-native researchers. Although the literature review (LR) has a central role in establishing the foundation of the study, less clarity is available concerning its unique complexities. This paper thus explores the generic structure of the literature review section (LR) of 122 RAs published in Iranian journals (IrRAs) and international journals (IntRAs) using Swales’ (1990) Create A Research Space (CARS) model. The IrRAs (n=61) were selected from seven established Iranian journals and the IntRAs (n=61) were chosen from seven professional journals with an impact factor greater than 1. Two coders identified the moves and steps of several RAs via negotiated coding. The results indicated that both groups had approximately similar patterns regarding the moves and steps. In both groups, ‘establishing a territory’ (M1) and ‘occupying a niche’ (M3) were the most and least used moves, respectively. Likewise, both groups used M1 and M3 to start and finish LR, respectively. A tendency for employing the irregular move patterns in IntRAs and the regular move patterns in IrRAs was also observed. These findings help novice researchers to better tackle the challenges of LR writing.