PASAA Journal
Volume 64, July – December 2022, 138–162
Master’s Thesis Defense Presentation Slides in
Applied Linguistics: Move Analysis of
the Introduction by Chinese Students
Mei He
a
and Issra Pramoolsook
b
*
a
School of Foreign Languages, Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand
b
School of Foreign Languages, Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand
*Corresponding author: issra@sut.ac.th
Article information
Abstract
Thesis defense presentation slides (TDPS) are a significant and
unique genre in the final ritual of master’s students’ learning
journey. However, few studies have explored this genre,
especially its rhetorical structure, so students have scant
knowledge of it. This study investigates the moves and steps of
this genre focusing on their Introduction section. A move
analysis was conducted of 20 TDPS introductions produced by
Chinese master’s students in Applied Linguistics. Adopting
Chen and Kuo’s (2012) framework, interviews with the TDPS
authors were then conducted. This study confirms that the
framework for M.A. theses, i.e., the source genre of TDPS, is
applicable to the exploration of the TDPS rhetorical structure.
Only Move 3
Occupying the niche
was found to be obligatory. No
obligatory step was identified, and just three steps were found
to be conventional. This study provides insights into how
Chinese students produce this underexplored genre and argues
for more attention to be paid to studies of its rhetorical
structure. The findings could raise students’ awareness of genre
when attempting to produce effective and acceptable
presentation slides to better communicate with their target
audience.
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Keywords
thesis defense presentation slides; rhetorical structure;
Chinese students; Applied Linguistics; move analysis
APA citation:
He, M. & Pramoolsook, I. (2022). Master’s thesis defense
presentation slides in applied linguistics: Move analysis of the
introduction by Chinese students.
PASAA
,
64
, 138–162.
Introduction
Master’s students need to acquire several genres. Thesis defense is one of
these genres (Rowley-Jolivet & Carter-Thomas, 2005), which has a long history
(Roberts & Hyatt, 2019). Generally, four main phases are involved in the thesis
defense process, i.e., “preliminaries,” “the defense proper,” “in-camera session,”
and “closing segment” (Swales, 2004). The second phase is the most challenging
and requires master’s students to deliver an oral presentation of their thesis with
a sequence of slides and answer questions about their research. During this phase,
one genre that master’s students need to produce is thesis defense presentation
slides (TDPS).
TDPS are an independent genre closely related to the written thesis. They
are a kind of visual aid (Yates & Orlikowski, 2007) to support the oral commentary
of students in “the defense proper” stage of the thesis defense. Therefore, the
primary communicative purpose of TDPS is to support or to facilitate the oral
presentation (Schoeneborn, 2013; Wecker, 2012). Moreover, they are used to
structure and string together the components of the oral commentary during the
presentation (Dubois, 1980; Weissberg, 1993). In certain instances, they are
utilized as speaking notes as well (Hertz et al., 2016). The most immediate target
audience of TDPS is the committee members who have already read the thesis
before the thesis defense. Another audience is the supervisors to whom the
students show that they are ready for the defense and feedback. Fellow students
or faculty members might be another potential audience.
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Despite the fact that TDPS is a necessary and significant genre for master’s
students, little or no instruction is provided for them on how to prepare or present
slides (Tardy, 2009). The most popular way they learn this particular genre is to
observe their seniors’ presentations. Therefore, they obtain scant genre knowledge
of TDPS and suffer from a lack of a clear framework to produce them (Pieketaleyee
& Bazargani, 2018).
In the literature, more attention has been paid to the presentation slides in
other contexts, such as classrooms, conferences, and seminars (Forey & Feng,
2016; Morell, 2015; Wecker, 2012; Zareva, 2013, 2016). Few studies have explored
the TDPS genre, especially its rhetorical structure. Besides, the investigations into
presentation slides have been conducted in the teaching context to examine their
effect on the learning of students (Baker et al., 2018; Levasseur & Kanan Sawyer
2006; Nouri & Shahid 2005; Pi & Hong, 2016; Zdaniuk et al., 2019), and several
scholars have looked into students’ slide design (Chen, 2021; Shin et al., 2020),
slide formats (Castelló et al., 2020), categories of visuals on slides (Azizifar et al.,
2014; Rowley-Jolivet, 2002) and integration of slide-text into spoken expositions
of a lecture (Hallewell & Crook, 2020). Moreover, general strategies in designing
slides have been explored in a number of studies (e.g., Berk, 2011; Mackiewicz,
2008), as well as students’ perception of presentation slides (Apperson et al.,
2008; Bucher & Niemann, 2012). Nevertheless, a large number of students,
supervisors, and researchers are still unfamiliar with the rhetorical structure of the
TDPS genre, especially students who may find it challenging when having to
produce slides in this particular genre.
Limited research on TDPS leaves a research gap that has yet to be fulfilled.
As a significant genre for master’s students who may find it challenging to produce
TDPS, there is a need to explore their rhetorical structure. According to Hertz et
al. (2016), students should be taught how to design slides, and how to present
them effectively with PowerPoint. Furthermore, making the knowledge of writing
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explicit to inexperienced writers through genre analysis might be an effective way
to help them cope with the challenges they encounter (Putri & Kurniawan, 2021;
Ren & Li, 2011). Therefore, the present research aimed to explore the rhetorical
structure of TDPS, specifically the Introduction section. Previous studies have
revealed that presentation slides are structured closely to their original written
reports, such as theses and research articles (Atai & Talebzadeh, 2012; Diani,
2015; Pieketaleyee & Bazargani, 2018; Rowley-Jolivet, 2002; Tardy, 2005;
Weissberg, 1993). Since the Introduction section of a thesis can be difficult for
inexperienced students (Nguyen & Pramoolsook, 2014; Zainuddin & Shaari, 2021),
it can be assumed that its counterpart in TDPS is challenging for them as well.
Hence, the Introduction section of TDPS was selected as the focus of the current
research.
Literature Review
To the best of our knowledge, only one study (i.e., Pieketaleyee & Bazargani,
2018) has explored the moves and steps of the Introduction section of TDPS.
Collecting 50 PowerPoint presentations prepared by language teaching Iranian
students for their thesis defense, Pieketaleyee and Bazargani (2018) investigated
the moves and steps employed by the Iranian students when presenting the
Introduction and Literature Review sections of their thesis. The researchers
adopted the framework proposed by Chen and Kuo (2012) to analyze the selected
theses’ moves and steps to identify the rhetorical structure of the slides. The move
analysis of the Introduction section of TDPS revealed that three conventional
moves (
Establishing a territory
,
Establishing a niche
, and
Occupying the niche
), in
concordance with Swales’ (1990) CARS model, were frequently used by the
student writers, and no obligatory move was found in their corpus. Compared with
Chen and Kuo’s (2012) framework, all four moves of the framework were found in
the corpus. However, fewer steps under the moves were identified, and some steps
were completely missing in the presentation slides, such as
Continuing a tradition
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under the second move and
Describing parameters of research
under the third
move.
With a corpus of 438 slides which constituted 20 Applied Linguistics
conference presentations produced by Iranian linguists, Atai and Talebzadeh
(2012) analyzed the rhetorical structure of presentation slides at the move level.
As for the Introduction section, the results showed that all the three moves for
research articles in the CARS model (Swales, 1990) were identified in the corpus.
In addition, it was found that more slides were utilized to realize the first move,
Establishing the territory,
and this move occurred in all the presentations, thus,
enjoying the obligatory status. The other two moves were found to be conventional.
It seems that conference slide writers have a tendency to provide the knowledge
about the field to the audience.
In the same vein, analyzing 56 sets of presentation slides produced by native
and non-native English speakers at three Applied Linguistics conferences, Diani
(2015) found that Move 1
Establishing a territory
was obligatory, which is in line
with the results of Atai and Talebzadeh (2012). However, Move 2
Establishing a
niche
and Move 3
Occupying the niche
were identified as the optional move and
obligatory move, respectively, which was in disagreement with the findings of Atai
and Talebzadeh (2012) who found these two moves were all conventional. Such
differences may have been caused by the contexts of these two studies as the
presentation slides in the study by Atai and Talebzadeh (2012) were produced by
Iranian writers, whereas those in the study by Diani (2015) included both native
and non-native writers from international conferences. Such discrepancy seems to
suggest that cultural variations exist in the moves adopted by different writers who
write conference presentation slides.
In conclusion, the generic moves and steps of this particular TDPS genre
are obviously underexplored, especially those written by master’s students from a
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Chinese cultural background. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to
address this research gap by answering the research question: what are the
moves, steps, and structure of the Introduction in TDPS produced by Chinese
master’s students in Applied Linguistics?
Methods
Data Collection
The data were collected from a public comprehensive university located in
southwest China. This university has 38 colleges, offering 52 master’s programs in
total, ranging from disciplines in technology and natural sciences to those in
humanities and social sciences. Two criteria were established to collect TDPS.
Firstly, TDPS from the Applied Linguistics discipline were chosen. The reason for
selecting this discipline was that in mainland China, only English-related majors
are required to produce TDPS in English. Moreover, among English-related majors,
only those in Applied Linguistics were produced in the traditional IMRD style.
Secondly, to determine the current tendency and to find out the recurrent
rhetorical structure of the TDPS employed in this discourse community, TDPS of
the theses successfully defended within the academic years 2017 to 2021 were
collected. In the end, 20 TDPSs were included to build the needed corpus. It should
be mentioned that since the content of TDPS was selected and extracted from
theses, the original theses of the 20 TDPS were collected and consulted as well to
elicit a clearer picture of the production of the slides. The sample size of the 20
TDPSs was considered manageable and sufficient, following the criteria set in
previous studies (Atai & Talebzadeh, 2012; Flowerdew & Forest, 2009).
Furthermore, it should be mentioned that the current study had a smaller corpus
compared with a similar study undertaken by Pieketaleyee and Bazargani (2018).
However, to compensate for this limitation, interviews with the actual writers of
the slides were conducted to validate and verify the findings from the textual
analysis.
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The next procedure was to identify and extract the Introduction section from
the whole TDPS. Uncertainty about the boundaries of the Introduction section was
addressed by confirming with the corresponding writers of those slides. The 20
Introduction sections in TDPSs (hereafter PSIs) were extracted and the codes
PSI01 to PSI20 were randomly assigned for ethical consideration and convenience
of the analysis. The total number of slides in each PSI ranged from two to six, with
an average of 3.5 slides in one PSI.
The present research regarded TDPS as a written form of the Introduction
section (Atai & Talebzadeh, 2012; Pieketaleyee & Bazargani, 2018; Tardy, 2005);
therefore, 20 sets of PSIs were transformed into an editable file format so that
their content could be analyzed manually and tagged electronically for an easy
calculation of the frequency of the moves and steps.
Data Analysis
Following the frameworks proposed by Pieketaleyee and Bazargani (2018)
and Chen and Kuo (2012), as shown in the table below, there were three moves in
the framework with four steps under Move 1, four steps under Move 2, and 15
steps under Move 3. Additionally, an independent move
Referring to other studies
was proposed for the investigation of the functions of citations in the framework.
However, the citation practice was not the focus of the present study, and this
move was subsequently removed to make it more appropriate to achieve the
focused research objectives.
Table 1
Move-Step Framework for Thesis Introduction (Chen & Kuo, 2012)
Moves
Steps
Move 1:
Establishing a territory
a) Providing topic generalization/background
b) Indicating centrality/importance of topic
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c) Defining terms
d) Reviewing previous research
Move 2:
Establishing a niche
a) Indicating gap in previous research
b) Question-raising
c) Counter-claiming
d) Continuing/extending a tradition
Move 3:
Occupying the niche
a) Indicating purposes/aims/objectives
b) Indicating scope of research
c) Indicating chapter/section structure
d) Indicating theoretical position
e) Announcing research/work carried out
f) Describing parameters of research
g) Stating research questions/hypotheses
h) Defining terms
i) Indicating research method
j) Indicating findings/results
k) Indicating models proposed
l) Indicating applications
m) Indicating value or significance
n) Providing justification
o) Indicating thesis structure
Referring to other studies
a) Providing background information
b) Providing definition of terms
c) Providing support or justification
Subsequently, the modified framework was applied into the identification of
the moves and steps of the 20 PSIs. In this process, a functional-semantic
approach was conducted in which cognitive judgement instead of the linguistic
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criteria was utilized to recognize the local communicative functions of the text
segments and textual boundaries (Kwan, 2006). After the coding of all the data,
the move-step sequence of each PSI was tabulated to observe the recurrent
patterns. The frequency of the moves and steps was also calculated. Following
Kanoksilapatham (2005) and Nguyen and Pramoolsook (2015), the move or step
presented in all the PSIs (100%) was regarded as obligatory, while that appearing
less than 60% was optional. Those holding the frequency in between were
considered conventional. Moreover, similar to Yang and Allison (2003), for the sake
of conciseness of the analysis, the sub-steps were not explored. Finally, the
findings were compared with those in other pertinent studies.
Being aware of the issue of subjectivity during coding, an interrater was
invited to code the data. The invited interrater, holding an M.A. degree, had been
working as an English instructor for five years with experience in discourse
analysis and corpus analysis. After the interrater was trained to code the data, they
analyzed the 20 PSIs, and the results were then compared with those of the first
researcher. The interrater agreement was 93.4%, which indicated a high frequency
of consistency. Disagreements between the two raters were discussed until all of
them were addressed.
In addition, semi-structured interviews with the TDPS authors were
conducted after the textual analysis. The interview questions were mainly related
to the results of the move analysis of the PSIs that were deemed interesting.
Furthermore, the writers were encouraged to share their experience in producing
the PSIs, especially the challenges and difficulties they had encountered.
Results and Discussion
Slide Headings
A thesis is generally organized by chapters with sections and/or subsections
under each chapter, while presentation slides are composed in a sequence (Tardy,
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2005). Furthermore, except for the first title slide and the last Thank You slide, the
slides in between usually have a heading and/or subheading as well as the body
text, which is the default layout setting of Microsoft PowerPoint (Atai &
Talebzadeh, 2012; Green, 2021). Writers might also change the layout of their
PowerPoint slides as they deem appropriate or effective. A common feature of the
PSIs is the prevalence of slide headings which play a significant role to guide the
audience through the contents being presented in that specific slide. Slide
headings, similar to section headings in the thesis (Bunton, 2002), may imply the
moves and steps on that particular slide. Thus, the slide headings were first
examined in this study.
Among the 20 PSIs investigated, 11 of them had the heading “Introduction,”
which was in a single slide serving as the boundary device, at the top of every
single slide, or only on the first slide of the slide set. However, one writer utilized
the word “Introduction” to demonstrate the research background rather than to
imply the whole introductory part of their thesis. To be specific, one PSI stated
“Introduction” as the slide heading to present the content about “Background,”
“Deficiencies of previous studies,” and “Present study,” followed by a slide with
the heading “Research objectives” to show the research purposes which were also
the content under the heading “Present study.” An informal interview with the
writer subsequently revealed that he used the heading “Introduction” to pack all
the basic information of his research and prepared the slides according to the flow
of his speech in the thesis defense rather than following the structure of the
original thesis. It seemed that there were two ways to organize TDPS, one was to
follow the structure of the original thesis and the other was to comply with the flow
of the speaker’s speech.
Most of the slide headings or subheadings were generic section headings
from the theses. According to the sequence of the headings used, half of the PSIs
(50%) had the slide heading “Research background” or “Background” to direct the
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audience to the items that indicated the information that provided background of
the research. Other headings that were used varied, including “Motivation,”
“Rationale,” “Rationale of the study,” “Research orientation,” and “Basis for the
selected topic,” all of which were not found in the introduction of the theses.
Furthermore, 18 out of the 20 PSIs had the slide heading to indicate the research
objectives, such as “Research objectives,” “Objectives of the study,” “Purpose,” or
“Objectives.” A majority of the PSIs (75%) had one slide titled “Research
questions.” In addition, headings that demonstrated the research significance
were found in eight of the PSIs, such as “Significance of the study” and
“Significance.” Moreover, two PSIs were found to have “Terminology” as a slide
heading and one PSI had “Layout of the thesis” to finish the introductory section
of the PSI.
From the slide headings, it can be concluded that research background,
research objectives, and research questions were the most commonly found,
reflecting the writers’ belief that these three parts were the most important
information to introduce their research. Varied headings used by the writers to
create the PSIs seemed to imply that they had more freedom to create the slides.
It also indicated that there may not be a strict convention for this particular genre.
Moves in the PSIs
The total number of PSIs identified based on the framework proposed by
Chen and Kuo (2012), as well as frequencies, are shown in Table 2 below. All three
moves of
Establishing a Territory
,
Establishing a Niche
, and
Occupying the Niche
were found. In regards to their frequency, Move 1 was considered conventional as
it was presented in the majority of the presentation slides (80%). This is in line
with the finding of Pieketaleyee and Bazargani (2018) that Move 1 was most
frequently found, indicating that it is necessary to introduce the audience to some
background information right at the beginning of the thesis defense. However,
Move 1 was found to be obligatory in the Applied Linguistics conference
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presentation slides in the studies by Atai and Talebzadeh (2012) and Diani (2015).
This may have been because there was a diverse audience at the conference and
the presenters may have wanted to provide certain background information to
familiarize the audience with their topics for ease of comprehension.
Table 2
Moves in the 20 PSIs
Moves
No.
%
Status
Move 1: Establishing a Territory
16
80
Conventional
Move 2: Establishing a Niche
11
55
Optional
Move 3: Occupying the Niche
20
100
Obligatory
The findings also showed that the frequency of Move 2 was 55%, thus
suggesting that it was optional in the present corpus. A different finding was
reported by Pieketaleyee and Bazargani’s (2018) that Move 2 was obligatory in
TEFL thesis defense presentation slides produced by Iranian master’s students.
One plausible explanation is there may be cultural differences when presenting
thesis research. It is worth noting that the finding of the present study, that Move
2 was optional, is consistent with that of Diani (2015) which revealed that Move 2
had a lower frequency of only 12.5%. On the other hand, Atai and Talebzadeh
(2012) reported that Move 2 was conventional in their corpus. A closer examination
showed that the slides in the study by Diani (2015) were produced by native and
non-native English speakers, whereas those in the study by Atai and Talebzadeh
(2012) were produced exclusively by Iranian linguists. Again, cultural differences
may explain such discrepancy when including Move 2 in presentation slides.
As the main purpose of thesis defense presentations is to report one’s own
research, Move 3 was found in all the presentations, thus indicating that it was an
obligatory move. Likewise, Pieketaleyee and Bazargani (2018) and Diani (2015)
found that Move 3 was obligatory. Also, Move 3 had a high frequency of 87.5% in
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a study by Atai and Talebzadeh (2012). As such, it could be concluded that
occupying the niche is significant and necessary when making presentation slides.
In terms of the move sequence, the three moves were in a single progression in
the majority of the presentation slides as shown in Table 3, except for one
presentation (PSI18) in which a recursive Move 1 slide was followed by five
recursive Move 3 slides. This finding was contrary to the findings that the moves
contained in the Introduction section of a thesis were cyclical (e.g., Bunton, 2002;
Chen & Kuo, 2012; Kawase, 2018). It could be that there is a time restriction when
doing an oral presentation, so the writers have to extract only the main points of
their thesis and keep the elaboration of details only in the written version of the
thesis.
Table 3
Move Sequence of the 20 PSIs
Text
Move sequences
Text
Move sequence
PSI1
M1-M3
PSI11
M3-M2-M3
PSI2
M1-M2-M3
PSI12
M3
PSI3
M1-M2-M3
PSI13
M1-M3
PSI4
M1-M3
PSI14
M3-M1-M3
PSI5
M1-M2-M3
PSI15
M3-M1-M2-M3
PSI6
M2-M3
PSI16
M3-M1-M3
PSI7
M3
PSI17
M1-M3
PSI8
M1-M3
PSI18
M1-M2-M1-M3
PSI9
M1-M2-M3
PSI19
M3-M1-M2-M3
PSI10
M1-M2-M3
PSI20
M1-M2-M3
(Note: M1 = a step or steps of Move 1; M2 = a step or steps of Move 2; M3 = a step or steps of
Move 3)
As indicated in Table 3, two of the slide sets (PSI7 and PSI12) utilized only
Move 3 to introduce their research, so the introduction of the presentation was
about the writers’ own research. The identified move patterns in the present
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corpus were M1-M3 and M1-M2-M3, with the frequency of 35% and 40%,
respectively. The move progression of M1-M2-M3 identified in the framework of
Chen and Kuo (2012) was employed more frequently in the present corpus, and
this suggests that the oral presentation of the Introduction section of a thesis
generally conforms to the convention proposed by Swales’ (1990, 2004) CARS
models for research articles.
Steps in the PSIs
The steps identified in the PSIs were similar to those in the proposed
framework of Chen and Kuo (2012), but about half of their steps were not identified
in the present corpus (see Table 4). On the contrary, Pieketaleyee and Bazargani
(2018) found that only four out of the 24 steps were not identified in their corpus.
Put another way, Iranian thesis writers in their study adopted more steps to
present their thesis during their oral defense than those used by Chinese student
writers in this study. One possible explanation for this finding is that the
presentation time of 15 to 25 minutes the Iranian students had was significantly
longer than the duration of 15 minutes that the Chinese students in this study had.
Therefore, it may have been necessary to use fewer steps in their slides.
It is noteworthy that the step
Defining terms
is included in both Move 1 and
Move 3, but their communicative functions are different. The one under Move 1 is
concerned with a wide research field (Bunton, 2002), whereas the one under Move
3 is to offer the operational definitions of the terms used in the writers’ study.
There were instances of defining terms found in two slide sets, which were
presented under the title “Terminology,” and they were considered belonging to
Move 3.
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Table 4
Steps in the 20 PSIs
Steps
No.
%
Status
Move 1
Providing topic generalization/
background
14
70
Conventional
Indicating centrality/ importance of
topic
5
25
Optional
Defining terms
0
0
/
Reviewing previous research
4
20
Optional
Move 2
Indicating gaps in previous research
11
55
Optional
Question-raising
0
0
/
Counter-claiming
0
0
/
Continuing/extending a tradition
0
0
/
Indicating a problem/need
0
0
/
Move 3
Indicating purposes/aims/objectives
18
90
Conventional
Indicating scope of research
1
5
Optional
Indicating chapter /section structure
3
15
Optional
Indicating theoretical position
2
10
Optional
Announcing research/ work carried out
2
10
Optional
Describing parameters of research
0
0
/
Stating research questions/hypotheses
15
75
Conventional
Defining terms
2
10
Optional
Indicating research method
1
5
Optional
Indicating findings/results
0
0
/
Indicating models proposed
0
0
/
Indicating applications
0
0
/
Indicating value or significance
8
40
Optional
Providing justification
0
0
/
Indicating thesis structure
3
15
Optional
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Among all the steps found in the PSIs,
Indicating purposes/aims/objectives
had the highest frequency (90%). This suggests that the writers considered the
research objectives most significant when introducing their study during the thesis
defense. Other frequently utilized steps included
Stating research
questions/hypotheses
(75%) and
Providing topic generalization/background
(70%). These three steps were the only conventional steps in the PSIs in the
present corpus, and no obligatory steps were identified. Such findings indicated
that there was no convention for master’s students to produce their presentation
slides, and the steps varied across student writers who were members of the same
discourse community in this study.
In regards to the realization of Move 1, the step
Providing topic
generalization/background
was most frequently employed, which was similar to
the finding of Pieketaleyee and Bazargani (2018). In fact, it is conventional to
present background information in the thesis defense. Moreover, few of the slide
sets contained the steps
Indicating centrality/importance of topic
(25%) or
Reviewing previous research
(20%), which suggests that the content related to
these two steps was not necessary when giving an oral presentation to a live
audience. Besides, no
Defining terms
step was found in the present corpus, and
this may have been because the student writers were aware of the fact that the
target audience, or their thesis committee members, were experts in the field.
Move 2 was found to be optional in the present study. It was found only in
the step
Indicating gaps in previous research
. In other words, all the PSIs which
had Move 2 only employed the step
Indicating gaps in previous research
. The other
four steps of Move 2 were not identified. Such findings were not congruent with
the findings of Pieketaleyee and Bazargani (2018) who found
Indicating a
problem/need
to be an obligatory step in all presentation slides. Moreover,
Question-raising
and
Counter-claiming
were also found in their corpus. Interviews
with the writers revealed that they considered the research gap as the strongest
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motivation for their research because it underscored the value of their research.
Additionally, some of the writers explained that it could be assumed that where
there was a research gap, there was also a research need, so providing rationale
for their research did not need to be stated explicitly even though it may be orally
mentioned during the presentation.
Among the 15 steps under Move 3, only two steps,
Indicating
purposes/
aims/objectives
and
Stating research questions/hypotheses
, were found with a
high frequency of 90% and 75%, respectively. Frequent uses of these two steps
showed that they were conventional steps as it was necessary to clarify research
aims and research questions during the presentation. Closer examination also
showed that sometimes research questions that were missing in the introductory
section later appeared in the Methodology section. There was only one slide set
that did not explicitly state the research questions of the study. Besides these two
steps, eight out of the 20 PSIs (40%) included the step
Indicating value or
significance
, even though it was just an optional step in the present corpus. In
contrast, it was found to be a conventional step with a high frequency of 94% in
the study by Pieketaleyee and Bazargani (2018). Such a discrepancy may be
explained by differences in presentation times that required student writers to
present only the steps that were most important.
Furthermore, under Move 3, few PSIs included the steps of
Defining terms
(10%) and
Indicating thesis structure
(15%). It should be mentioned that two of the
three PSIs had a single slide demonstrating the chapter headings of their thesis
rather than the outline for their presentation, thus both were coded as
Indicating
thesis structure
. It seems that these writers may have misunderstood the function
of the outline of their presentation. The writers may have also deliberately
intended to show that their thesis structures were complete despite some parts
being omitted during their presentation. In addition, no
Indicating applications
step
was identified even though these three steps were conventional in the study by
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Pieketaleyee and Bazargani (2018). It seems that Chinese writers presented less
content in the Introduction slides than their Iranian counterparts, as they may have
had their country’s convention to follow.
A noteworthy finding was that the step
Indicating chapter/section structure
was identified in four PSIs which utilized a single slide as a boundary device to
reveal the outline of the introductory part of the slides. For example, as shown in
Figure 1, “Introduction” was placed in the middle of a single slide to signal the
beginning of the presentation of related content. The word “Introduction,”
“Research background,” “Research objectives,” and “Research Questions” were
listed in a smaller font size to indicate the outline of this part to guide the audience
through. It could be concluded that a single slide was more preferred in the present
study as a boundary device when indicating the chapter structure in the slide sets.
Figure 1
Example of the Step Indicating Chapter/Section Structure (PSI19_S3)
As for the step patterns, the majority of the PSIs only had one step within
Move 1 and Move 2. More steps were found under Move 3. However, only one step
sequence was identified under Move 3 in more than half of the PSIs (60%)—S1-
S7, which indicated that when these two steps were utilized, the step
Indicating
purposes/aims/objectives
(S1) always preceded the step
Stating research
questions/hypotheses
(S7). This showed a close relationship between research
purposes and research questions/hypotheses. Very few step patterns were
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identified which suggests that there seemed to be no convention or norms for
master’s students to follow in the production of Introduction slides.
Conclusion
This study investigated the rhetorical structure of the underexplored genre
TDPS, specifically its Introduction section. The framework proposed for thesis
writing by Chen and Kuo (2012) was adopted to identify the moves and steps of
the PSIs, which confirms the applicability of the framework to analyze its
corresponding genre. The moves and steps identified in the PSIs were within the
framework of Chen and Kuo (2012) since no new moves or steps were found in the
current corpus. At the move level, three moves were utilized. Move 1
Establishing
a territory
was conventional, whereas Move 2
Establishing a niche
and Move 3
Occupying the niche
were optional and obligatory, respectively. This led to a
conclusion that the PSI is more about introducing the writers’ own research and
the works conducted by themselves to the target audience. As for the move
patterns, the majority of the PSIs were in a single progression of M1-M2-M3, which
was different from the presentation of a written thesis in which moves are
recursive and cyclical (Bunton, 2002; Chen & Kuo, 2012; Kawase, 2018).
Furthermore, at the step level, no obligatory steps were found.
Indicating
purposes/aims/objectives
was the most frequently utilized step, followed by
Stating research questions/hypotheses
and
Providing topic generalization/
background
. These three steps were the only conventional steps identified in this
study, and the rest of the existing steps were all optional. Regarding the step
sequence, only one step pattern was presented in more than half of the PSIs, in
which research objectives were immediately followed by research questions.
The findings of this study contribute to the knowledge of the genre of PSIs.
They can help raise student writers’ awareness of how this genre is composed
especially as a product of the original genre it comes from, i.e., a master’s thesis,
to make it more acceptable, comprehensible, and effective to the discourse
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community. In addition, as a unique genre (Tardy, 2009) with its pervasive use in
thesis defense sessions, it is meaningful to include this kind of genre in a writing
course. Thus, this study provided empirical evidence that could be utilized by
instructors and faculty members who wish to develop a course or instructional
materials related to thesis writing.
As the present study focused only on the Introduction section, further
studies could be conducted to explore other sections of the TDPS. In addition, it
appears that the move and step variations are demonstrated in different cultural
contexts. Therefore, comparative studies of the rhetorical structures of the TDPS
produced by writers from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds could be
undertaken as well.
About the Authors
Mei He is currently a Ph.D. student at the School of Foreign Languages,
Institute of Social Technology, Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand. Her
research interests include academic discourse, genre analysis, academic writing,
intertextuality, and interdiscursivity.
Issra Pramoolsook holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics and English
Language Teaching and is an associate professor at the School of Foreign
Languages, Institute of Social Technology, Suranaree University of Technology,
Thailand. His research interests include disciplinary and professional discourses
analysis, genre analysis, L2 writing, and genre-based approach to teaching writing.
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