ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a case study of a biologist's revisions of an experimental article that extends recent studies of news value or novelty in scientific writing. It examines a particular narrative mechanism, the use of citation, or referencing that is central to the generic function of the experimental article. The chapter examines the way that Davis and Cronin, at the most abstract and diffuse level, use shared patterns of argument in the introduction and conclusion sections of their article. It also examine their reference to a prior series of experiments reported in Science, whose methodology and conceptual structure they have replicated; The chapter at the most explicit and specific level of argument, examines their use of citations to demonstrate how they position their experiments in relation to other investigations of a related series of problems on which scientists at the research front of their specialty are working.
