ABSTRACT
The most influential work on research article introductions has been carried out by Swales, and has been much cited and utilised since. Swales’ account of introductions is located within a tradition of studying genres as staged responses to a communicative need. Swales’ study of the structure of introductions culminated in the three-move Creating a Research Space model. This model has obvious appeal for people teaching novice academics how to write – it is a simple model that works. However, the model is much more than just a ‘recipe’ for how to write an effective introduction. 48 introductions from the BEE4 corpus have been investigated to establish their structure, using the CARS model. Five of these introductions (three from Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment and two from Global Environmental Change (GEC)) have been examined in greater detail, along with six additional introductions from a special issue of GEC.
