ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes findings from the previous four chapters, highlighting the diversity of engagement resources available to and utilized by medical research writers. The distribution of these resources varies across generic stages and phases of the medical research article, construing different writer–reader relations and potentially different knowledge structures. Verbal, mathematical, and visual engagement resources contribute in different ways. Verbal and mathematical resources appear to construe dialogically expansive spaces in which the presence and positions of other voices are acknowledged and entertained, while visual resources construe a more dialogically contractive or monoglossic space. Together, these resources construe a complex site of engagement that is something other than or more than that construed by each semiotic alone. Based on the findings of this study, and comparisons with other studies, the chapter also offers some adjustments or refinements to the engagement system, including the addition of an alignment subsystem. The chapter concludes with an overall summary that highlights the importance of considering texts and discourses from a multi- and intersemiotic perspective.
