Lecture 10: Business & Professional Interactions

Today’s consultation is really fruitful! Especially when all the project deadlines are drawing near, it is definitely helpful for us to clarify any doubt that we might have. Today’s consultation helps to clarify on how presentations will be marked, whether we are on the right track of our project and explain how the structure of our project should be.

After going through the presentation slides, I have also tried to do the tutorial questions as posted by Mr Deng just to see if my understanding is correct.
For the activity 1, identity the steps based on the CARS model.

Move 1: Establishing a territory
• Step 1: Claiming centrality and/or
o He used phrases and words like, “points strongly to the need for more in-depth study”, “beneficial” and “useful”
• Step 2: Making topic generalization(s) and/or
o He used phrases and words like, “major indicator”, “only natural that a great deal of a researcher’s time and effort” and “most studied aspect”
• Step 3: Reviewing items of previous research
o Basically, he used examples from previous studies in his first and second paragraph. He mentioned a generalization of the findings from all these studies and expressed his concerns in providing a further analysis on them.

Move 2: Establishing a niche
• Step 1A: Counter-claiming or
o For this step, he used “little research has been done” to justify the need for further research
• Step 1B: Indicating a gap or
• Step 1C: Question-raising or
• Step 1D: Continuing a tradition
o For steps 1B to 1D, he basically used these 2 sentences, “Both these studies have revealed disciplinary variation in the structure of introductions in these disciplines. This finding points strongly to the need for more in-depth study of this genre in specific disciplines.”

Move 3: Occupying the niche
• Step 1A: Outlining purposes or
o I guess for this move, the introduction section of the article given to us only include this step. He actually outline what his study is going to answer, “The present study will examine if a generalised model like the CARS is applicable to introductions of English language research articles in a newly emerged discipline Biomedical Science and if so, how well it can account for the features of writing in a corpus of 10 research articles in this field.”
• Step 1B: Announcing present research
• Step 2: Announcing principal findings
• Step 3: Indicating RA structure

After some research on the internet, I found that there is another scholar named James P. Zappen who proposed a problem-solution model. His model involves 4 moves: goal, current capacity, problem and criteria of evaluation. The full name for the CARS model is interesting, “Create a Research Space”. I don’t see why this name was created for the model though.
An interesting fact about Swales' model is that it was a refined 3 steps model from his original 4 steps model. The CARS model is not claiming that all RA introductions conform to this model, but is used more like a device to help readers understand better on what is happening. The refined model is to include Literature Review in all 3 stages of the model instead of separating it into a stage of its own.
Below are some of the letter-writing jokes which I have found online:
Writing letters to son
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.

One student fell into a cycle of classes, studying, working and sleeping.
Didn't realize how long he had neglected writing home until he received the following note:

"Dear Son, Your mother and I enjoyed your last letter. Of course, we were much younger then, and more impressionable. Love, Dad."

An employee applied for leave as follows:
Since I have to go to my village to sell my land along with my wife. Please sanction me one-week leave.

Another employee applied for half day leave as follows:
"Since I've to go to the cremation ground and I may not return, Please grant me half day casual leave"

A candidate's application:
"This has reference to your advertisement calling for a 'typist and an accountant - Male or Female'... As I am both for the past several years and I can handle both, I am applying for the post.

Another leave letter written to Administration dept:
"As my mother-in-law has expired and I am responsible for it, please grant me 10 days leave.