Writing Theory - CARS model

Writing has its secrets. The discoveries for a foreign student in an introductory course of writing techniques in English go far beyond the increasing appropriation of a larger repertoire of new words and idiomatic expressions. Actually, the systematic analyses of writing pieces reveals patterns, or, as described by the experts in field, moves and steps that represent authors’ reasoning process to convey the messages of the text.

To what extent good writers are familiar with techniques that help them construct blocks of clear written texts or if they simply intuitively develop this ability, still intrigues me. Nevertheless, the writing strategy I am about to describe is a potent tool to organize research article introductions. The Create a Research Space – CARS model developed by Swales in 1990 organizes three moves in academic writing to introduce a general issue and then, after claiming an original approach, focus on a particular subject. Specifically, CARS move 1 consists of “establishing a territory”, move 2 “establishing a niche” and move 3, “addressing that niche”. The basic idea underlying this model is that academic writers should first introduce their topic (move 1), then narrow the subject usually presenting a knowledge gap within that particular literature field, i.e., the niche (move 2) and lastly, state how that piece of work will allegedly occupy the gap.

It is interesting, though, that not every language systematically benefits from this basic structure to introduce their academic papers. In Brazilian Portuguese papers, for example, academic writers seem to be uncomfortable with CARS model move 2 (Hirano, 2009). But while avoiding move 2, Brazilian writers give up from benefiting of its power and the role move 2 plays raising the importance of the text in a given context.

Brazilian researchers that want to use English, the current academic lingua franca, as their medium to publish their papers must become familiar with techniques like CARS model, which will help them make conscious choices while writing their articles and increase their chances as researchers to be successful in an international environment

Citations Theories

Citations are widely recognized as being an important and distinctive property of academic texts. As a consequence, the presence or absence of citations allows the casual reader to get an immediate sense of whether a text is an “academic” or “popular” one. Because citation is such an obvious surface phenomenon, it has been much discussed in the academic world. Indeed, there are several theories about the role and purpose of citations in academic texts.

In this text we present six theories about why academic authors use citations and propose a classification according to the main purpose of the citation usage: 1) theories that consider the author as a passive recipient of external expectations or requirements – Passive Author and 2) theories that view the author as an agent strategically designing the text to affect the readers in a particular way – Active Author.

1) Passive Author

In this group, citations are used to satisfy formal or ethical requirements within the academic community that the citing author belongs.

a) Citations are used to show respect to previous scholars; they recognize the history of the field by acknowledging previous achievements.

b) Citations operate as a mutual reward system where authors give credit to someone else’s work expecting to receive the same treatment in return (Ravetz, 1971).

c) Citations are used to recognize and acknowledge intellectual property rights. Academic authors are not only ethically, but essentially legally required to cite previous works in their fields.

There is a gradual enforcement transition among these three theories regarding the necessity of citation usage in academic papers, departing from a) a loose ethical requirement to b) ethics with additional further interest (reward expectation) to c) legal requirement.

2) Active Author

In this group, citations are considered to be used as a writing strategy, to make author’s argument more compelling or to create a familiar “environment” to the reader, providing smother transition from previous readings to the current citing text.

a) Citations are tools of persuasion; writers use citations to give their statements greater authority (Gibert, 1977).

b) Citations are use to demonstrate a sort of familiarity with the field, showing the reader that the author belongs to a particular scholarly community (Bavelas, 1978).

c) Citations are used to present the reader a research niche within one particular literature which will be occupied by the citing author. By describing what has been done, citations point the way to what has not been done and prepare a space for a new research (Swales, 1990).