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DISCIPLINARY VARIATION IN ACADEMIC WRITING 73Move 1Move 2Move 3Establishing a territoryStep 1 Claiming centralityunti/or Step 2 Making topic gencralisationsclnti/or Step 3 IievicLving items of previous researchEstablishing a nicheStep 1A Counter-claimingor Step IB Indicating a gapor Step 1C Question-raisingor Step ID Continuing a traditionOccupying the nicheStep 1A Outlining purposesor Step 1B Announcing prescnt resrarchStep 2 Announcing principal findingsStep 3 Indicating research article structure.Typically, academic discoursc communities are bound togcther by subject matter, antlprofessional academic writing is seen as adding to the body of kno\vlcdge Lvhich is at thccore of the discipline. In addition to disciplinary knowledge, the way subject matter isdiscussed the genrc conventions used is also of importancc. To hecome ‘good academicxvl-iters’, students need to become a\varc ofthesc conventions, that is, how the tcxtual formsand communicative functions arc related to the expectations of the academic communityto which they belong.Swalcs’s movc and step approach has been used not only to identify the characteristics ofparticular genres, Iiut also to compare texts of the same genre but from different disciplines.For example, in the prcliminarics to an invcstigation of active and passive vcrb forms in t\voastrophyics journal articles, laronc et a1. (1 998) notc that S\valc,s’s (1990) overview of theorganisation ofthc rcsearch article as having an ‘hourglass’ shapc is not applicable to articlesin astrophysics. ‘I Iourglass’ articles hegin with a broad overview of the ficltl, narrow thefocus tlo\vn to a specific area of interest Lvhich is then expcrimentcd on in somc way, andconclude with a widening-out of the discussion to rclatc findings to t,roadcr issues relcnntto the ficltl. Astrophysics papers, however, are consitlcretl hy‘l-arone et (11. to have an ‘invertedpyramid’ construction in which the focus of‘ the paper is gradually narro\\ccl down,beginning with general physics, through the particular phcnomcna to explain, thc specificphysics of relevance, spccific equations, to a specific solution.Thc reason, thcv argue, is thathvhile thc hourglass is a satisfactory rcprcsentation of reports of cxperimcntal studies,astrophysics attends to suliject matter \vhich cannot lie cxpcrimentcd on, so that papers inthe discipline prescnt logical arguments rather than expcrimcnts.A number of studics have examined how scctions of rcscarch articles vary acrosstlisciplines.Thc typical sections of research articles arc an introduction, a mcthods sectionwhich explains the procedures undertaken (often experimental procedurcs in the casc ofscientific research articles), a report ofthc results ofthc procedurcs, antl finally a discussionof these results antl their significance. Brett’s (1994) starting point is Swales’s (1990: 175-6)proposal that tlisciplinary differences in research articles are likcly to lie in methods andresults sections rather than introductions antl discussions. He examines results sections inresearch articles from sociology and observes certain communicative categories withinthem, such as his Substuntiation of Findings antl .Yon-vu/itlation of’ Findings, not prcviousl)