Rhetorical Moves of PhD Dissertation Abstracts in Educational Administration

Abstract

Abstract

This study investigated the rhetorical move pattern of PhD dissertation abstracts (DA) in educationaladministration (EA). The corpus was made up of 100 abstracts, retrieved from Dissertations InternationalAbstract and ProQuest via Thailis e-database sources, published during 1977-2007. The method adopted was amove analysis of textual organization, using Santos (1996)ûs five-move model and Paltridge & Strafield (2007)proposed framework. The results indicated that rhetorical move pattern followed the prototype abstract. Thedistribution of obligatory moves were found at rates 98%, 96%, 92% and 72% , which were closely correlatedwith those found in the guideline model. The rhetorical move pattern of PhD DA is describing the study/statingthe purpose of the study, describing the methodology, presenting the results and concluding.

Keywords: PhD DA, Rhetorical Move, Move analysis.