The Rhetorical Styles Used by Indonesian Researchers in Justifying Their Research Projects

The ways in which Indonesian researchers justify their research projects have been studied by various scholars. According to Table 4, it is evident that very few Indonesian RA authors justify their research project based on an evaluation result of previous relevant studies as it is commonly found in English RA introduction. This finding is consistent with the results of previous studies conducted by Safnil (2001), Mirahayuni (2002), and Adnan (2009), which found that the majority of Indonesian RA authors support the importance of their research project reported in their RA introduction by using different rhetorical styles. It is important to note that evaluating other's work in order to establish a knowledge gap and to justify their research project, as it is usually found in English RA introduction, is not yet a common practice in the Indonesian RA introductions. This may be due to cultural or academic reasons, which need to be further investigated. In conclusion, it can be said that the majority of Indonesian RA introductions in the corpus of this study have a Move 1, 2, and 4 while only some of them have a Move 3. Furthermore, the majority of Indonesian authors justify their research topic by reviewing the knowledge and practices and/or identifying the research problem. However, very few Indonesian RA authors justify their research project based on an evaluation result of previous relevant studies as it is commonly found in English RA introductions. It is suggested that when writing an RA in English, the Indonesian authors must modify their rhetorical style to match the one acceptable by English readers especially when justifying their research topic and project. This will help them to better communicate their research findings and to make their work more accessible to a wider audience.