Article published In:
Australian Review of Applied LinguisticsVol. 46:3 (2023) ► pp.339–372
Identifying a pedagogical genre of literature review
This article reports initial parts of a classroom-based action research aimed to teach students to write a literature review (LR), which is considered as a critical, yet often overlooked genre, thus posing difficulties to the students. The existing works on LRs appear to treat the ability to write overviews of individual studies, and to combine them in acceptable ways, as assumed knowledge. In fact, for the learners in the context of the study, and in many second- and foreign-language learning contexts, such abilities are not shared among learners. Therefore, in the implementation of an initial short course, a genre analysis of 60 literature reviews from publications and completed theses in applied linguistics was conducted to identify suitable generic patterns used in literature reviews that could be implemented in the context. The result is a pedagogical genre of literature review, a genre description of LRs appropriate for the students’ English proficiency level, outlined in detail in this article with the teaching implication for this pedagogical context.
Keywords: pedagogical genre, fractal patterns, author-focused paragraphs, content-focused paragraphs, listing sections, integrating sections
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Literature review
- 2.1Genre
- 2.2Literature reviews
- 2.3From pedagogical grammar to pedagogical genre
- 3.Methodology
- 4.Annotated bibliographies as an entry point to literature review writing
- 5.Pedagogical genre of literature review
- 5.1Reviewing paragraphs: Author-focused and content-focused
- 5.2Sections: Listing and integrating
- 5.2.1 Listing sections
- 5.2.2 Integrating sections
- 6.Implications for teaching
- 7.Conclusion
-
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