From Research Findings to Contribution: Novelty Types and Strategies in Discussion Sections of International Journal Articles
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18326/jopr.v8i3.1099-1126Keywords:
discussion section, research novelty, research article, international journalsAbstract
Journal readers always look at research novelty when reading a research article; this information is addressed in the discussion section of the article. If they cannot find the novelty, they may not be interested in using or citing the research findings for their own writing. However, it is very challenging for novice authors and students to construct the novelty of their research argumentatively in their articles; thus, understanding how expert authors commonly construct new knowledge in their research articles is essential. Accordingly, this research aimed at analyzing author’s strategy of constructing novelty and justifying or legitimizing the novelty of the research in the discussion section of research articles published in International reputable journals. Following Drischo and Machi (2016), this research was designed as qualitative research with a content analysis approach. The corpus consists of the discussion sections of 50 research articles from five reputable international journals. The results revealed that three strategies of constructing novelty are found in the datasets, namely invention, development, and refutation. The authors of research articles tend to present the novelty of the research by proposing the development of the previous study, in terms of theory, context, and method. Regarding the strategy to justify the novelty, most of the data showed that presenting the previous research to support the novelty is commonly found, followed by quoting the experts. It is implied that supporting the justification of the novelty by referring to previous research or quoting the experts in the discussion sections of research articles is essential to the authors' efforts to convince the readers and support the claim that their research results contribute new knowledge in a certain academic discourse community. Quoting and citing previous studies do not merely diminish the novelty construction; rather, they provide a point of reference against which authors can articulate how their findings extend, refine, contextualize, or challenge existing knowledge. It is supposed that this result will donate an insight to academic writing discourse especially on the strategy of presenting the novelty of the research.
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