Rhetorical structure of systematic reviews published in dental journals: implications for teaching reading and writing in ESP courses

Abstract Systematic reviews (SRs) are relevant for the dentistry community; however, a multidisciplinary literature review suggests that, to date, no linguistic study on the rhetorical structure of dental SRs in English has been carried out, a gap the present study hopes to partly fill. Integrating Swales’ and Bhatia’s models and the New Rhetoric approach to genre studies, we analyzed the rhetorical organization of 100 SRs in the field of dentistry. The results indicate that SRs follow a prototypical structure: Introduction-Method-Results-Discussion-Conclusion (IMRDC). It can be broken down into 18 moves, 14 of which could be considered obligatory. The template proposed could be a practical resource for oral health scholars, clinicians and students to not only raise genre-consciousness but also effectively write and publish SRs in international dentistry journals.

摘要：系统性综述（Systematic reviews, SRs）对牙科领域具有重要参考价值；然而一项多学科文献综述表明，截至目前尚无针对英文牙科系统性综述修辞结构的语言学研究，本研究旨在部分填补这一研究空白。本研究整合斯威尔斯（Swales）与巴蒂亚（Bhatia）的理论模型，并采用体裁研究领域的新修辞研究路径，对100篇牙科领域的系统性综述的修辞组织架构展开分析。研究结果显示，系统性综述遵循典型的引言-方法-结果-讨论-结论（IMRDC）结构，该结构可拆解为18个语步（moves），其中14个为强制性语步。本研究提出的写作模板，可为口腔健康领域的学者、临床医师与学生提供实用参考，不仅能够提升其体裁意识，还可助力其高效撰写并在国际牙科期刊发表系统性综述论文。