About my research article again!

Hi all!

Today I'm going to write another post about the research article I found on the Internet a few weeks ago. This time again, we were asked to answer a series of questions on the topic "how to make a piece of writing readable". Our task was to reflect on our article's structure, logic, cohesion, clarity and coherence. These are the essential elements every text needs to have in order to be easy to follow by its readers. Here I'm going to focus on structure, logic and cohesion.

First of all, I want to point out that my research article follows the so called hourglass structure. There is indeed an introduction where the author outlines her main ideas and topics covered in her paper ("This paper aims to examine aspects of the relationship between tourism and place identity in rural Ireland. (...) Through a case study it is argued that the impact of tourism must be understood in terms of the new social relations which emerge (...)" ). After this introductory part there is the body, where the writer provides evidence to support what she stated at the beginning. So, a wide range of explanatory words are used: because, firstly, secondly, on the one hand, on the other hand. Finally, the paper ends with a conclusion summarizing what has been shown in the study, thus reinforcing the initial thesis ("through the case study it has been shown that, the result is that, in summary").

The article is logic because it contains arguments to support the author's thesis. Consider, for instance, the following sentence: "(...) tourist imagery 'plays a significant role in providing a native self-image' because firstly, Irish people have been exposed to tourist representations over a long period of time; and secondly, there has been a high level of contact between tourists and locals (...)". Here it's clear that the sentence starts with the main idea followed by two arguments to support it. The same happens in the following example: " (...) the relationship between tourism and place identities can be conceptualised in terms of social relations. On the one hand, changes to place identity occur as groups, institutions and individuals act to commodify resources (...). On the other hand, resilient existing social relations influence the degree to which commodification for tourism takes place".

Finally, the paper is also cohesive since ideas in the text are closely connected to each other, as this sentence shows: "Whilst identities may be in a constant process of flux and change, there are also elements of continuity (...)".

To sum up, my brief analysis of the research article I chose has concentrated on some of the basic features that make a piece of writing readable and easier to follow: structure, logic and cohesion.

Serena