Develop a Purpose Statement

Description

When the problem is clearly defined, it’s time to develop the purpose statement. The purpose statement should explain the reason for the study and identify the direction and goals of the study in only a few paragraphs. It should also be clearly and specifically aligned with the problem statement.

Additionally, the purpose statement should identify the type of study and the expected product or results of the study, which should serve as a solution or fill the gap noted in the problem statement.

Research Methodology + Gap = Purpose

NCU is very prescriptive about purpose statements. The dissertation manuals and documents invariably provide no latitude regarding the first sentence in the purpose statement. The NCU guidelines for the purpose statement are:

“The purpose of this [identify research methodology] [identify research design] study is to [identify the goal of the dissertation that directly reflects and encompasses the research questions to follow].” Indicate how the study is a logical, explicit research response to the stated problem and the research questions to follow. Continue with a brief but clear step-by-step overview of how the study will be (proposal) or was (manuscript) conducted. Identify the variables/constructs, materials/instrumentation, and analysis. Identify the target population and sample size needed (proposal) or was obtained (manuscript).

An example of a quantitative purpose statement:

The purpose of this (a) quantitative non-experimental correlational study is to (b) determine which leadership factors predict employee well-being of (c) novice mid-level managers in the (d) financial services industry. (e) Leadership factors will be measured by the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) assessment framework by Mantlekow (2015), and employee well-being will be conceptualized as a compound variable consisting of self-reported turnover intent and psychological test scores from the Mental Health Survey (MHS) developed by Johns Hopkins University researchers.

Assignment: Develop a Purpose Statement
Instructions

For this assignment, you must develop a purpose statement for your research study. The purpose statement should explain the reason for the study and align with the problem statement.

Your purpose statement should be one paragraph that incorporates the following information:

a. Research Method

b. Goal

c. Participants

d. Research Location/Site/Field

e. Gap

Add your purpose statement to the end of the problem statement paper you submitted in the previous assignment. Be sure to check for alignment between all of the research components.

Length: 1-2 page paper

The completed assignment should address all of the assignment requirements, exhibit evidence of concept knowledge, and demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the content presented in the course. The writing should integrate scholarly resources, reflect academic expectations and current APA standards.

References:

Unformatted Attachment Preview

Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 69e89
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of English for Academic Purposes
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap
Purpose statements in experimental doctoral dissertations
submitted to U.S. universities: An inquiry into doctoral
students’ communicative resources in language education
Jason Miin-Hwa Lim a, *, Chek-Kim Loi a, Azirah Hashim b, May Siaw-Mei Liu c
a
Centre for the Promotion of Knowledge and Language Learning, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (Malaysian University of Sabah), Locked Bag
2073, 88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
b
Department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics Building, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
c
Universiti Teknologi MARA, Locked Bag, 88997 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 1 August 2014
Received in revised form 25 June 2015
Accepted 25 June 2015
Available online 6 July 2015
While it is widely known that purpose statements are generally incorporated in dissertations and academic journal papers, graduate student writers often encounter difficulties
in the writing of such crucial statements. This paper looks into the extent to which doctoral
candidates use inter-move shifts to strategically arrive at their purpose statements, and
how they employ communicative resources to construct such pivotal statements that drive
their entire studies. Based on an analytical framework developed by Swales (1990; 2004)
and relevant qualitative data provided by specialist informants, we have analysed a corpus
of experimental doctoral dissertations submitted to 32 American universities within a
period of 10 years in order to ascertain (i) the degree to which research purpose is presented in dissertation introductions, (ii) how preceding rhetorical segments are strategically connected with purpose statements, and (iii) the ways in which prominent lexicogrammatical structures are used to attain strategic communicative functions. The findings of this study have illustrated how instructors in English for Academic Purposes (EAP)
can possibly prepare relevant teaching materials aimed at guiding learners to present the
foundational segments that determine the overall direction of their studies.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Genre analysis
Dissertation writing
Purpose statements
Communicative functions
1. Introduction
Research in English for academic purposes often “seeks to provide insights into the structures and meanings of academic
texts, into the demands placed by academic contexts on communicative behaviours” (Hyland & Hamp-Lyons, 2002, p. 3).
Findings pertaining to different academic genres can generally become overt and pedagogically meaningful to both instructors and learners only if the communicative behaviours concerned are seen in close relation to the structures and
meanings of the discourse under specific circumstances. In a similar vein, the writing of dissertations often engages discursive
structures, lexico-grammatical structures and their associated meanings that need to be carefully studied with reference to
the expectations and requirements in an academic context in higher education.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (J.M.-H. Lim), [email protected] (C.-K. Loi), [email protected] (A. Hashim), [email protected] (M.S.-M. Liu).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2015.06.002
1475-1585/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
70
J.M.-H. Lim et al. / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 69e89
The writing of dissertations in higher education constitutes an important portion of a graduate degree programme which
requires submission of a report upon the completion of a research project. Nonetheless, in the process of completing a study,
student writers generally need to be systematically guided throughout the process of completing a dissertation or thesis
(Kwan, 2013), which generally encompasses different phases such as reviewing related literature, describing research designs
and methods, reporting results, and discussing findings in the form of explanations, interpretations, generalisations and
recommendations (Basturkmen, 2009; Koutsantoni, 2006; Kwan, 2006). In this regard, genre analysts’ interest in studying
such student-generated texts (dissertations and theses) has escalated as an extension from the initial concerns about “texts
produced for student writers (textbooks)” and “texts produced by expert writers (journal articles)” (Thompson, 2005, p. 208).
In relation to this, efforts made in preparing teaching materials for graduate dissertation writing instruction are likely to be
increasingly important in some nations that offer a large number of graduate programmes. In the United States, for example,
the number of international students in graduate programmes (many of whom were second language novice writers) rose by
eight percent from the fall of 2011 to the fall of 2012 (Patton, 2013). In this context, to ensure that graduate students are able to
proceed consistently in their dissertation writing endeavour, it would be important to conduct a thorough study that informs
specific writing instructors (particularly instructors in English for Academic Purposes who have been requested to provide
special guidance to novice writers in dissertation writing) and supervisors about how graduate students generally present the
major parts that inform readers about the focuses of their studies.
In the initial stages of graduate students’ research writing undertaking, if instructors and supervisors intend to provide
novice writers with systematic guidance, a major component that needs to be given due emphasis is the writing of purpose
statements (e.g., ‘The current study aims to provide a detailed account of Spanish-speaking ELLs’ home language backgrounds
… ’, ‘The overall goal of this quasi-experimental study is to investigate whether … ’, etc.), which are also known as
“announcing (the) present research descriptively and/or purposively” (Swales, 2004, p. 232). These purpose statements, often
employed to spearhead the development of a dissertation (Feak & Swales, 2011), are used to systematically link different
discursive components of a study in order to present a coherent report that contains neatly-matched textual segments. How
these segments are combined with purpose statements to indicate the direction of a study remains a noteworthy domain that
merits in-depth research. Although we are aware that purpose statements constitute an indispensable part of a research
endeavour, the nexus of different rhetorical elements needs to be analysed in detail to help us comprehend how a study is
aptly framed to guide the initial development of a dissertation. Such studies have important implications which need to be
explored to facilitate the process of writing instruction.
Given the importance of studying the purpose statements in doctoral dissertations, we will first consider how purpose
statements are viewed in literature related to research introductions in general. Many of these past discourse-analytic studies
into research introductions (e.g., Hirano, 2009; Samraj, 2005; Soler-Monreal, Carbonell-Olivares, & Gil-Salom, 2011) have
been guided and/or influenced by Swales’ (1990, 2004) seminal schematic structure of research introductions. In a more
recent model, Swales (2004) recommended a schematic structure for analysing research introductions which comprises three
moves, namely (i) ‘establishing a territory’ (in Move 1) in which information elements about a particular topic are presented
in an order of increasing specificity, (ii) ‘establishing a niche’ (in Move 2) in which experienced writers usually indicate a gap
in past studies, follow a recent research trend, or extend the existing line of research development, and (iii) ‘presenting the
present work’ (in Move 3) in which researchers may present purpose statements, research questions and/or hypotheses, and
some other optional information elements encompassing definitional clarifications, summaries of methods, and statements
highlighting the value of their research.
Based on Swales’ (1990, 2004) three-move model(s), some studies have been conducted to identify the extent to which the
frequencies of moves vary across disciplines such as Conservation Biology and Wildlife Behaviour (Samraj, 2002, 2005),
Computer Science (Shehzad, 2011), English for Specific Purposes (Hirano, 2009), and Agricultural Sciences (Del Saz Rubio,
2011). Despite these numerous studies on research introductions in recent years, relatively little attention has been
devoted to the language resources needed to present purpose statements. For example, although Hirano (2009), Del Saz Rubio
(2011) and Soler-Monreal et al. (2011) have studied the research introductions in English for Specific Purposes, Agricultural
Sciences and Computing respectively, they have largely directed their attention to the sequences of the three introductory
moves mentioned above, thus paying less attention to the specific lexico-grammatical structures needed to accomplish these
moves. Studying and understanding rhetorical moves, however, requires analysts’ knowledge of both content and its associated “linguistic exponents” (Kanoksilapatham, 2005, p. 272). Genre analysts need to look into the close interfaces between a
rhetorical move and its lexico-grammar as “linguistic features could help better describe and illustrate the communicative
functions of each move” (Cortes, 2013, p. 34). It is through our “knowledge of the specific language associated with each
move” that we can further develop our knowledge of a genre (Henry & Rosenberry, 2001, p. 155). In the context of research
introductions, for instance, Cortes (2013) found that “the objective of this study was” and “the objectives of this study were”,
“the purpose of the present study is to” and “the purpose of this study was to” constitute the recurrent expressions or lexical
bundles that are frequently used to trigger research announcements in Move 3 (Cortes, 2013, p. 41).
More importantly, a purpose statement generally stands out as the only “obligatory” step in Move 3 that must be incorporated by
all experienced writers while all the other steps are merely “optional” or “probable in some disciplines” (Swales, 2004, p. 232). The
need to comprehend the rhetorical functions and linguistic realisations of purpose statements can be more clearly justified for two
reasons. First, past studies that reported some findings on research purposes (e.g., Cortes, 2013; Del Saz Rubio, 2011; Hirano, 2009;
Ozturk, 2007; Samraj, 2002, 2005; Sheldon, 2011) were based on analyses of research article introductions rather than the
dissertation/thesis introductions. For instance, purpose statements have been found in 78.33%, 81.67% and 83.05% of research article
J.M.-H. Lim et al. / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 69e89
71
introductions in Civil Enginerring, Software Engineering and Biomedical Engineering respectively (Kanoksilapatham, 2015);
however frequencies of such statements may differ in other disciplines, particularly when another genre, such as doctoral dissertation introductions are involved. Second, although certain studies provided useful findings about dissertation/thesis introductions,
their focuses were largely on differences in move sequences (e.g., Soler-Monreal et al., 2011), citations and authorial presence (e.g.,
Samraj, 2008). In regard to frequencies of purpose statements, it was briefly noted that the aims of doctoral research were
mentioned in only 60% of the doctoral thesis introductions in English and 80% of those in Spanish (Soler-Monreal et al., 2011).
Attention has yet to be directed to the rhetorical strategies that the doctoral candidates use to present purpose statements using a
broad range of salient lexico-grammatical structures in relation to other adjacent steps. If we are to provide novice writers with
relevant pre-instructional advice on how to present purpose statements appropriately to guide the overall development of their
entire research, we will have to first analyse the communicative functions of purpose statements in connection with (i) other text
segments associated with them, and (ii) their prominent lexico-grammatical structures in their dissertation/thesis introductions.
In response to the gaps in previous research reviewed above, this study has opted to study the significance, positioning,
shifts and lexico-grammatical structures used by doctoral students to present purpose statements in the introductory
chapters (ICs) of their dissertations which are based on experimental research procedures. Each ‘doctoral dissertation’, in the
context of this study conducted in the United States, was completed in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a doctoral
degree programme that includes a taught course component (Allison, Cooley, Lewkowicz, & Nunan, 1998; Swales, 2004).
Experimental doctoral dissertations were selected in this study for two reasons. First, experimental research often forms a
sizeable component of research in social sciences and education given that it often involves research into variations in
performance and other related behaviours of human subjects (Gay, Mills, & Airasian, 2009; Hoyle, Harris, & Judd, 2002).
Second, in terms of structural patterns and rhetorical conventions, reports based on experimental methods have been
identified as being representative of empirical research reports in general (Lin & Evans, 2012), and the English used in
experimental research is highly conventionalised, thus suggesting that it would be important for both novice writers and
instructors to comprehend, study and master the detailed conventions in experimental research (Lim, 2014; Weissberg &
Buker, 1990). The field of language education was given the focus because numerous doctoral dissertations on language
education could be collected via the ProQuest search engine, thus facilitating a quantitative analysis of a sufficiently large
sample of recently completed doctoral dissertation introductions.
Given the major role of experimental research in language education and the importance of studying doctoral students’
usage of purpose statements in the context of writing instruction, four related research questions are formulated as follows:
(1) To what extent are purpose statements significant in the presentation of experimental doctoral dissertations on language education?
(2) How frequently do doctoral students incorporate purpose statements in the initial, medial and final positions of the
introductory chapters of these dissertations?
(3) What inter-move shifts do doctoral students use to link different rhetorical elements to purpose statements in their
introductory chapters?
(4) How do doctoral students use intra-step transitions and lexico-grammar to present purpose statements in their
introductory chapters?
The first research question requires some general qualitative data (elicited from specialist informants) in order to
ascertain the extent to which purpose statements are considered by these informants as significant in the writing of
doctoral dissertations based on experimental research. Given the degree of significance of purpose statements, the second
research question seeks some quantitative data, grounded on a textual analysis, to ascertain the frequency with which
purpose statements are incorporated and their occurrences in initial, medial and final positions of the doctoral dissertations.
In this study, the initial, medial and final positions of an introductory chapter are defined respectively as the first, second
and third portions of an introductory chapter. This means that each introductory chapter has been divided into three equal
portions, each of which contains the same number of words. The third research question further seeks qualitative data in
the form of salient and recurrent shifts illustrated via instances obtained in a textual analysis, which is supported by our
specialists’ informants’ statements, to find out how doctoral students use inter-move shifts (shifts from one move to
another) to achieve the related communicative functions in introducing and guiding their studies. Grounded on a more
thorough analysis of the introductory chapters, the fourth question seeks primarily qualitative data to reveal the intra-step
transitions (transitions between different segments of a purpose statement) and the range of possible lexico-grammatical
structures used by the doctoral candidates in this over-arching step to augment the clarity, persuasiveness and credibility of
their research plan and endeavour.
2. Research methods
2.1. Sampling procedure
This investigation was conducted in three stages involving (i) a careful selection of published doctoral dissertations on
language education, (ii) an inquiry into the dissertations using the genre-based analytical framework, and (iii) face-to-face
72
J.M.-H. Lim et al. / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 69e89
semi-structured interviews with advisors supervising the writing of doctoral dissertations. We first selected 32 doctoral
dissertations on language education from a pool of 270 published doctoral dissertations associated with the keywords
“experimental research” using the ProQuest search engine. Subsequently, a purposive sample was collected based on the
criteria that (i) all doctoral dissertations should be based on quantitative experimental research related to language education, and (ii) they were submitted to U.S. universities during a recent period of ten years. Specifically, these dissertations were
selected in this study for four reasons. First, we were concerned that lexico-grammatical features of purpose statements in
quantitative studies might differ from those based on qualitative research (and purpose statements might be rhetorically
linked with other text segments if dissertations based on qualitative studies had also been included). Second, the highly
conventionalised nature of quantitative experimental reports (Lim, 2014; Weissberg & Buker, 1990) made it possible to use
doctoral dissertations based on experimental studies as a reasonable starting point for a detailed investigation into the
linguistic realisations of purpose statements. Third, taking the possibility of disciplinary differences into consideration, this
study has focused only on language education as an academic field, in which enough recent samples could be selected from a
pool of numerous doctoral dissertations submitted to U.S. universities. Fourth, to minimise possible biases resulting from
diachronic and geographical variations (changes over a long period of time and differences across geographical regions), we
chose the most recent doctoral dissertation available from each U.S. university at the time when we began this six-year study
in November 2009 provided that the university concerned had at least a doctoral dissertation that met the criteria mentioned
above.
It needs to be acknowledged here that 37.5% (12/32) of the doctoral dissertations in this study were written by second
language writers originating from non-English speaking countries. However, using Soler-Monreal et al.’s (2011, p. 6) criterion
for selection, the dissertations “were supervised and/or assessed by English-speaking academics” in an English speaking
nation. This means that the dissertations were written by candidates at the highest graduate degree level in the U.S. and
corrected by advisors in an English speaking country. In terms of subject matter and rhetorical patterns, the data based on the
sample also merits some attention as it is genuinely reflective of the actual contents presented in doctoral dissertations on
experimental research in language education.
To ensure that the right sample was collected, abstracts and major chapters characterising the type of each study were
studied before a decision was made on whether the dissertation could be incorporated as part of the sample. The criteria
adopted in identifying quantitative experimental research were in accordance with the characteristics expounded by Gay
et al. (2009) and Creswell (2008). This was done to ensure that the experimental study reported in each dissertation
involved an empirical test under controlled conditions aimed at examining the validity of a hypothesis about a causal relationship deduced from a theory or other sources of information. In this context, the experimental study reported in each
dissertation involved a selected group of participants or subjects assigned to various treatment conditions and/or control
groups, and the intervention or treatment described explicitly (in the subsequent method section/chapter) were also directly
related to the research questions or hypotheses that guided the study (Gass, 2011; Hocking, Stacks, & McDermott, 2003;
Warner, 2013). All the doctoral dissertations, completed in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) degree or the Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.), were submitted to U.S. universities between 2001 and 2009.
The doctoral students included in this sample had passed the dissertation examination and obtained their degrees. Only one
doctoral dissertation submitted to each of the 32 U.S. universities was chosen to ensure that the results would not be skewed
owing to the requirements of (or influence from) a small set of institutions or graduate schools. This was done to obtain an
evenly distributed sample that would not exhibit any over-reliance on the expectations of only a portion of U.S. universities.
2.2. Data analysis and coding
In regard to data analysis, we adopted Swales’ (1990, 2004) move-step analytical framework to examine the doctoral
dissertations in terms of the communicative functions of each introductory chapter. First, each introductory chapter was
separated into the three generic moves reviewed above so that all the segments related to purpose statements could be
distinctly identified. The frequency of purpose statements was then counted using the criterion that each purpose should
minimally comprise a main clause insofar as its occurrence was not interrupted by any other step mentioned above. In cases
where another step was inserted, the steps related to a purpose statement appearing immediately before and after it were
counted as two different occurrences of the same step. This procedure, as used in previous studies (Lim, 2010, 2011), was
adopted in this research because we were interested in finding out how frequently a rhetorical step recurs in different positions of a text.
Prominent shifts from one information element (a communicative move or its constituent step) to a purpose statement
were recorded if they indicated recurrent connections between different information elements. Frequencies of purpose
statements were then studied with reference to their positions of occurrence. In this context, reliability is defined generally as
the degree to which a method ‘‘consistently measures whatever it is measuring’’ (Gay et al., 2009, p. 158), and as such, ‘coding
reliability’ in this investigation refers to the degree of inter-coder consistency in categorisng a text segment as being related to
a purpose statement (and not another rhetorical step) when different coders are engaged in coding the same text segments.
The different segments were then categorised independently by the second coder, a graduate English language instructor
who had taught English for more than 20 years. To ensure that the second coder was sufficiently familiar with the process of
coding, we first briefed the second coder on the rhetorical functions of each of the 11 rhetorical steps proposed by Swales
(2004), using authentic examples published in previous studies (Lim, 2012; Samraj, 2005; Swales, 2004). In cases where
J.M.-H. Lim et al. / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 69e89
73
discrepancies occurred, a discussion was conducted to ascertain the possible nuances causing the differences between the
choices made by the published writers and those made by the second coder. This was done to ensure that the second coder
could distinctly differentiate the functions of the various rhetorical steps before the actual coding process began. The two
coders found a total of 110 segments that were initially coded as purpose statements. These segments were labelled independently by the coders, and an inter-coder reliability analysis (IRA) was conducted using the Statistical Package for Social
Sciences (SPSS) to calculate the Cohen’s kappa statistic as explained by Von Eye and Mun (2005, p. 132e133). A kappa statistic
of 0.978 was obtained (p < 0.001), thus indicating that the inter-coder agreement was outstanding or almost perfect. [Kappa statistics from 0.61 to 0.80 are considered “substantial”, and those between 0.81 and 1.00 indicate “almost perfect” agreement (Landis & Koch, 1977, p. 165).] A thorough discussion was then conducted on the functions of the segments upon which disagreement arose, and only 108 segments were confirmed by both coders as purpose statements. Having ascertained the frequency of purpose statements and their associated shifts, our attention was directed to how the doctoral candidates fulfilled the rhetorical functions of purpose statements using communicative resources, comprising clause elements and different categories of phrases or words. All segments related to purpose statements were then recorded and analysed as authentic instances from the published dissertations. In cases where the information elements showed obvious lexico-grammatical structures, the recurring instances were tabulated to demonstrate the prevalent patterns (that can be used for preparing instructional materials for novice writers). All the prominent language resources were ascertained using the lexico-grammatical descriptions explained by several authors. These linguistic descriptions included those related to (i) the categorisation of clause elements, comprising subjects, predicators, objects, complements and adverbials (Downing & Locke, 2006; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985), (ii) nominal groups in academic writing (Hamp-Lyons & Healey, 2006), (iii) procedural verbs and investigative verbs (Lim, 2006; Thomas & Hawes, 1994), (iv) suggestion indicators (Lim, 2008), (v) copular verbs, infinitives, subordinators and cleft sentences (Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, & Finegan, 1999), (vi) negative adjectives (Lim, 2006; Swales, 1990), and (vi) types of adjuncts and subjuncts (Greenbaum & Quirk, 1990; Quirk et al., 1985). In regard to the tenses used by the doctoral students in presenting purpose statements, all finite verbs (verbs indicating tense distinction) used by the writers (in purpose statements) were highlighted before the frequencies of the verbs in the simple past, simple present and simple future were calculated and analysed. We specifically focused our attention on tense-aspect usage because we had noticed (in our teaching of EAP courses) that second language learners often had doubts about tense-aspect usage in purpose statements, thus suggesting that it might be helpful to obtain some relevant data showing the frequencies of actual tense-aspect usage in the writing of purpose statements in doctoral dissertations. 2.3. Interviews with specialist informants After the initial analysis, semi-structured interviews were conducted with two experienced doctoral dissertation advisors who had successfully completed their supervision of experimental research in language education. The informants were chosen using Bhatia's (1993, p. 34) criteria for selecting specialist informants in that each informant interviewed in this study should be (i) a ‘‘practising member of the disciplinary culture in which the genre is routinely used’’, and (ii) an individual who was able to ‘‘confirm’’ the analyst's findings, bring ‘‘validity to his insights’’, and demonstrate ‘‘psychological reality to his analysis’’. In relation to this, both informants had successfully supervised experimental research in Applied Linguistics at a doctoral degree level in the United States and were familiar with the requirements involved in writing doctoral dissertations in the discipline. Among other dissertation advisors, the specialist informants interviewed in this study were specially selected after we had checked their publications and supervision records to ascertain that they (i) were not the supervisors of the dissertations included in the corpus (so that individual biases could be minimised), (ii) were professorial advisors with vast expertise in the presentation of doctoral dissertations based on experimental research methods, and (iii) were recommended by their colleagues (via emails) as those who had the ability to provide objective views (on experimental doctoral research) as the third-party specialist informants. The interviews were used to seek qualitative data that could answer (i) the first research question that focuses on the extent to which purpose statements are considered by these informants as significant in the doctoral dissertations, and (ii) the third research question that seeks additional qualitative data, based on the informants' statements, to ascertain how doctoral students use some inter-move shifts to fulfil the related communicative functions in their dissertation introductions. As the interviews were semi-structured, the first researcher adjusted the language choices to ensure that the specialist informants could provide related information in accordance with the questions posed to them. Given that the first researcher was a visiting academic with no previous personal relationship with the renowned specialist informants, electronic mails were first sent to the informants so as to obtain their consent for face-to-face interviews. Both interviews were digitally recorded in the offices of the supervisors, and were conducted after the rhetorical analysis was completed so that all questions arising from the two earlier phases could be posed to the specialist informants. Verbatim transcriptions of the interviews were then done after the interviews to ensure that the spoken data could be subsequently used to triangulate the findings obtained through the discourse-analytic approach even though the information elicited from informants constituted additional supportive data. 3. Findings Some general findings based on the specialist informants' statements will be reported first before the quantitative results are presented about the positioning of purpose statements and their lexico-grammatical realisations. 74 J.M.-H. Lim et al. / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 69e89 3.1. Significance of purpose statements So far as the significance of purpose statements is concerned, specialist informants' views appear to complement each other in regard to where and how purpose statements need to be presented. Supervisors often attempt to advise doctoral candidates to avoid writing too much about the existing literature that is not associated with the experimental study. Specialist Informant A (SIA), in particular, was careful in stating whether introductions containing purpose statements should be written first. According to SIA, doctoral candidates need to conduct some pilot experiments to ensure that they could “find something interesting, and that the dissertation is durable and it's not going to kind of produce just nothing”, and hence “usually there is some experimental data that has been collected before they start writing the introduction.” This practice was ascribed to the fact that in U.S. universities doctoral students need to defend the dissertation prospectus before defending the dissertation itself. According to Specialist Informant A, the prospectus usually includes a literature review, which “may not be as broad and detailed as the final literature, but it includes a substantial literature review, and it usually includes some experimental findings.” SIA pointed out that doctoral candidates might report three to five experiments but they might have done one to three experiments before presenting the prospectus and proceeding with all or some of the experiments at a later stage. This means that some purpose statements might have been written before all the findings are obtained and they may typically revise the introductory chapter in the final stage. In contrast, Specialist Informant B (SIB) highlighted the need to write a “schematic introduction”. This means that purpose statements are crucial in the beginning and