The conclusions of the doctoral thesis in education: its rhetorical movements and steps
Keywords:
Doctoral thesis, Education, Conclusions, Rhetorical strategies, Rhetorical structureAbstract
The article addresses the conclusions of a corpus of 20 doctoral theses on education, written in Spanish by native speakers, defended at the National University of Cuyo, Argentina. It proposes to analyze their rhetorical strategies, in three movements –1. Consolidate the research space, 2. Evaluate the occupation of the research space, and 3. Establish additional territory– and their steps. The main questions of the study are two: what are the most frequent steps and in what rhetorical patterns are the texts organized. A qualitative-quantitative research is implemented in three phases: the conformation of the corpus, the design of the analysis matrix, and the analysis of the corpus. The results show that in three steps of the second movement (Taking up the main results and interpreting them, Resorting to theory or previous empirical research and Highlighting the contributions and their implications) 66% of the steps of the corpus are resolved. However, there is a notorious structural variety (11 rhetorical patterns) and, of those that show complete sequences, 12 texts present cyclical configurations, including those with fewer steps. Brief pedagogical implications of the work carried out are reported.
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