| Summary: | Helping learners acquire the skills in writing
research methods constitutes an important component in
various programmes in tertiary education. One of the
challenges encountered by novice writers in language education
has to do with the elucidation of data analysis procedures in
experimental research reports. Adopting a genre-based
approach, this study analyses the rhetorical strategies and
linguistic resources used for recounting and justifying the steps
taken in analyzing data. Employing the Statistical Package for
Social Sciences (SPSS), the researcher conducted a quantitative
analysis of the rhetorical steps used by experienced writers in 32
experimental research reports published in eight reputed
international refereed journals. Attention was directed to the
determination of the degree to which the frequencies of the
steps under investigation-focused headings differ from those
under procedure-focused headings. A detailed qualitative
analysis of the writers’ textual data was also conducted to
identify the broad spectrum of language mechanisms employed
in recounting and justifying the data analysis procedures. The
findings have shed some light on what and how dissertation
supervisors and instructors can possibly highlight while guiding
second language writers to recount and justify data analysis
procedures in experimental studies on language education.
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