Trine Dahl’s article studies the presentation of knowledge claims by economists and as one reads through it, it becomes clear that the author’s main point states that when presenting their knowledge claims, economists in the present times include their claim in more than one area of their report article. Dahl states that the economists not only include the claim in the discussion or results in segments of their reports but also in the abstracts, introductions, and conclusions of the reports.
As the article continues, Dahl supports his claims by citing several authors who have presented their knowledge claim in three main areas of their research articles namely the abstracts, introductions, and the conclusions. Dahl also carried out a study on the impact that the rhetorical function of the sections with the claim has on the claim’s linguistic realization. In analyzing this impact, Dahl examined the issue from the three perspectives of the utilization of meta-discursive expressions to signal the claim, the use of intra-textual behavior related to the claim’s hedging, and the utilization of tense within the claim sentence.
I concur with Dahl’s views in this article because he has extensively covered the issue of how economists present their knowledge in research articles by referencing several articles to support his claims. By citing several references, Dahl has shown that his observations have also been noted by several other authors and this shows that his views are credible. Two discussion questions that can be raised from this article are:
- Does the inclusion of the claims and main point of discussion in more than one section of a report article help the reader understand these articles more?
- Is the trend to constantly revisit the claim or main point of discussion unique to reports written by economists or do other professionals also write down their reports in a similar manner?
References
Dahl, T. (2009). The linguistic representation of rhetorical function. Written Communication, 26(4), 370-391.