Table 3 Moves and relative textual space across three proposals

Move 1

Establishing a territory

27 %

32 %

80 %

46 %

 Strategy 1

 Claiming centrality

  and/or ^a

–

5

2

 Strategy 2

 Making topic generalizations

–

3

7

 Strategy 3

 Reviewing items of previous research

34

–

35

 Strategy 4

 Stating personal interest

–

14

–

Move 2

Establishing a niche

11 %

16 %

0 %

9 %

 Strategy 1

 Indicating a gap

14

11

–

Move 3

Occupying the niche

17 %

30 %

16 %

21 %

 Strategy 1

 Outlining purposes

14

17

9

 Strategy 2

 Spelling out contribution/significance of proposed research

8

4

–

Move 4

Establishing theoretical basis

9 %

0 %

0 %

3 %

 Strategy 1

 Reviewing literature relevant to theory

1

–

–

 Strategy 2

 Defining theory

2

–

–

 Strategy 3

 Explaining theory

9

–

–

Move 5

Spelling out methodology

34 %

12 %

2 %

16 %

 Strategy 1

 Delimiting the scope of study

2

–

–

 Strategy 2

 Defining terms

10

–

–

 Strategy 3

 Describing data

–

1

–

 Strategy 4

 Describing subjects

10

–

–

 Strategy 5

 Describing experiment

12

–

–

 Strategy 6

 Describing analytical procedure

9

6

–

 Strategy 7

 Indicating analytical framework

–

1

1

Move 6

Achieving closure

2 %

10 %

2 %

4.7 %

 Strategy 1

 Reiterating purpose

–

1

1

 Strategy 2

 Restating significance of proposed research

–

6

–

 Strategy 3

 Indicating limitation of proposed research

3

–

–