Abstract:

Academicians are expected to publish research articles, journal publications and book chapters as part of their job. Some of the factors which drive demand for such composition are achieving research publication key performance indicator set by universities, meeting aims to improve university ranking and fulfilling the expectation of research fund providers. While key performance indicators and research grant funds may spur research publications among academicians in the public universities, the practices among the academicians in the private universities are not the same. The differences in funding, policies and structure push the academicians in private universities to be more focused on teaching compared to research publication. Public universities are directed to produce a bigger number of researches hence are allocated with more funds; as such, it defines the different research role and the research practices between the two groups. While the different practices especially on the numbers of publication have been reported, the differences in the writing piece itself rarely get the central focus. Details on how the private universities academicians write or if there is of any difference from the other group are yet to be accounted for. Such description on the writing practice is needed as to give training, awareness and suggestions on research writing among the writers, language instructors and post graduate supervisors in the private universities.This research looks at the textual analysis of forty research article introductions. The results show that the writers from private university groups are more reluctant t give the justification for their research, less inclined to indicate the research gap and prefer to delay the presentation of their research work towards the later sections compared to those in the public university group.

Keywords:

Research article, writing, publication, journal writing.