Keywords

7.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the results of the analysis of a corpus of newspaper articles written by undergraduate students. This analysis is both quantitative and representational as well as qualitative and inductive: it shows how often each strategy was used, and in what way each strategy was used. The goal of the chapter is to give insight into what kinds of results can be expected when using the framework to analyze a corpus of texts in-depth. Furthermore, because this corpus was written by first-year students, this chapter shows that the framework can also be used in didactic or educational settings. For readability, we have limited the presentation of results to the analysis of five strategies.

7.2 Corpus Construction

This corpus consists of 140 newspaper articles written by first-year undergraduate liberal education students. These students were enrolled in the program Liberal Arts and Sciences at Utrecht University, The Netherlands; students pick their own specialization and receive training in interdisciplinary research skills to become so-called disciplined interdisciplinarians. Students were asked to write a newspaper article in the first month of their first year of training, at a point in the program when they have not declared a disciplinary specialization. Although the core curriculum of Liberal Arts and Sciences places a strong focus on academic writing, no specific training in popularization writing is offered until the final year of the program. As the program offers education in Dutch, all texts were written in Dutch and examples in this chapter have been translated into English for readability.

Whereas the corpus in Chap. 6 is based on a diverse range of source texts, topics, and disciplines, this corpus is based on a single source text: “#Sleepyteens: Social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem” (Woods & Scott, 2016). This academic text details the effects of social media use, especially during the night, on the lives of teens. Students were asked to read this academic text before class. In class, students were given one hour to write a newspaper article of 400 words about the academic paper. The newspaper article had to be suitable to publish in the science section of a quality Dutch newspaper. The target audience of the text consisted of a general audience that was interested in science, but did not necessarily receive higher education training. Students were told that the goal of their text was to retain the readers’ interest and make sure that the presented insights were understandable. Part of the resulting corpus was used in the construction phase in the development of the analytical framework (see Chap. 4).

7.3 Analysis

The analysis was conducted in two steps. In the first step, each individual text was analyzed for the occurrence of strategies, using the analytical framework. This led to a type of analysis and outcome that was also shown in Chap. 5. For each text, all occurrences were coded in NVivo. This led to quantitative and representational data; in other words, for each strategy, a percentage could be given to denote how many texts made use of it. This data is visualized in tables (see Table 7.1 through 7.5) in which the number of texts that used a strategy is shown as well as the number of references, or in other words how many times that strategy was used in how many texts. Because a single strategy can be employed multiple times in one text, the number of references can be higher than the total number of texts.

The second step was qualitative and inductive; per strategy, all coded text was gathered in NVivo and then coded again in subforms (or subcodes). In other words, the way each strategy was used in this specific corpus was characterized. For example, what does the use of the strategy humor look like? How do students use statistics? By thematizing and describing how students employed the strategies, this step provided us with insights into the way first-year liberal education students write popularization texts. The insights the analysis produced about student popularization writing skills and consequences for setting up an educational program in popularization writing are detailed in Sterk et al. (2022). Here, on the other hand, we will focus on the textual side of the analysis and show the different ways in which strategies were employed within this corpus. With this information, Tables 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, and 7.5 were expanded with the number of texts and references for each specific use of a strategy. For reasons of readability and succinctness, in this chapter we only reproduce the results for five of the 34 strategies—one from each theme: describing the method, applied implications, mention of statistics, stance markers, and references to the reader. The other strategies were analyzed in the same manner but are not reported on in this chapter. If context is added for clarity in the example text, the strategy under discussion is underlined.

7.4 Analysis Example 1: Describing the Method

The results of the analysis for the Subject Matter strategy describing the method are shown in Table 7.1. Seventy-one percent of students used describing the method to add information about the methodology of the academic text in their newspaper article. For this strategy, five subcodes were found: participants, research question/goal/hypothesis, measured constructs, materials, and mentions of the original research.

Table 7.1 Results for describing the method
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The level of specificity varies, with some students re-presenting the methodological framework word for word and others writing a summarized statement. Students pick and mix information from the academic text; in most texts, multiple subcodes are represented. The next example combines statements about the participants, the research question, and the materials:

  1. (1)

    The research into the influence of social media among teens [research question] was conducted in Scotland. 467 Scottish pupils between 11 and 17 years old took part [participants]. In class and online, questionnaires were administered that teens needed to fill in [materials].

The subcode that appears most often is that of participants, who are mentioned in varying degrees of specificity. The academic article explains that

  1. (2)

    Participants were 467 Scottish secondary school pupils aged 11–17 years. (Woods & Scott, 2016, p. 43)

Most student texts mention that 467 Scottish teens took part in the study, some add they were aged 11–17, others merely mention that ‘about 500 participants’ took part:

  1. (3)

    The research was conducted with students from secondary school in Scotland, they were in the age group of 11 to 17 years old.

The research question and hypothesis appear in student texts in multiple different forms. In the academic text, the research question is posed in the following way:

  1. (4)

    The present study makes a novel contribution to the literature by examining how overall vs. night-time specific social media use and emotional investment in social media relate to sleep quality, anxiety, depression and self-esteem in adolescents. (Woods & Scott, 2016, p. 41)

Some student writers stick close to the academic text and mention night-time versus overall social media use or sleep quality, anxiety, depression, and self-esteem when talking about the research question. Others represent these statements in a more abstract manner and mention that research is being done into the effects of social media. Generally, all texts that mention the research question include a mention about social media. In the following example, the same constructs are mentioned as in the academic text, but the research question is reformulated to be easier to understand:

  1. (5)

    A connection is sought between the use of social media and the quality of sleep, and with depression, anxiety, and self-esteem. The focus is specifically on the influence of the use of social media right before going to bed.

In the academic text, the measured constructs mentioned are poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, emotional investment in social media, overall social media use, and night-time-specific social media use (Woods & Scott, 2016). Each construct has its own subheading, making it easily discoverable by the reader, and a short paragraph of text that explains the materials used to measure these constructs. In the student corpus, some writers mention all constructs, yet more often, only a selection of constructs is disclosed:

  1. (6)

    These students were asked about their sleep quality, their mental health (with regards to depression and anxiety), their self-esteem, how much social media they use and how much of this is at night, and how big their emotional investment in social media is.

In the academic text, the references made to materials center around the use of a questionnaire:

  1. (7)

    Pupils in 1st to 4th year (aged 11–15) completed questionnaires in class, either in pencil-and-paper form or online, hosted by qualtrics.com. … Pupils in 5th and 6th year (aged 15–17) completed the online questionnaire hosted by qualtrics.com outside of class, via a link circulated by the school. (Woods & Scott, 2016, p. 43)

In the student writing, some texts only mention the questionnaire; others add that it was conducted partially online and partially in class, or mention the type of scale that was used to measure outcomes, or that consent was obtained:

  1. (8)

    In class as well as online, questionnaires were provided that teens needed to fill in.

Comments about the methodology are a logical place to not only show how but also by whom the research was conducted. Mentions include the authors of the paper, the location of the research, and the title of the paper. These types of mentions were also coded in another strategy: lexical mention of the original research.

  1. (9)

    The research ‘#Sleepyteens: Social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem’ investigates the influences of social media of teens on the sleep quality and psychological well-being of teens.

7.5 Analysis Example 2: Applied Implications

The results of the analysis for the strategy applied implications, part of the theme Tailoring Information to the Reader, are shown in Table 7.2. Forty-eight percent of students mentioned applied implications of the insights of the academic text in their newspaper article. Two types of applied implications are used: implications and calls to action. An implication represents the further-reaching consequences of the research topic. A call to action nudges the reader into taking a certain action needed because of those implications. In most cases, when a call to action is added, the implication on which the call to action is based is left implicit in the student writing.

Table 7.2 Results for applied implications
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The first type of applied implication is implications. Implications are mentioned on the level of teens, mental health, society, and parents, though never on the level of research because that type of implication is part of a different strategy: academic implications. In the student corpus, mentioned implications are about teens, mental health, society, or parents. Often, information that is presented as a result in the academic source text is instead represented as an implication in student writing. On the one hand, this shows that participants stick close to the source text. On the other hand, this poses a factual misrepresentation of the source text because it did not specify the information to be an implication.

For teens, the focus is on the potential implications of social media and the use of smartphones at night, for example on health. For this subcode specifically, what is presented as an implication in the student writing is in fact part of the results in the academic source text.

  1. (10)

    It is the future, and sometimes the unfortunate future, that this generation of teens will grow up with constant connectivity and experience insomnia as being unchangeable.

Implications for mental health similarly feature claims that originate as results from the research but are re-presented as implications. In the following example, the mental and emotional low point that is mentioned shows a connection to one of the consequences of social media use that is discussed in the academic text:

  1. (11)

    Not only has our physical condition deteriorated because of intensive and late-night social media use, it also brings us to a mental and emotional low point.

Implications for society do present implications that are further reaching than the information already presented in the paper. Here, claims are made about the implications for society at large:

  1. (12)

    Right now, it is important to do research as a society to learn how to deal with these consequences. It is important that technology keeps striving forward, but this should not be at the cost of the well-being of humans.

Implications for parents show the action that parents can undertake because of the new information in the academic paper. The difference with a call to action that is directed at parents (see below) is that a call to action explicitly and directly speaks to parents to spur them on to take action, whereas implications do not directly address the parents:

  1. (13)

    Because of this research they [parents] can warn their brood with more conviction about the consequences that social media have.

The second type of applied implication is a call to action. Calls to action can be classified either by content (that is, the action they refer to) or by referent (that is, the person that needs to take action). In terms of content, broadly seen, a call to action can contain either one or two claims that are both closely connected to the main claim. The first claim is that conscious choices need to be made about the amount of time spent on social media. This call to action connects to claims in the results of the academic text that state teens use a lot of social media, and that this might cause unwanted consequences. In these calls to action, the reader in general or teens specifically are addressed and asked to consider the amount of time they spend on social media:

  1. (14)

    Use it [social media] the way you like it, but when it has an influence on wellbeing, it’s sensible to ‘disconnect’ for a while and enjoy your beautiful experiences without the nasty side-effects of social media.

The second claim made in calls to action is that readers should not use a mobile phone late at night or should not take their phone to bed. This call to action connects more specifically to the claim in the academic paper that 86% of teens take their smartphone to bed with them:

  1. (15)

    So just leave your phone downstairs when you go to bed, and it really doesn’t hurt you to send a little less texts every now and again.

The third type of call to action combines the two claims about making conscious choices about social media and leaving mobile phones out of the bedroom:

  1. (16)

    That is why it is wise to take a step back from social media. The most important step is to leave your mobile phone and laptop downstairs. That way you’re not tempted to use social media at night. It’s also important that you’re not too invested in social media.

The fourth subcode contains calls to action that are not further specified. This subcode contains calls to action in the realm of social media and phone use that might propose a change on a higher level than the individual:

  1. (17)

    We should think of an alternative to deal with this [social media]. A way that doesn’t negatively impact mental health and the quality of life.

Students use six different referents in their calls to action: the reader, us, teens, calls to action where the referent is not specifically addressed, parents, and self-reference. Referents are mostly teens or people connected to them, which shows a clear connection to the topic of the research.

A call to action is most often addressed to the reader in general, usually by using ‘you,’ although imperative verbs sometimes lack a referent. These are the most direct types of call to action. Although some of these texts are clearly written with parents or teenagers in mind as the target audiences, in the 20 texts where ‘you’ is used in the call to action, there is no clear target audience distinguishable, which makes it difficult to specifically pin down what type of reader ‘you’ refers to:

  1. (18)

    So, next time you pick up your phone, or watch another Facebook video, think twice, and put it away.

A call to action can also use ‘we,’ ‘our,’ and ‘us’ to make an inclusive group of the author of the text and its readers. This type of referent is used when the writer wants everyone to commit to the call to action.

  1. (19)

    Maybe it’s time for us to find a replacement for all the cat videos and ‘Facebook posts’ and to start reading books again.

Calls to action can also be used to make a claim about the behavior of teens that needs to change. In these texts, it is clear that teens themselves are not the target audiences, but that the text is instead written about teens and aimed at parents or maybe even the general audience.

  1. (20)

    Teens should not be on social media just before going to bed and especially not in the middle of the night when they wake up.

Calls to action can also be presented without a specific referent. In this subcode, more general calls to action can be found that focus on a level that overarches the individual:

  1. (21)

    In the current society more awareness about the negative consequences of social media is necessary.

Similarly, parents can be the referent in the call to action. Although it is the parents that are spurred into taking action, the action still refers to the use of mobile phones and social media in teens:

  1. (22)

    Make sure that your teen limits the use of social media and reduces it to zero in the evenings. Because of this, teens will lead a healthier life with less social and mental problems.

In some cases, the writer uses self-reference in a call to action. In these cases, the writer shows the reader the desired behavior through self-reference (the underlined words in this example are also coded for explicit self-reference):

  1. (23)

    To conclude I would like to offer a resort for those people for whom it’s not too late yet. All these problems originate in attaching too much value in social media. My tip is to be more aware of the time you spend online. Otherwise, you might be the next social junkie.

7.6 Analysis Example 3: Mention of Statistics

The results of the analysis for the Credibility strategy mention of statistics are shown in Table 7.3. Thirty-nine percent of students mentioned statistics in their newspaper article. There are 11 types of statistics that are used, captured under two main types of statements.

Table 7.3 Results for mention of statistics
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Mentions of statistics appear mostly in percentages, though sometimes they are written out in words. Mentions of statistics are exclusively used in two types of statements about the topic of the academic source text: either about issues teens face because of phone/social media use or about the behavior of teens regarding that phone/social media use. Although these claims are presented separately, one statistic is often used in both claims; 97% of teens use social media, which is part of the claim about behavior of teens but also often added to claims about issues teens face. Most mentions of statistics (96 out of 106) are directly lifted from the academic text; in only 10 cases did statistics appear that were added from other sources.

In claims about issues teens have, five claims can be distinguished that are all mentioned in the academic text. Three of these statistics are copied out of the first paragraph of the results section in the academic article: 47% of teens suffer from anxiety, 35% of teens are classified as bad sleepers, and 21% are depressed. This information appears in the academic text in the following way:

  1. (24)

    Mean scores and standard deviations for each measure are presented in Table 1. 97% of participants indicated that they used social media. 35% of participants were classed as poor sleepers, with a PSQI score greater than 5… . PSQI scores were positively skewed, so were transformed—by taking log 10(score + 1)—to meet normality assumptions for all further analysis. 47% of participants were classed as anxious and 21% as depressed, according to the HADS cut-off score of 8 or above… . (Woods & Scott, 2016, p. 44)

In the popularized texts, the student writers ignore the explanation of the statistical analysis and reduce the content to simple statistics, which are used only in the presentation of the results of the study—no other claims or consequences are drawn from the statistics:

  1. (25)

    467 Scottish pupils were examined in this study. 97% of the pupils said they use social media. 35% report poor sleep quality. 47% of the pupils were classified as anxious and 21% as depressed.

Two other mentions of statistics in claims about issues that teens face are not results from the research itself, but statistics that are mentioned in the introduction of the academic text and originate in other academic sources: 37% of teens experience loss of sleep through social media and 25% of teens wake up because of their phone. The 37% statistic is presented in the academic text as follows:

  1. (26)

    Concerning social media in particular, Espinoza … surveyed 268 young adolescents and found that 37% reported losing sleep due to the use of social networking sites. (Woods & Scott, 2016, p. 42)

This statistic is mostly used as part of the strategy presenting results/conclusions, but can also be found in other parts of the text, for example as part of the strategy novelty:

  1. (27)

    A major change in the sleep pattern of youngsters has occurred with the introduction of social media. Teens sleep less because they spend more time on their phones when they are already in their beds. 37% indicate a lack of sleep with chronic fatigue as a consequence.

The 25% statistic is presented in the following way in the academic text:

  1. (28)

    A quarter of adolescents’ report sleep interruptions from incoming text messages … and social media alerts are likely to cause similar sleep disturbances. (Woods & Scott, 2016, p. 42)

This statistic is presented in an almost identical fashion in student writing:

  1. (29)

    A quarter of all teens indicate they sometimes wake up from notifications from their phone.

Some mentions of statistics appear that the student writers added from other sources (10 out of 106 cases). In some texts, these other sources are mentioned, but not in all. In seven cases, these statistics are presented as part of the strategy presenting results/conclusions, in two cases as part of the strategy novelty and once in a contextualization. The statistic used in the contextualization is:

  1. (30)

    Almost one in three Dutch people indicate that they had trouble sleeping this year.

Here, the statistic is not only used to introduce the topic but also to connect it to (Dutch) readers.

The second way in which mentions of statistics are used is to make claims about behavior of teens. Here, four claims are made that are all part of the academic text: 97% use social media, 90% use social media at night and in the daytime, 86% sleep with their phone, and 54% of teens’ days are spent on social media.

The fact that 97% of teens use social media is always included as a research result and re-presented together with the three statistics about problems that teens experience, as already described. In fact, the 97% statistic can already be seen in example (23). It is also presented on its own, without the statistics about issues teens face:

  1. (31)

    Out of all the participants in the research, 97% indicated that they use social media.

The statistic that 90% of teens use social media at night is mentioned in the opening sentence of the academic paper:

  1. (32)

    Social media sites—such as Facebook and Twitter—have rapidly become a central part of young people's lives, with over 90% now using social media, day and night… . (Woods & Scott, 2016, p. 41)

In the corpus, the statistic is represented as part of other strategies: seven times as part of novelty, six times as part of contextualization, and five ties as part of presenting results/conclusions. The information is used in different ways; some texts mention that social media is used at night and in the daytime; others re-use the examples that are given of social media platforms and merely mention that 90% of teens use social media. The next example shows the statistic being used as part of novelty to mention that even though the use of social media is a pressing problem, not a lot of research is conducted into it:

  1. (33)

    90% of teens use social media, like Facebook and Twitter. So, it’s no wonder that teens experience issues and the connection to social media is quickly made. But until recently, no research was done, and the connection was not proven yet.

The statistic that 86% of teens sleep with their phone in bed is mentioned in the introduction of the academic text, as is the statistic that teens spend 54% of their day on social media:

  1. (34)

    Firstly, incoming alerts during the night have the potential to disturb sleep, as 86% of adolescents sleep with their phone in the bedroom—often under their pillow or in their hand… . (Woods & Scott, 2016, p. 42)

  2. (35)

    Previous findings on Internet use in general are certainly relevant when considering social media use specifically, as young people spend 54% of their time online using social media… . (Woods & Scott, 2016, p. 42)

Both mentions of statistics are mainly used as part of the strategy presenting results/conclusions, even though the statistics are part of earlier research and not an actual result of Woods and Scott’s (2016) research. The 86% statistic is used as part of the strategy novelty twice, and the 54% statistic is used as part of the strategy novelty twice and contextualization once. As part of presenting results/conclusions, it is used in the following way:

  1. (36)

    What’s more, the use of social media leads to the expectation that someone is alert all the time and so teens spend 54% of their time on social media.

In the next example, the 86% statistic is used as part of the strategy novelty. Here, the statistic is deployed to introduce the topic, that is, it is the first piece of information that is mentioned about it:

  1. (37)

    Checking your Instagram in the evening? 86% of adolescents sleep with their phone in their room, under their pillow or in their hand. In a quarter of teens their sleep is disrupted by incoming messages.

When the statistic is used as part of presenting results/conclusions, it is used as a supporting argument to underpin the findings from the study:

  1. (38)

    This [study] showed that the use of social media has a negative influence on the confidence of adolescents and causes anxiety and depression. Therefore, the quality of sleep and the hours of sleep deteriorate, especially with night-time use of social media. The latter is more common than many people may think; 86% of adolescents sleep with their phone in the bedroom, of which a considerable part sleeps with the phone under their pillow or in their hand.

Note that in general, when mentions of statistics are used that are part of earlier research and not an actual result of Woods and Scott’s (2016) research, in almost all cases they are incorrectly re-presented because students treat them as if they are results from the research even though they are supporting information from previous sources.

7.7 Analysis Example 4: Stance Markers

The results of the analysis for the Stance strategy stance markers are shown in Table 7.4. Seventy-one percent of student writers use stance markers in their newspaper article. Stance markers are used throughout the corpus to comment on the research, its findings, or implications. They can be used to align with expectations, but also to go against expectations, or to signal insecurity. They are more often used to contextualize information than they are used to exert a value judgment or feelings. There are 14 types of stance markers, about value, order of magnitude, aligning with expectations, insecurity, knowing for sure, deviating from expectation, awareness of information, contrast, denominator of time, explanation, commitment to a statement, signaling a reason, and giving focus.

Table 7.4 Results for stance markers
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Stance markers such as ‘interesting,’ ‘shocking,’ ‘important,’ ‘crucial,’ ‘special,’ ‘essential,’ and ‘ridiculous’ can denote value.

  1. (39)

    These are serious numbers.

  2. (40)

    We all spend a ridiculous amount of time check our Instagram feed.

The order of magnitude is made clear through markers like ‘strong,’ ‘big,’ ‘massive,’ ‘whopping,’ ‘a lot,’ ‘gigantic,’ and ‘huge.’

  1. (41)

    In a whopping 35% of this group…

  2. (42)

    This has a gigantic negative influence.

Statements can align with expectations, and while the expectations themselves are often not explicitly stated, the alignment of the results found in the study to those expectations is commented on, by using ‘as expected,’ ‘it’s not a surprise,’ and ‘indeed.’ Alternatively, comments can denote a deviation from expectations, signaled by ‘actually’ and ‘what’s more.’

  1. (43)

    As expected, a connection was found between the use of social media and the wellbeing of these students.

  2. (44)

    All these small research projects have, not totally unsurprisingly, given the insight that…

  3. (45)

    It can be concluded that social media actually does have an influence on sleep deprivation.

  4. (46)

    What’s more, social media use can also lead to depression, more stress, and less self-confidence.

Markers of insecurity show that something might be the case, but that the writer is not sure about it, using the markers ‘would,’ ‘might,’ ‘maybe,’ and ‘possibly.’

  1. (47)

    That this doesn’t do much harm, is maybe a thought that you recognize yourself in.

  2. (48)

    This happens more often than people might think.

Alternatively, if writers know something for sure, they can signal this by using ‘absolutely,’ ‘clearly,’ and ‘certainly.’

  1. (49)

    This would certainly have a positive effect on the sleep routines of students.

  2. (50)

    The research clearly shows that the value that adolescents attach to social media contributes more to anxiety, depression, and a low self-esteem than the amount of exposure to it does.

The underlying assumption that information is in fact already known or accepted is denoted using ‘of course.’ These kinds of stance markers explicate an underlying assumption that information that is being shared in the text is in fact already known by readers or accepted to be true:

  1. (51)

    Of course, excessive social media use is a key factor in increasing sleep deprivation and depression, amongst others, in adolescents.

Contrast can be signaled by using the markers ‘but’ and ‘however.’

  1. (52)

    What was new in the research, however, was the specific focus on night-time social media use and emotional investment of teens in social media.

  2. (53)

    That the use of a phone makes it difficult for you to get some sleep is not a secret, but that is not the only problem.

Denominators of time are used to show something is already happening or information is already known, using ‘for some time’ or ‘quickly.’

  1. (54)

    That this can have negative effects, had also been known for some time.

  2. (55)

    Add the so-called Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) to that and it quickly becomes clear that social media has the ability to wreck your night’s rest.

Stance markers can also be used to signal an explanation through ‘namely,’ ‘after all,’ and ‘then.’

  1. (56)

    The conclusion then, is: …

  2. (57)

    It is after all not bad to miss something every now and then.

Sometimes a writer does not want to fully commit to a statement and will use ‘almost,’ ‘a sort of,’ or ‘seem like.’

  1. (58)

    If you look at it that way, social media doesn't seem that social.

  2. (59)

    There is a sort of urge to constantly be available and online.

A reason is signaled by using ‘so.’

  1. (60)

    So, it comes as no surprise that social media influences the sleep of these teens.

Giving focus by using ‘especially’ signals that something is mostly true for a specific situation.

  1. (61)

    Therefore, the sleep quality and the number of hours of sleep deteriorate, especially with night-time use of social media.

7.8 Analysis Example 5: References to the Reader

The results of the analysis for the strategy references to the reader, part of the theme Engagement, are shown in Table 7.5. Thirty-one percent of students include references to the reader in their newspaper article. References to the reader are used for the same type of goal as the strategy inclusive pronouns: giving information or spurring the reader into taking action. Except in these instances, the references are used to present readers as part of the interaction, not to point to the writer and the reader together, as would be the case with inclusive pronouns. References to the reader consist of seven subtypes, six of which overlap with inclusive pronouns: taking action, something happens to you/your body, daily action, direct address of the reader, the writer says that you do something, the writer says that you might do something, and you as a parent.

Table 7.5 Results for references to the reader
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The most-used reference to the reader is a reference to spur the reader into taking action. In 38 of these 43 instances, the text is also coded as the strategy applied implications. Where inclusive pronouns are used to signal collective action, references to the reader are used to connect the action that should be taken by the reader and to make the action more concrete:

  1. (62)

    So, next time you pick up your phone, or watch another Facebook video, think twice, and put it down.

Claims about what happens to readers’ bodies are also made using references to the reader. These claims usually show a strong connection to results from the paper that are discussed in the text. By mentioning these results and using references to the reader, the results are made of personal interest to the reader:

  1. (63)

    Current research tells us that the time of using social media and emotional investment are also two important factors. When you spend time on your phone at night, you absorb a lot of radiation, and your sleepiness hormone is not produced or produced too little. Because of this, your sleep rhythm gets out of sync, and you have more difficulty falling asleep.

Like the use of inclusive pronouns, the use of references to the reader to describe daily actions is connected to phones or looking at your phone late at night. All instances are also coded as the strategy examples from daily life. Here, references to the reader are used to describe how the daily action or behavior is performed by the reader:

  1. (64)

    At night before going to bed, you must check your phone. That phone then doubles as an alarm clock, so you conveniently place it next to your head when you go to sleep. And the notifications that appear just before you fall asleep? Ah well, let’s have a look.

Although all instances in the strategy contain some form of a reference to the reader, only a direct address of the reader explicitly addresses the reader of the text and no one else. In 11 instances, in Dutch ‘u’ or ‘uw’ is used, which are politeness forms for second-person pronouns. The use of ‘u’ and ’uw’ enhances the idea of the reader being spoken to directly. Also note that Dutch has two forms for you: ‘je’ and ‘jij.’ ‘Je’ is unstressed and can also be used to refer to people in general. In the use of ‘jij,’ the referent is stressed and used to mean one specific person; in this context that is the reader of the text. This has implications for the coding of this corpus, as references using ‘jij’ can be seen as a direct address of the reader, whereas references using ‘je’ are not (and both had to be translated to ‘you’ in the examples, inconveniently). Most instances of a direct address are combined with a question to draw the attention of the reader; these questions often ask if a situation that is described in the text is also applicable for or familiar to the reader.

  1. (65)

    Did you miss a Facebook or an Instagram post and are you suddenly not in the loop anymore? Do you have trouble sleeping? Are you experiencing a lot of stress?

The writer can also tell readers that the readers are doing something. Here, the writer describes a certain action that is connected to the reader by referencing them:

  1. (66)

    You used to compare yourself with the people you knew and maybe two idols. Now you constantly see the best of the best because those people are of course extra popular on social media.

In other cases, the writer does not assume the reader to do something, instead adding a stance marker of doubt such as ‘maybe’ or ‘might.’ When doubt is used in combination with a reference to the reader, it introduces the possibility of the one, specific reader not performing the action. As a consequence of using a marker signaling doubt, claims can be a bit bolder without offending the reader.

  1. (67)

    You most probably recognize FOMO in yourself or in someone around you.

Student writers use references to the reader specifically to address the reader in their role as parents. As the academic text is about sleep deprivation and depression in teens, some writers have specifically addressed their text to parents of those teens. When using inclusive pronouns, the writer and parents form a shared group, but when references to the reader are used, they function to specifically make it clear to the reader that they are addressed in their role as a parent:

  1. (68)

    You might recognize it as a parent, your child says he’s going to bed at 23:00, but when you quickly go to the bathroom at 1:00, you see the lights in his room are still on.

7.9 Interpretation

For a more comprehensive overview of the insights that were garnered about the student writing in this corpus of first-year undergraduate texts, see Sterk et al. (2022), in which the use of all 34 strategies is briefly discussed and lessons for educational practice are drawn from the overarching insights that were produced in this analysis. In this chapter we have shown how the framework can be used in an educational setting to analyze student writing. For five strategies, we have shown how often first-year undergraduate students use the strategies in the framework in their newspaper articles, and in what way these strategies are used. As can be seen from the five strategies that are discussed in this chapter, there are specific ways in which student writers use each strategy. This means that there is enough similarity between the different texts in the corpus to categorize and generalize the way in which each strategy is being used. Each discussed strategy was used in multiple ways, or in other words, contains subcodes. This implies that there is no strict single way of using these strategies. For almost every strategy, outliers were found. This means that although these instances do adhere to the strategy as such, the specific framing of the strategy is not used multiple times. It should be noted that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to use strategies; this analysis was not normative in nature.

Through the analysis of five themes, interrelations between strategies are already becoming visible. This can be seen, for example, in the use of lexical mention of the original research in describing the method or the mention of statistics as part of novelty, contextualization, and presenting results/conclusions. These interrelations become even clearer when looking at the use of all 34 strategies. This implies that although strategies can be analyzed individually, they cannot be pulled apart completely. This is a consequence of the occurrence of overlapping strategies and the allowance within the framework of overlapping coding.

A possible future step is to compare the analytic outcomes from this specific corpus to those of other corpora. For example, this corpus could be compared to a corpus constructed from texts from students from another research field, to study the influence of disciplinary perspectives on science writing. Or the current corpus could be compared to a corpus of texts about the same academic texts, and written by the same students, but later in time, for example at the end of their undergraduate studies. This could give insight into how the use of strategies in science writing develops over time. It could also be compared to a corpus of texts written by professional science journalists, to study the differences between those who are professionally trained to write and those who are not.

What You Have Learned in This Chapter

  • This chapter presents the analysis of a corpus of 140 newspaper articles based on a single academic source text written by first-year undergraduate liberal education students.

  • For five strategies—describing the method, applied implication, mention of statistics, stance markers, and references to the reader—quantitative data were generated about the amount of use, and in a second analytic step, the way each strategy was used was described.

  • Describing the method is achieved through mentioning the participants, research question/goal/hypothesis, measured constructs, and materials. Mentions of the original research are also included.

  • There are two types of applied implications. Specific implications discuss further-reaching consequences of research findings and are presented on the level of teens, mental health, society, and parents. A call to action is used to nudge the reader into taking action and to discuss conscious choices in social media or using a mobile phone less.

  • Mentions of statistics show issues teens have and behavior of teens. Statistics are re-presented from the results section as well as the introduction of the academic source text but are almost exclusively used in the student writing to denote results.

  • Stance markers are mainly used to comment on the research, its findings, or its implications.

  • References to the reader are used to give information or to spur the reader into taking action. These references are employed to include the reader as part of the interaction.