This volume provides a detailed and explicit account of the genre of social science research articles. While previous literature has analysed some aspects of the research genre separately, this book presents a comprehensive model which characterizes the generic, registerial and discoursal options as they interweave within a text. Another important contribution to the analysis is the formulation of explicit realization statements that relate the abstract categories of move and act (as described by Swales) to the way these units are actually created by lexical and grammatical choices. The realization networks draw on the work of systemic functional linguists, primarily Halliday, Hasan, Martin and Ventola. The added emphasis in this study is that research texts are ultimately persuasive texts, and genre 'constraints' can be tightened or loosened in response to the rhetorical dimension.