Academic genres in the university: thesis or the research writing process

Abstract

The thesis is understood as an initiation ritual: the way through the condition of being a student to becoming a member of the academic tribes. However, its symbolic value in the academic world has not been proportional to the attention it has been paid as a discursive object. It is still considered as “an under-theorized, under-studied, and under-taught text” (Paré et al.,2009:179). Precisely, because of this limited trail of reflections that moves slowly, (Borsinger 2007, Tamola 2007 in Spanish language; Bunton 1998, Paré et al. 2009, Swales 2005 in English language), there are serious confusions that require enlightening studies. Unquestionably, this unawareness of the rules of the “ceremony” has changed it par excellence into the most difficult genre to perform or execute (the fulfillment rate of the thesis in the English speaking world, is less than a 50%, and just a 14% in Ecuador; therefore , we can imagine what is the reality of other Hispanic countries). We assert that the execution of this genre is not only built on textual concepts and the human engineering which is able to guide its practice. Nonetheless, to check its discursive scene from investigation and then refer its relationship with the social and historical context can contribute to clarify the vision of it.