Technical Report Writing as a Pedagogic Genre: Metadiscourse Features of Proximity and Positioning in Student Writing

Technical Report Writing as a Pedagogic Genre: Metadiscourse Features of Proximity and Positioning in Student Writing | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Technical Report Writing as a Pedagogic Genre: Metadiscourse Features of Proximity and Positioning in Student Writing Vijayakumar Chintalapalli, Shakul Tewari This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7495462/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Emphasizing the importance of reader-centeredness in academic writing, we examined the linguistic markers of proximity and positioning in a corpus of technical reports written by the first-year undergraduate engineering students in a technological university. We developed a marker-based model proximity and positioning by adopting Hyland’s five facets namely organization, argument structure, credibility, stance , and engagement and applied it to a corpus of 120 technical reports written by the first year engineering students in an English medium STEM university. The findings revealed that students relied heavily on boosters over hedges, showed a preference for integral citations, and often blurred the boundary between facts and findings. While these discursive strategies show confidence and immediacy, they also narrowed rhetorical flexibility and risked misalignment with professional reporting. The analysis further highlights how group-authored reports generate uneven stance-taking and fragmented authorial voices, pointing to challenges of collaboration in academic writing. By situating technical reports as an occluded pedagogical genre at the interface of academic and professional discourse, the study contributes to corpus pragmatic accounts of learner writing. The results highlight the need for explicit instruction on hedging, citation conventions, and fact–finding differentiation in technical writing pedagogy, particularly in ESL STEM contexts. Marker approach Technical Report Writing Student Writing Metadiscourse Introduction Constructing complex arguments using credible sources and articulating an authorial position towards the audience and the text are crucial skills in academic writing (Ho & Li, 2018; F. (Kevin) Jiang & Ma, 2019; Stapleton & Wu, 2015). In academic and workplace writing, which requires writers to construct arguments persuasively, writers should demonstrate audience awareness, balance assertions with caution, and strategically utilize their resources to articulate their positions (Ho, 2018; Ho & Li, 2018). However, in the ESL contexts (English as Second Language), undergraduate students find it challenging to rhetorically structure their positions in ways the readers find it appropriate (Chang, 2023; Intaraprawat & Steffensen, 1995). This situation gets complicated when students collaborate on writing tasks. For example, Olinger’s (2011) study on stance and interaction in collaborative college writing showed that although collaboration offered students certain advantages, including enhanced peer interaction and exposure to diverse perspectives, writing together complicated the enactment of stance. As students negotiated rhetorical choices collectively, they found it difficult to project a coherent authorial voice, towards texts and audience. Individual positions became fragmented or diluted as contributions compete with, or were absorbed into, a collective group voice. Students often felt uneasy editing peers’ work and struggled to synchronize group tasks effectively. These findings suggest that although collaborative writing is pedagogically valuable, it also introduces tensions that may directly influence how students construct their arguments, express their stance, engage with one another. This study, using a corpus-based approach, intervenes in that gap by analyzing how undergraduate STEM students, enrolled in a hybrid academic–professional writing course, engage with report writing as both a disciplinary and a workplace-oriented practice. Specifically, drawing on Hyland’s (2010) framework of metadiscourse—particularly the dimensions of proximity and positioning—we examine five key facets of proximity namely, argument structures, organization, stance-taking, credibility, and engagement in the context of collaboratively authored, data-driven reports. By foregrounding technical reports as a site where disciplinary literacy and professional communication converge, this research not only presents corpus-informed understandings of student writing but also provides pedagogical implications for teaching writing in engineering education. Pedagogical Context: Technical Report Writing as an “Occluded” Pedagogic Genre In our context, technical report writing (TRW) is an “occluded pedagogic genre” (Nesi & Gardner, 2012; Samraj, 2021) circulated primarily within classrooms rather than in published domains, yet it simulated the professional reporting practices expected in engineering and applied sciences. Offered to all first year Engineering students, this wide-angled report writing course combined writing in disciplines (WID) (Hyland & Jiang, 2018) with professional writing. Our modules included genre-focused move-activities and style related form-focused grammar and vocabulary activities. Alongside the use of established in-house textbooks (Raman & Sharma, 2015; Sharma et al., 2020), we incorporated some materials generously shared by Wolfe (Wolfe, 2025), on data-based storytelling, data visualization, and drawing evidence-based conclusions (Wolfe, 2015). As an assessment task, we administered a take-home group report writing assignment requiring students to identify real-life problems and write data-based reports. As a team, students had to design tools and administer them to their primary stakeholders, in this case peers, parents, friends, and faculty. Subsequently, they would analyze the data and compile a report with recommendations in the IMRaD format (Wolfe, 2025; Wolfe et al., 2011). Review of literature Proximity and Positioning Features in Student Writing Defined as a writer’s controlled use of rhetorical features displaying authority and a personal position in an unfolding text, interpersonal features of proximity and positioning help writers to build a strong relationships with readers, sources, and disciplinary communities (F. (Kevin) Jiang & Ma, 2019; Wang & Csomay, 2024). According to Hyland (2010) argument structure, organization, credibility, stance, and engagement constitute the key facets of proximity and positioning balancing authority and involvement. While the facets of argument structure, organization, and credibility provide insights into “what we do” as writers to demonstrate our authority (proximity), the facets of stance and engagement are concerned with “our position towards issues in an unfolding text” (positioning) (Hyland, 2010, p. 117). Research on argumentation highlights the ways in which expert and student writers differ in constructing persuasive knowledge claims. Chen and Zhou (2022), for instance, observed that expert writers explicitly transformed findings into epistemic claims by aligning them with prior scholarship; this helped them with resolving reader concerns and situating contributions within the broader literature. Similarly, Han and Gardner (2021, 2024) noted that professional writers deployed logico-semantic resources—such as countering, comparing, and acknowledging— to build intertextual links and defended their position through counterarguments and citations. They employed cohesive devices like contrast and result markers to explicitly signal shifts in argumentation. By contrast, student writers tended to rephrase views without critique, signaling weaker control over argumentative positioning (Nesi & Gardner, 2012, 2018). Studies also showed that although students employed a high frequency of transition markers (Han & Gardner, 2021), their writing still lacked the persuasive force evident in expert texts (Bax et al., 2019). Studies of organization likewise highlighted distinctions between novice and professional writers. While experts employed strategies such as exemplification, definitions, and reformulation (e.g., for example, in other words ) to elaborate authorial claims (Triki, 2021, 2024). significantly enhancing cohesion in persuasive prose, student writers were found to rely on a narrower range of elaboration strategies, most often concrete apposition phrases or simple exemplification (Vijayakumar, 2024; Zhang & Su, 2023). The restricted repertoire of elaboration strategies suggests that student writers unpack and organize their ideas in fewer steps, limiting the depth of their argumentation. Similarly, corpus-based studies on credibility showed that while experts constructed reliability primarily through source citation practices, self-citation, disciplinary association, and impersonality strategies (Sun et al., 2022), student writers overwhelmingly used non-integral citations and paraphrased attributions, often reproducing rather than evaluating sources (Swales, 2014b; Wette, 2018). This reliance on external evidentials highlights their difficulty in projecting independent authority. Work on stance and engagement further illustrates these disparities. Whereas professional writers balanced hedges, boosters, and evaluative resources to signal epistemic alignment and attitudinal stance (W. Cheng et al., 2019; Lancaster, 2016), students often overused boosters and attitude markers (Alghazo et al., 2021; M. J. Luzón, 2009) and employed fewer hedges, especially at lower levels(Wu & Paltridge, 2021). Similarly, experts exploited engagement devices such as reader mentions, questions, and directives to position readers as co-constructors of knowledge (F. Jiang & Ma, 2018), while students depended more heavily on modal verbs of obligation, producing a less interactive and persuasive writer–reader relationship (Liao & Lü, 2023). Together, these studies show consistent differences across the five facets of proximity—argumentation, organization, credibility, stance, and engagement—between expert and novice writers. It is important to note here that most prior research has examined individual features or selected dimensions in isolation. Frequency-based studies have mapped useful patterns in cohesive markers, stance expressions, or citation practices, but they often overlooked genre-specific constraints that privilege expert writers with greater discursive space. Few investigations have sought to analyze all five facets of proximity holistically, nor systematically operationalized them through identifiable linguistic markers. This study addresses that gap by adopting a marker-based framework to examine how student writing realized proximity and positioning. By focusing on explicit markers of argumentation, organization, credibility, stance, and engagement, the framework provides a fine-grained approach to evaluating how novice writers construct authorial presence and negotiate relationships with readers. Research Questions How do undergraduate students employ linguistic markers of proximity and positioning in technical report writing? What patterns emerge in students’ use of argumentation, organization, credibility, stance, and engagement markers, and how do these patterns shape the rhetorical construction of proximity? Methods This study adopts a corpus-based methodology to examine proximity and positioning features in student technical report writing. Corpus-based approaches have been widely used to investigate interactional and interactive dimensions of academic discourse (Nesi & Gardner, 2018; Wang & Csomay, 2024). They provide a systematic means of identifying recurrent linguistic markers with pedagogical implications, as shown in work on BAWE and MICUSP (Durrant, 2017; Nesi & Gardner, 2012; Zhao & Zhan, 2020). In line with this tradition, we relied on the Sketch Engine interface to generate wordlists, concordances, and marker-based searches. Corpus The data comprise 120 recommendatory technical reports written by first-year engineering students at a technical university over five semesters (2021–2023). Altogether, the corpus contains 525,773 words. Reports were produced under classroom assessment conditions and represent a pedagogical genre that combines academic conventions with workplace-oriented writing. All texts were anonymized and compiled into a single corpus for analysis. To ensure textual integrity, we applied an institutional plagiarism check and excluded reports with more than 15% similarity. While this threshold is somewhat conventional, it helped ensure that the texts reflected students’ own authorial choices rather than extensive copying. We acknowledge that plagiarism is not directly tied to proximity/positioning and may itself represent a strategy of intertextuality; however, retaining high-overlap texts could have affected or distorted the marker frequency counts. Unlike previous corpus studies, we did not exclude prefatory sections (title pages, group author declarations, abstracts), since these contain important metadiscursive signals of authorship and responsibility in multi-authored student genres. However, in this analysis, we included only the linguistic markers of proximity and positioning. Data Analysis Procedure The analysis followed a marker-based framework adapted from Hyland’s (2005) model of proximity and positioning, which has been widely applied in corpus studies on metadiscourse (Lin, 2024; Wu & Paltridge, 2021). The selection criteria for markers in this study were guided by both methodological consistency and functional relevance. Previous corpus-based investigations have shown that sentence-initial discourse markers and explicit cohesive devices are the most reliable indicators of argumentative structure and reader-writer positioning (Cao & Hu, 2014; Han & Gardner, 2024). Similarly, studies of stance and engagement (F. W. Cheng & Unsworth, 2016; Pearson & Abdollahzadeh, 2023) emphasize the need to distinguish between multifunctional items and those that operate as genuine interpersonal resources. By excluding idiomatic expressions and non-discursive uses while retaining markers that elaborated argumentation (e.g., not only…but also; so that ), the analysis ensured that only linguistically motivated and pragmatically relevant features were captured. This rationale aligns with earlier corpus studies (Wu & Paltridge, 2021) that stress the importance of refining marker lists to balance coverage with analytical precision, allowing for more robust generalizations about how students negotiate proximity in academic writing. In line with Han and Gardner (2024) and Cao and Hu (Cao & Hu, 2014), we restricted the analysis of discourse connectives to sentence-initial position and excluded coordinating conjunctions ( and, but, so ) unless they functioned as transition markers equivalent to however or in addition . Multiword idioms and quantifier uses of so were also excluded, but correlative patterns such as not only…but also and clause-introducing so that were retained as they contribute to elaboration and reasoning. Parenthetical markers were distributed across categories of organization (especially reformulation) and credibility, following earlier treatments of multifunctionality in academic writing (Han & Gardner, 2024). For stance, we drew on Hyland’s framework (Hyland & Guinda, 2012) and identified adjectives, adverbs, and reporting verbs from wordlists generated by the automatically tagged and lemmatized corpus in Sketch Engine. These were manually sorted into hedges, boosters, and attitude markers, consistent with approaches in Biber (Biber, 2006), and Wu & Paltridge (2021). In addition, four-word lexical bundles signaling stance and engagement (e.g., we can conclude that, it is crucial to ) were identified, following methods outlined in Hyland (Hyland, 2008) and Durrant (2017). Reader-inclusive pronouns ( we, our, us ) were treated as both stance and engagement devices, reflecting insights from Hyland & Guinda (2012) and Zou & Hyland (2020) on their dual interpersonal functions. Finally, evidentials referring to external sources were coded under credibility (Swales, 2014a; Wette, 2017), while directives of internal reference were classified as engagement resources, following Hyland (Hyland, 2002b). Only imperative uses with reader-orientation were retained, while other non-directive uses (e.g., allow, manage, measure ) were excluded. To ensure coding consistency during manual sorting, two coders independently reviewed concordance lines and judged whether the items qualified as markers of discourse functions. Inter-coder reliability was calculated on a 10% sample analysis, yielding a Cohen’s κ of 0.87, which indicates a high level of agreement. Further, quantitative counts were normalized per million words, and qualitative concordance analysis was used to interpret contextualized uses. Finally, because the reports were multi-authored, we tracked variation in authorial signals within each text, such as shifts between I and we , uneven citation practices, or fragmented stance-taking across sections. These features were cross-checked against prefatory author declarations. While we did not systematically analyze how students’ socioeconomic or linguistic diversity shaped these dynamics, we acknowledge that power imbalances and differential English proficiency likely influence the negotiation of proximity in collaborative texts. Results As can be seen in Table 1, the corpus contained a total of 20,348 markers across the five facets of proximity and positioning. Stance markers, which include boosters, hedges, and attitude markers, were the most frequently used devices, followed by engagement features and code-gloss features of organization in student report writing. Very few directives of external reference indicating credibility were found, and even many of those markers were non-integral. When compared with other genres of persuasive prose, like journalistic blogs and explainers (Zou & Hyland, 2020, 2024), student technical reports contained lesser number of stance markers (23.43 per 1000 words). [Insert Table 1 here] Argument Structure Our analysis of argument structure focused on transition markers signaling shifts, continuations, and additions in reasoning. Table 2 presents the distribution of these markers, showing that 38.49% were result markers, 31.95% were compare-and-contrast markers, and 29.55% were addition markers. Notably, four markers— however, thus, in addition/additionally, and hence —together accounted for more than half of all instances (52.56%). This concentration on a small set of markers points to a restricted repertoire, where students rely heavily on predictable linguistic resources to construct arguments. The relatively high proportion of result markers reflects the outcome-driven orientation of technical report writing, a genre where conclusions and recommendations are often foregrounded over debate or theoretical justification. [Insert Table 2 here] Qualitative concordance analysis indicates that students’ argumentative moves were predominantly linear and result-oriented. Most reports followed a two-part claim–evidence sequence or an argument–justification structure, with limited evidence of dialogic engagement with alternative perspectives. Counterclaims were introduced occasionally through contrastive markers (e.g., however ), but were rarely sustained or negotiated in depth. This finding resonates with Nesi and Gardner’s (2012)observation that student genres in STEM disciplines often privilege factual reporting and procedural logic over critical discussion. Compared with expert academic writing, where counter-argumentation and concession are common strategies for demonstrating disciplinary awareness, student writing in our corpus remained closer to informational exposition. For instance, in Excerpt 1, however introduces a counterpoint based on external sources, but the function of the contrast is to reinforce the author’s claim rather than to genuinely weigh competing perspectives. Similarly, the frequent use of thus and therefore (Excerpts 2–4) served primarily to draw straightforward conclusions from preceding statements, rather than to signal engagement with existing works on the topic. Addition markers ( in addition, additionally ) were common in data analysis sections (Excerpt 5), where students listed multiple data points, again reflecting the informational and accumulative orientation of the genre. Artificial Sweeteners also do not increase blood sugar levels, but this is not true for sugar alcohols like mannitol, sorbitol, and xylitol. Earlier studies have, however , shown that certain artificial sweeteners, like cyclamate along with saccharin, can cause bladder cancer in laboratory animals. The market of cryptocurrencies is a fast and booming market at this point of time (…). It's a lucrative investment opportunity for those who understand the market. However , there are significant risk factors in investment that can't be undermined. The blockchain underlying the whole mining process is one of its kind (…) According to a recent estimate, the music industry is valued at around 15 billion USD as of the year 2020 and is poised to reach 23 billion by the end of the year 2023. However , according to a 2019 International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)-Indian Music Industry (IMI) 'Digital Music Study', it is estimated that the music industry will lose about 10 billion a year due to piracy. That represents 67% (…). Groundwater provides drinking water to at least 50% of the world's population. 43% of water used for irrigation comes from it. It is generally replenished through seepage from surface water. However, the rate of replenishment is slow. Therefore , it is not sustainable to use groundwater for extended periods. When examining the frequency and duration of social networking platform usage, the survey found that 44.6% of respondents reported using social media platforms for 4-6 hours per day, while 15.8% reported usage exceeding 6 hours per day. Additionally , 8.9% reported usage of 1-2 hours per day, 5.9% reported (…). Taken together, these patterns suggest that while the reports were dialogically heteroglossic in surface structure (through contrastive and resultative markers), the underlying rhetorical strategies were largely monologic, with students asserting rather than negotiating positions. This finding aligns with Geng et al. (2024), who observed that novice writers tend to rely on “contractive” strategies (e.g., counter, pronounce, justify) rather than “expansive” ones (acknowledge, distance). The reliance on a narrow set of transition markers, coupled with limited engagement with counter-argumentation, highlights the influence of disciplinary expectations: in technical report genres, authority is constructed less through critical debate and more through clarity, conciseness, and results-oriented reasoning. Organization The organizational resources in the corpus were dominated by reformulations and exemplifications, which together accounted for 84.58% of all organization markers. Four intra-sentential markers—or, parenthetical clarifications, like , and such as —made up 65.22% of the total, indicating that students relied heavily on intra-sentential devices to unpack information. The frequent use of or was notable, most often to signal semantic equivalence between reformulating and reformulated units (e.g., reunions–meetings, supervision–control ), or to provide synonyms (e.g., isolated–disconnected, judged–scrutinized ). At times, or also introduced an alternative possibility, though without extended elaboration (Excerpts 6–8). Diabetes is a disease in which our cells are unable to obtain glucose from blood which results in high blood glucose or blood sugar levels. As a result of such a long exposure to social networking sites, people tend to read or encounter a lot of information or news either through posts or *while chatting with friends and family who in turn may have read it on social media. How long should a director or producer wait before releasing a film based on social disturbance? Of the 820 parenthetical typographic markers, 68.66% functioned as reformulations, with clarifications (44.63%) and acronyms (24.02%) dominating. The remaining 31.34% were citations, endophoric markers, and asides. In addition, such as and like accounted for 36.9% of exemplification markers, largely used to illustrate concepts and abstract nouns such as factors, benefits , or resources (Excerpts 9–11). By contrast, inter-sentential elaboration through markers like for example and for instance occurred in only 2.59% of cases, suggesting that students seldom extended their arguments through fuller exemplification or analogical reasoning. Although definitional constructions with the copula is occasionally introduced key concepts (e.g., Excerpt 11), most instances of is served purely grammatical functions in passive structures. Developing appropriate infrastructure, such as greenhouse facilities and efficient water management systems, is crucial to facilitate alternative farming practices’ scalability and commercial viability. Gradually smartphone gained popularity because of its unique features like text messaging, voice calling ,etc. The immune system is a complex biological system consisting of cells, organs and chemicals that functions to keep the body healthy. This pattern highlights a restricted repertoire of organizational strategies. Students’ elaboration was primarily confined to clarifying terminology, acronyms, and abstract concepts, while more advanced strategies of developing arguments through examples, analogies, or summaries were rare. This tendency is consistent with the pedagogical and disciplinary constraints of technical reports, which prioritize clarity, precision, and data presentation over expansive rhetorical elaboration. However, the reliance on intra-sentential clarifications also reflects a limited capacity to build hierarchical or multi-layered arguments, as is more common in expert academic writing (Triki, 2024). In professional discourse, elaboration often functions to situate findings within broader disciplinary debates, while in student writing it remained largely at the level of definitional clarification and illustration. The organizational profile of these texts also intersects with credibility and stance. Because elaboration markers were used mainly for clarification rather than for sourcing alternative perspectives, students’ writing tended to reinforce authorial assertions instead of opening space for competing views. This supports earlier observations (Wette, 2017) that student writers rely on factual, observable information rather than citation-worthy arguments. As a result, organizational markers contributed to a straightforward, report-like style, consistent with the genre’s informational purpose but limited in terms of authorial positioning and dialogic sophistication. Credibility In this study, credibility is understood as the broader rhetorical work of establishing reliability, authority, and trustworthiness of claims (Hyland, 2002a; Ye, 2021). While citation is a prominent strategy for constructing credibility, it is only one among several. Expert writers typically distribute credibility across multiple resources: by evaluating prior work, integrating figures and tables, employing impersonal style to signal objectivity (Hyland & Tse, 2005), or affiliating with disciplinary communities. By contrast, the student corpus analyzed here displayed a narrow conception of credibility, realized almost exclusively through citation and evidential references. To understand these practices, we extracted all instances of the typographical marker parenthesis (including unconventional ones) and searched for 3–4 word n-grams signaling evidentials (e.g., according to + NP, a/some + study, recent research suggests ). Of the 820 instances of parenthesis in the corpus, only 164 were citations—less than two per report. Using Swales’ (Swales, 1990) typology, we distinguished integral and non-integral forms: 81.7% were non-integral, author–year references at sentence endings, while only 18.3% were integral citations. This predominance of non-integral attribution echoes Swales’ (2014a) observation that student writers favour attributive over evaluative citations. Moreover, most instances were attributions rather than critical evaluations of prior knowledge(Yan & Ma, 2024), suggesting that citation functioned as a legitimizing add-on rather than as a dialogic positioning device. The n -gram analysis of evidentials further supports this finding. We found 303 instances of according to + NP, but unlike expert writers, who use this form to reference external authority, 70.9% of cases in our corpus referred internally to the report’s own data, figures, or surveys. This blurring of external vs. internal authority resembles Lee and Chen’s (2009) findings in L2 Chinese dissertations and demonstrates that students often treated their own findings as if they carried external weight. In some cases, citations were both stylistically unconventional and grammatically flawed. For example, Excerpt 12 misuses quotation marks and relegates the source to a parenthesis, obscuring the relationship between claim and evidence. Reformulation into an integral citation, as in Excerpt 13, would have established authorial authority more clearly. According to “The findings of the study were discussed at the World Microbe Forum meeting,” screen time can also contribute to stress levels… (Bhardwaj, 2021). Corroborating with the findings discussed at the World Microbe Forum meeting, Bhardwaj (2021) noted that screen time could also contribute to stress levels… When used more effectively, citations primarily served to justify results by providing parallel evidence that reinforced students’ own findings, as in Excerpt 14. Across the corpus, external sources were rarely used to frame research questions or engage with alternative perspectives; instead, they tended to validate the idea that a given problem was “worth investigating.” From the figure below we calculated that the expected frequency of students leaving their appliances on sleep mode… According to recent research, it has been shown that keeping electronic devices on standby mode… leads to an overall increase of 18% in the power consumption (Vasiliu, Nedelcu, & Magdun, 2021). Taken together, these patterns show that credibility in student reports was constructed almost entirely through citation, and even here, often through non-integral attribution or internal referencing. Other strategies commonly used by expert writers—such as evaluating the authority of prior studies, signaling disciplinary alignment, or projecting objectivity through impersonal style—were largely absent. This over-reliance on citation-as-credibility not only narrows the rhetorical repertoire available to students but also constrains their authorial positioning, as it limits their ability to negotiate knowledge claims within a disciplinary framework. Stance Stance markers were the most frequently occurring proximity resources in our corpus, outnumbering markers of argument, organization, credibility, and engagement combined. Table 3 presents their distribution across the three stance categories. Boosters were the most frequent type, followed by hedges and attitudinal stance markers. A majority of the boosting devices (63.54%) were high-confidence reporting verbs such as show, find, establish, view, believe, think, and know , which served to project certainty in claims and to reinforce the authors’ interpretations of their findings. Hedges, while less frequent, were largely realized by four modal verbs ( could, may, might, would ), which together accounted for 37.51% of hedging uses. Interestingly, the modal can alone appeared with nearly the same frequency as all four combined, but was employed less to signal tentativeness than to indicate causal or probabilistic relations (e.g., can lead to, can result in ). [Insert Table 3 here] The analysis of 3–4 word bundles further demonstrates students’ preference for categorical stance. Participant-oriented bundles were overwhelmingly attitudinal stance bundles, particularly anticipatory- it structures (e.g., it is essential, it is important ), which conveyed strong evaluations while simultaneously signaling reader alignment. Similar to writers in the hard sciences, students frequently drew attention to interpretations of data using anticipatory-it bundles and boosting adverbs (e.g., especially, significantly, highly ), thereby foregrounding their confidence in the validity of claims. Attitudinal adjectives such as important, popular, essential were more common than affective adverbs ( unfortunately, surprisingly ), reinforcing the finding that students’ stance-taking emphasized assertiveness rather than subtlety or nuance (see Excerpts 15–17). It is essential for students to practice mindful engagement on social media platforms… The study’s findings indicate that AI integration significantly aids students in most academic disciplines… The role of social media has always been under suspicion because real news does not go viral… Self-mention was another prominent stance resource, with first-person plural pronouns ( we, our, us ) far more frequent than singular I. As shown in Table 4, these pronouns served dual functions. On the one hand, they reinforced authorship and collaboration, marking the report as a collective endeavour. On the other, they functioned as engagement devices, constructing solidarity with readers by presenting arguments as shared knowledge or collective reasoning (Hu & Cao, 2015; M. Luzón, 2024). For example, we frequently co-occurred with obligation modals ( must, should, need to ), producing strong, directive claims that enlisted the reader as a co-author (Excerpts 18–19). Similarly, our and us were used both to frame collective ownership of the research process (Excerpt 20). [Insert Table 4 here] We must understand that the immune system is a group of numerous cells in our body that fight pathogens. With increasing scarcity of safe drinking water, we can conclude that… water will become more expensive than gold. Our study discovered that participants who got parental support… were more likely to build stronger bonds with their parents. When compared with hedges, the corpus contained substantially more boosting verbs, attitudinal adjectives, and boosting adverbs. This suggests that students’ stance-taking was strongly assertive and contractive, leaving little dialogic space for alternative perspectives. These findings echo Aull and Lancaster (2014) and Wu and Paltridge (2021), who observed that first-year undergraduate students tend to rely heavily on boosters rather than hedges. Yet, in our ESL context, students’ preference for boosters and attitudinal stance markers appears even more pronounced, serving as persuasive devices to compensate for limited engagement with external sources (see Credibility). Although epistemic modals ( may, might, could ) were present, they were often used to express causal or inferential relations (e.g., may lead to, might be the cause ) rather than genuine uncertainty. Very few stance markers expressed skepticism or alignment with reader values, suggesting that stance in these reports was primarily a tool of persuasion and assertion rather than negotiation. In sum, the stance profile of student technical reports was booster-heavy, categorical, and collectively voiced. This pattern reflects both the pedagogical nature of the task—where students are encouraged to claim ownership of findings—and the disciplinary context of engineering and technical writing, which privileges clarity, certainty, and results-driven reasoning. Compared with expert writing, however, students’ stance-taking lacks balance: their reliance on boosters and self-mention stresses confidence but restricts dialogic flexibility, limiting their ability to position themselves within broader disciplinary conversations. Engagement Table 5 shows the distribution of engagement devices in the corpus. The most frequent resources were writer-oriented directives, particularly modal obligations ( should, must, need to ), imperatives, and adjectival predicates ( it is important to, it is crucial to ), which together accounted for 62.67% of all engagement markers. These were most commonly used in the conclusion and recommendation sections, where students urged readers to adopt specific courses of action. As Hyland (Hyland, 2002a, p. 217) notes, such directives function to “express an obligation on the reader,” and in our corpus they often pointed to tangible actions intended to solve real-world problems (Excerpts 21–24). [Insert Table 5 here] Adequate and reliable hardware, and software must be provided along with good internet connectivity to aid the online as well as offline components of the experience. Spend some time with your own self to realize the reasons for your depression. If this isn't practicable because you need your phone for work, try switching as much as you can to your laptop or desktop. Finally, it is essential to have strong regulations and laws in place to protect privacy and hold organizations accountable for misusing personal data. While these directives highlight students’ attempts to persuade, they were often discrete and stand-alone claims, with limited textual justification or reference to external sources. Unlike expert writers, who typically embed directives within disciplinary reasoning and evidence, students framed engagement largely as a set of prescriptive opinions. This reliance on obligation without justification reflects the results-oriented ethos of technical report writing, but also exposes the absence of dialogic negotiation with alternative perspectives. Other forms of engagement were far less common. The corpus contained only a small number of endophoric markers (3.7%), which exclusively referred to internal data (e.g., figures or tables) rather than to external resources (Excerpt 25). This suggests that students engaged readers primarily by directing attention to their own findings rather than by integrating broader disciplinary voices. According to the data collected from the survey circulated among students of a University ( see Figure I ), 68% of the respondents chose streaming services as their typical method of music consumption. Reader mentions ( you, your ) appeared occasionally, often in the form of advice or recommendations, but they were generally directive and evaluative rather than invitational. Asides and parenthetical endophoric markers were marginal, indicating that students rarely stepped outside the linear flow of the text to comment directly to readers. Taken together, the engagement profile of the corpus was dominated by directive obligation modals and prescriptive self-mention, positioning readers as co-responsible actors rather than independent evaluators. Compared with expert technical and academic writing—where engagement tends to rely on more subtle strategies such as procedural endophora, hedged directives, or inclusive questioning—student reports projected a more assertive, monologic stance. This strategy reflects both the pedagogical nature of the genre, where recommendations are expected, and the novice status of the writers, who rely on strong directives rather than nuanced strategies to secure reader alignment. Conclusion This study examined proximity and positioning features in a corpus of undergraduate technical reports, a pedagogical genre central to engineering education. The analysis showed that student argumentation tended to be structurally simple and assertive, with heavy reliance on boosters and categorical stance markers, but limited use of hedges and dialogic strategies. Arguments were often outcome-focused, with elaboration largely confined to intra-clausal clarification of terms and acronyms, rather than extended examples or analogies. Credibility was narrowly constructed through attributional citations, often to common-sense information or internally generated data, rather than through evaluative engagement with disciplinary sources. Engagement was dominated by obligation modals and inclusive pronouns, which projected solidarity but often in directive or confrontational ways. These findings collectively suggest that while students positioned themselves with confidence, their rhetorical repertoire was restricted, limiting opportunities for nuanced negotiation with readers and disciplinary discourse (Vijayakumar, 2024). At the same time, several limitations must be acknowledged. The study focused on a single corpus of multi-authored student reports from one institution, which constrains generalizability across contexts. The absence of a comparative expert corpus limits the extent to which we can benchmark student practices against disciplinary norms. Moreover, although we coded a broad range of markers, we did not include other proximity resources such as metadiscursive nouns or passive constructions, which recent research highlights as central to persuasive prose (Conrad, 2018; F. Jiang & Hyland, 2018). These limitations mean that our findings should be interpreted as suggestive of broader tendencies rather than as comprehensive accounts of student academic writing practices. The pedagogical implications flow directly from these findings. First, the overuse of boosters and lack of dialogic stance strategies suggest the need for explicit instruction in heteroglossic resources—teaching students how to acknowledge, entertain, and evaluate alternative claims, rather than only assert their own. Second, the restriction of elaboration to definitional clarifications highlights the importance of training students to extend arguments through examples, analogies, and hypothetical scenarios. Third, the narrow conception of credibility as citation-as-attribution underscores the need to integrate source-based writing into report pedagogy, including instruction in evaluative and integral citation practices. Tools such as Zotero or Mendeley may support this shift, but more crucial is showing students how citation can construct authority rather than merely document sources. Finally, the reliance on obligation modals in engagement indicates a need to broaden students’ repertoires to include subtler strategies such as hedged directives, procedural endophora, and reader-inclusive questions that invite rather than impose alignment. Despite these limitations, this study contributes to the relatively underexplored area of EAP in higher education by documenting the discourse practices of technical report writing in a multi-authored, collaborative student corpus. By highlighting both the strengths (confidence, solidarity, clarity) and limitations (restricted repertoire, limited dialogic space) of student positioning, the study highlights the importance of genre-sensitive pedagogy in developing students’ ability to participate authoritatively in disciplinary discourse. Future research should expand the scope by including comparative corpora of expert and novice writing, and by examining additional features such as passive voice and metadiscursive nouns. Such work will be crucial for refining EAP and ESP curricula that better prepare students for the communicative demands of technical and professional contexts. Ethics Declaration This research was conducted in full compliance with ethical standards for corpus-based studies and did not involve interventions with human participants or the collection of sensitive personal data. All sources of language data (e.g., published concordances/excerpts or institutional materials) are properly cited and used solely for scholarly purposes. The authors confirm that the study adheres to the journal’s COPE guidelines for ethical publication, data transparency, and integrity. Funding Declaration The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 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Lingua , 234 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.102769 Zou, H. (Joanna), & Hyland, K. (2020). Managing evaluation: Criticism in two academic review genres. English for Specific Purposes , 60 (500), 98–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2020.03.004 Zou, H. (Joanna), & Hyland, K. (2024). “Let’s start with the basics of the virus”: Engaging the public in two forms of explainers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes , 68 (February), 101353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2024.101353 Tables Tables 1 to 5 are available in the Supplementary Files section. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files Table2.docx Table1.docx Table5.docx Table4.docx Table3.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7495462","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":512259628,"identity":"e469bd0a-79f9-46d1-a8ff-7f51b1654bb5","order_by":0,"name":"Vijayakumar Chintalapalli","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABaUlEQVRIie2Rz2rCQBDGJwjrZWuuGxDyCpFeLKX4KhuE9lDtuQWRDUJ6KZ4tLT6DIASPIwv2Eh+g4EEvniykCIIX6STaYIq9F5qPEGaH/c2f/QBy5fqjQkE/kYT3wEtxxlD7M84BeBLJ35AQODsgSQLlaSRRcsPwAVgSqEONEzdNxStYbWnb6t2664f+rMyK0zEao2rbVmdjlK1ZGYp6DotRWhy5g2KiKy+iObSmwZIzfifRCIVwsCRRTpYc+LUDbviNOMAkCqaNvmgOLC/QtEvDQcMnxF45KJmmXRoArp9FdrpGyHDrvRJirvaIrWgAuSPEXGWRAqLla5cGCyxPESIOXSCe2fUJEZkuQsdI96b+/PQRXCianAnq4obCGsS7uN24yDJm0xd79Dprsbm86r01h++qNauZZuM8+hy1TXoxHUUbTZn6YrFNESjQJ6CT2gpHduxNTJzCrDdGBO0fCBwjuXLlyvXf9QU2nokw4fSSBwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Vijayakumar","middleName":"","lastName":"Chintalapalli","suffix":""},{"id":512259629,"identity":"96a1054f-0ce9-47b3-b98e-b24ac7e9e1cd","order_by":1,"name":"Shakul Tewari","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Shakul","middleName":"","lastName":"Tewari","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-08-30 13:08:14","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7495462/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7495462/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":93105106,"identity":"5785e4b6-c323-470b-9b72-0378bc252b5e","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-10-09 06:24:06","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":679364,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7495462/v1/9b2416f0-f50c-4dc4-9553-9080d7c0bcd8.pdf"},{"id":91370660,"identity":"299a4d30-ff66-42ea-a0b2-0202a585fd22","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-15 18:46:06","extension":"docx","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":23329,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Table2.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7495462/v1/e5b8eade99084b632502d6af.docx"},{"id":91372046,"identity":"be2dec05-e3de-432b-9ced-cb7cf0daf3c1","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-15 18:54:06","extension":"docx","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":17098,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Table1.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7495462/v1/899b3d701f1cf4d75200ebb0.docx"},{"id":91370653,"identity":"fc94e4ef-d41a-4c0b-ac05-1c6eadab3819","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-15 18:46:05","extension":"docx","order_by":2,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":17313,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Table5.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7495462/v1/36d88cf90164cd447996d563.docx"},{"id":91370663,"identity":"766e6b73-7811-4310-a40d-cc4d2c12f2d0","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-15 18:46:06","extension":"docx","order_by":3,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":18993,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Table4.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7495462/v1/0839f652ab88d4b222977a9a.docx"},{"id":91370664,"identity":"bc017383-16ed-4173-a0e5-3d2d79b7de41","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-15 18:46:06","extension":"docx","order_by":4,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":16769,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Table3.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7495462/v1/087f0579812f2a9b02ed5d76.docx"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Technical Report Writing as a Pedagogic Genre: Metadiscourse Features of Proximity and Positioning in Student Writing","fulltext":[{"header":"Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eConstructing complex arguments using credible sources and articulating an authorial position towards the audience and the text are crucial skills in academic writing (Ho \u0026amp; Li, 2018; F. (Kevin) Jiang \u0026amp; Ma, 2019; Stapleton \u0026amp; Wu, 2015). In academic and workplace writing, which requires writers to construct arguments persuasively, writers should demonstrate audience awareness, balance assertions with caution, and strategically utilize their resources to articulate their positions (Ho, 2018; Ho \u0026amp; Li, 2018). However, in the ESL contexts (English as Second Language), undergraduate students find it challenging to rhetorically structure their positions in ways the readers find it appropriate (Chang, 2023; Intaraprawat \u0026amp; Steffensen, 1995). This situation gets complicated when students collaborate on writing tasks. For example, Olinger\u0026rsquo;s (2011) study on stance and interaction in collaborative college writing showed that although collaboration offered students certain advantages, including enhanced peer interaction and exposure to diverse perspectives, writing together complicated the enactment of stance. As students negotiated rhetorical choices collectively, they found it difficult to project a coherent authorial voice, towards texts and audience. Individual positions became fragmented or diluted as contributions compete with, or were absorbed into, a collective group voice. Students often felt uneasy editing peers\u0026rsquo; work and struggled to synchronize group tasks effectively. These findings suggest that although collaborative writing is pedagogically valuable, it also introduces tensions that may directly influence how students construct their arguments, express their stance, engage with one another.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis study, using a corpus-based approach, intervenes in that gap by analyzing how undergraduate STEM students, enrolled in a hybrid academic\u0026ndash;professional writing course, engage with report writing as both a disciplinary and a workplace-oriented practice. Specifically, drawing on Hyland\u0026rsquo;s (2010) framework of metadiscourse\u0026mdash;particularly the dimensions of proximity and positioning\u0026mdash;we examine five key facets of proximity namely, argument structures, organization, stance-taking, credibility, and engagement in the context of collaboratively authored, data-driven reports. By foregrounding technical reports as a site where disciplinary literacy and professional communication converge, this research not only presents corpus-informed understandings of student writing but also provides pedagogical implications for teaching writing in engineering education.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePedagogical Context: Technical Report Writing as an “Occluded” Pedagogic Genre\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn our context, technical report writing (TRW) is an \u0026ldquo;occluded pedagogic genre\u0026rdquo; (Nesi \u0026amp; Gardner, 2012; Samraj, 2021) circulated primarily within classrooms rather than in published domains, yet it simulated the professional reporting practices expected in engineering and applied sciences. Offered to all first year Engineering students, this wide-angled report writing course combined writing in disciplines (WID) (Hyland \u0026amp; Jiang, 2018) with professional writing. Our modules included genre-focused move-activities and style related form-focused grammar and vocabulary activities. Alongside the use of established in-house textbooks (Raman \u0026amp; Sharma, 2015; Sharma et al., 2020), we incorporated some materials generously shared by Wolfe (Wolfe, 2025), on data-based storytelling, data visualization, and drawing evidence-based conclusions (Wolfe, 2015).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs an assessment task, we administered a take-home group report writing assignment requiring students to identify real-life problems and write data-based reports. As a team, students had to design tools and administer them to their primary stakeholders, in this case peers, parents, friends, and faculty. Subsequently, they would analyze the data and compile a report with recommendations in the IMRaD format (Wolfe, 2025; Wolfe et al., 2011).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec3\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003eReview of literature\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003eProximity and Positioning Features in Student Writing\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eDefined as a writer\u0026rsquo;s controlled use of rhetorical features displaying authority and a personal position in an unfolding text, interpersonal features of proximity and positioning help writers to build a strong relationships with readers, sources, and disciplinary communities (F. (Kevin) Jiang \u0026amp; Ma, 2019; Wang \u0026amp; Csomay, 2024). According to Hyland (2010) argument structure, organization, credibility, stance, and engagement constitute the key facets of proximity and positioning balancing authority and involvement. While the facets of argument structure, organization, and credibility provide insights into \u0026ldquo;what we do\u0026rdquo; as writers to demonstrate our authority (proximity), the facets of stance and engagement are concerned with \u0026ldquo;our position towards \u003cem\u003eissues\u003c/em\u003e in an unfolding text\u0026rdquo; (positioning) (Hyland, 2010, p. 117).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eResearch on argumentation highlights the ways in which expert and student writers differ in constructing persuasive knowledge claims. Chen and Zhou (2022), for instance, observed that expert writers explicitly transformed findings into epistemic claims by aligning them with prior scholarship; this helped them with resolving reader concerns and situating contributions within the broader literature. Similarly, Han and Gardner (2021, 2024) noted that professional writers deployed logico-semantic resources\u0026mdash;such as countering, comparing, and acknowledging\u0026mdash; to build intertextual links and defended their position through counterarguments and citations. They employed cohesive devices like contrast and result markers to explicitly signal shifts in argumentation. By contrast, student writers tended to rephrase views without critique, signaling weaker control over argumentative positioning (Nesi \u0026amp; Gardner, 2012, 2018). Studies also showed that although students employed a high frequency of transition markers (Han \u0026amp; Gardner, 2021), their writing still lacked the persuasive force evident in expert texts (Bax et al., 2019).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStudies of organization likewise highlighted distinctions between novice and professional writers. While experts employed strategies such as exemplification, definitions, and reformulation (e.g., \u003cem\u003efor example, in other words\u003c/em\u003e) to elaborate authorial claims (Triki, 2021, 2024). significantly enhancing cohesion in persuasive prose, student writers were found to rely on a narrower range of elaboration strategies, most often concrete apposition phrases or simple exemplification (Vijayakumar, 2024; Zhang \u0026amp; Su, 2023). The restricted repertoire of elaboration strategies suggests that student writers unpack and organize their ideas in fewer steps, limiting the depth of their argumentation. Similarly, corpus-based studies on credibility showed that while experts constructed reliability primarily through source citation practices, self-citation, disciplinary association, and impersonality strategies (Sun et al., 2022), student writers overwhelmingly used non-integral citations and paraphrased attributions, often reproducing rather than evaluating sources (Swales, 2014b; Wette, 2018). This reliance on external evidentials highlights their difficulty in projecting independent authority.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWork on stance and engagement further illustrates these disparities. Whereas professional writers balanced hedges, boosters, and evaluative resources to signal epistemic alignment and attitudinal stance (W. Cheng et al., 2019; Lancaster, 2016), students often overused boosters and attitude markers (Alghazo et al., 2021; M. J. Luz\u0026oacute;n, 2009) and employed fewer hedges, especially at lower levels(Wu \u0026amp; Paltridge, 2021). Similarly, experts exploited engagement devices such as reader mentions, questions, and directives to position readers as co-constructors of knowledge (F. Jiang \u0026amp; Ma, 2018), while students depended more heavily on modal verbs of obligation, producing a less interactive and persuasive writer\u0026ndash;reader relationship (Liao \u0026amp; L\u0026uuml;, 2023). Together, these studies show consistent differences across the five facets of proximity\u0026mdash;argumentation, organization, credibility, stance, and engagement\u0026mdash;between expert and novice writers.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is important to note here that most prior research has examined individual features or selected dimensions in isolation. Frequency-based studies have mapped useful patterns in cohesive markers, stance expressions, or citation practices, but they often overlooked genre-specific constraints that privilege expert writers with greater discursive space. Few investigations have sought to analyze all five facets of proximity holistically, nor systematically operationalized them through identifiable linguistic markers. This study addresses that gap by adopting a marker-based framework to examine how student writing realized proximity and positioning. By focusing on explicit markers of argumentation, organization, credibility, stance, and engagement, the framework provides a fine-grained approach to evaluating how novice writers construct authorial presence and negotiate relationships with readers.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eResearch Questions\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003col\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow do undergraduate students employ linguistic markers of proximity and positioning in technical report writing?\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat patterns emerge in students\u0026rsquo; use of argumentation, organization, credibility, stance, and engagement markers, and how do these patterns shape the rhetorical construction of proximity?\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Methods","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study adopts a corpus-based methodology to examine proximity and positioning features in student technical report writing. Corpus-based approaches have been widely used to investigate interactional and interactive dimensions of academic discourse (Nesi \u0026amp; Gardner, 2018; Wang \u0026amp; Csomay, 2024). They provide a systematic means of identifying recurrent linguistic markers with pedagogical implications, as shown in work on BAWE and MICUSP (Durrant, 2017; Nesi \u0026amp; Gardner, 2012; Zhao \u0026amp; Zhan, 2020). In line with this tradition, we relied on the Sketch Engine interface to generate wordlists, concordances, and marker-based searches.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eCorpus\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe data comprise 120 recommendatory technical reports written by first-year engineering students at a technical university over five semesters (2021\u0026ndash;2023). Altogether, the corpus contains 525,773 words. Reports were produced under classroom assessment conditions and represent a pedagogical genre that combines academic conventions with workplace-oriented writing. All texts were anonymized and compiled into a single corpus for analysis.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo ensure textual integrity, we applied an institutional plagiarism check and excluded reports with more than 15% similarity. While this threshold is somewhat conventional, it helped ensure that the texts reflected students\u0026rsquo; own authorial choices rather than extensive copying. We acknowledge that plagiarism is not directly tied to proximity/positioning and may itself represent a strategy of intertextuality; however, retaining high-overlap texts could have affected or distorted the marker frequency counts. Unlike previous corpus studies, we did not exclude prefatory sections (title pages, group author declarations, abstracts), since these contain important metadiscursive signals of authorship and responsibility in multi-authored student genres. However, in this analysis, we included only the linguistic markers of proximity and positioning.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eData Analysis Procedure\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe analysis followed a marker-based framework adapted from Hyland\u0026rsquo;s (2005) model of proximity and positioning, which has been widely applied in corpus studies on metadiscourse (Lin, 2024; Wu \u0026amp; Paltridge, 2021). The selection criteria for markers in this study were guided by both methodological consistency and functional relevance. Previous corpus-based investigations have shown that sentence-initial discourse markers and explicit cohesive devices are the most reliable indicators of argumentative structure and reader-writer positioning (Cao \u0026amp; Hu, 2014; Han \u0026amp; Gardner, 2024). Similarly, studies of stance and engagement (F. W. Cheng \u0026amp; Unsworth, 2016; Pearson \u0026amp; Abdollahzadeh, 2023) emphasize the need to distinguish between multifunctional items and those that operate as genuine interpersonal resources. By excluding idiomatic expressions and non-discursive uses while retaining markers that elaborated argumentation (e.g., \u003cem\u003enot only\u0026hellip;but also; so that\u003c/em\u003e), the analysis ensured that only linguistically motivated and pragmatically relevant features were captured. This rationale aligns with earlier corpus studies (Wu \u0026amp; Paltridge, 2021) that stress the importance of refining marker lists to balance coverage with analytical precision, allowing for more robust generalizations about how students negotiate proximity in academic writing.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn line with Han and Gardner (2024) and Cao and Hu (Cao \u0026amp; Hu, 2014), we restricted the analysis of discourse connectives to sentence-initial position and excluded coordinating conjunctions (\u003cem\u003eand, but, so\u003c/em\u003e) unless they functioned as transition markers equivalent to \u003cem\u003ehowever\u003c/em\u003e or \u003cem\u003ein addition\u003c/em\u003e. Multiword idioms and quantifier uses of \u003cem\u003eso\u003c/em\u003e were also excluded, but correlative patterns such as \u003cem\u003enot only\u0026hellip;but also\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eclause-introducing so that\u003c/em\u003e were retained as they contribute to elaboration and reasoning.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eParenthetical markers were distributed across categories of organization (especially reformulation) and credibility, following earlier treatments of multifunctionality in academic writing (Han \u0026amp; Gardner, 2024). For stance, we drew on Hyland\u0026rsquo;s framework (Hyland \u0026amp; Guinda, 2012) and identified adjectives, adverbs, and reporting verbs from wordlists generated by the automatically tagged and lemmatized corpus in Sketch Engine. These were manually sorted into hedges, boosters, and attitude markers, consistent with approaches in Biber (Biber, 2006), and Wu \u0026amp; Paltridge (2021). In addition, four-word lexical bundles signaling stance and engagement (e.g., \u003cem\u003ewe can conclude that, it is crucial to\u003c/em\u003e) were identified, following methods outlined in Hyland (Hyland, 2008) and Durrant (2017).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReader-inclusive pronouns (\u003cem\u003ewe, our, us\u003c/em\u003e) were treated as both stance and engagement devices, reflecting insights from Hyland \u0026amp; Guinda (2012) and Zou \u0026amp; Hyland (2020) on their dual interpersonal functions. Finally, evidentials referring to external sources were coded under credibility (Swales, 2014a; Wette, 2017), while directives of internal reference were classified as engagement resources, following Hyland (Hyland, 2002b). Only imperative uses with reader-orientation were retained, while other non-directive uses (e.g., \u003cem\u003eallow, manage, measure\u003c/em\u003e) were excluded.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo ensure coding consistency during manual sorting, two coders independently reviewed concordance lines and judged whether the items qualified as markers of discourse functions. Inter-coder reliability was calculated on a 10% sample analysis, yielding a Cohen\u0026rsquo;s κ of 0.87, which indicates a high level of agreement. Further, quantitative counts were normalized per million words, and qualitative concordance analysis was used to interpret contextualized uses. Finally, because the reports were multi-authored, we tracked variation in authorial signals within each text, such as shifts between \u003cem\u003eI\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003ewe\u003c/em\u003e, uneven citation practices, or fragmented stance-taking across sections. These features were cross-checked against prefatory author declarations. While we did not systematically analyze how students\u0026rsquo; socioeconomic or linguistic diversity shaped these dynamics, we acknowledge that power imbalances and differential English proficiency likely influence the negotiation of proximity in collaborative texts.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003cp\u003eAs can be seen in Table 1, the corpus contained a total of 20,348 markers across the five facets of proximity and positioning. Stance markers, which include boosters, hedges, and attitude markers, were the most frequently used devices, followed by engagement features and code-gloss features of organization in student report writing. Very few directives of external reference indicating credibility were found, and even many of those markers were non-integral. When compared with other genres of persuasive prose, like journalistic blogs and explainers (Zou \u0026amp; Hyland, 2020, 2024), student technical reports contained lesser number of stance markers (23.43 per 1000 words).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e[Insert Table 1 here] \u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eArgument Structure\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur analysis of argument structure focused on transition markers signaling shifts, continuations, and additions in reasoning. Table 2 presents the distribution of these markers, showing that 38.49% were result markers, 31.95% were compare-and-contrast markers, and 29.55% were addition markers. Notably, four markers—\u003cem\u003ehowever, thus, in addition/additionally,\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003ehence\u003c/em\u003e—together accounted for more than half of all instances (52.56%). This concentration on a small set of markers points to a restricted repertoire, where students rely heavily on predictable linguistic resources to construct arguments. The relatively high proportion of result markers reflects the outcome-driven orientation of technical report writing, a genre where conclusions and recommendations are often foregrounded over debate or theoretical justification.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e[Insert Table 2 here] \u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eQualitative concordance analysis indicates that students’ argumentative moves were predominantly linear and result-oriented. Most reports followed a two-part claim–evidence sequence or an argument–justification structure, with limited evidence of dialogic engagement with alternative perspectives. Counterclaims were introduced occasionally through contrastive markers (e.g., \u003cem\u003ehowever\u003c/em\u003e), but were rarely sustained or negotiated in depth. This finding resonates with Nesi and Gardner’s (2012)observation that student genres in STEM disciplines often privilege factual reporting and procedural logic over critical discussion. Compared with expert academic writing, where counter-argumentation and concession are common strategies for demonstrating disciplinary awareness, student writing in our corpus remained closer to informational exposition.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor instance, in Excerpt 1, \u003cem\u003ehowever\u003c/em\u003e introduces a counterpoint based on external sources, but the function of the contrast is to reinforce the author’s claim rather than to genuinely weigh competing perspectives. Similarly, the frequent use of \u003cem\u003ethus\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003etherefore\u003c/em\u003e (Excerpts 2–4) served primarily to draw straightforward conclusions from preceding statements, rather than to signal engagement with existing works on the topic. Addition markers (\u003cem\u003ein addition, additionally\u003c/em\u003e) were common in data analysis sections (Excerpt 5), where students listed multiple data points, again reflecting the informational and accumulative orientation of the genre.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eArtificial Sweeteners also do not increase blood sugar levels, but this is not true for sugar alcohols like mannitol, sorbitol, and xylitol. Earlier studies have, \u003cstrong\u003ehowever\u003c/strong\u003e, shown that certain artificial sweeteners, like cyclamate along with saccharin, can cause bladder cancer in laboratory animals.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eThe market of cryptocurrencies is a fast and booming market at this point of time (…). It's a lucrative investment opportunity for those who understand the market. \u003cstrong\u003eHowever\u003c/strong\u003e, there are significant risk factors in investment that can't be undermined. The blockchain underlying the whole mining process is one of its kind (…)\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAccording to a recent estimate, the music industry is valued at around 15 billion USD as of the year 2020 and is poised to reach 23 billion by the end of the year 2023. \u003cstrong\u003eHowever\u003c/strong\u003e, according to a 2019 International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)-Indian Music Industry (IMI) 'Digital Music Study', it is estimated that the music industry will lose about 10 billion a year due to piracy. That represents 67% (…).\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eGroundwater provides drinking water to at least 50% of the world's population. 43% of water used for irrigation comes from it. It is generally replenished through seepage from surface water. \u003cstrong\u003eHowever,\u003c/strong\u003e the rate of replenishment is slow. \u003cstrong\u003eTherefore\u003c/strong\u003e, it is not sustainable to use groundwater for extended periods.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eWhen examining the frequency and duration of social networking platform usage, the survey found that 44.6% of respondents reported using social media platforms for 4-6 hours per day, while 15.8% reported usage exceeding 6 hours per day. \u003cstrong\u003eAdditionally\u003c/strong\u003e, 8.9% reported usage of 1-2 hours per day, 5.9% reported (…).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaken together, these patterns suggest that while the reports were dialogically heteroglossic in surface structure (through contrastive and resultative markers), the underlying rhetorical strategies were largely monologic, with students asserting rather than negotiating positions. This finding aligns with Geng et al. (2024), who observed that novice writers tend to rely on “contractive” strategies (e.g., counter, pronounce, justify) rather than “expansive” ones (acknowledge, distance). The reliance on a narrow set of transition markers, coupled with limited engagement with counter-argumentation, highlights the influence of disciplinary expectations: in technical report genres, authority is constructed less through critical debate and more through clarity, conciseness, and results-oriented reasoning.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eOrganization\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe organizational resources in the corpus were dominated by reformulations and exemplifications, which together accounted for 84.58% of all organization markers. Four intra-sentential markers—or, parenthetical clarifications, \u003cem\u003elike\u003c/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003esuch as\u003c/em\u003e—made up 65.22% of the total, indicating that students relied heavily on intra-sentential devices to unpack information. The frequent use of \u003cem\u003eor\u003c/em\u003e was notable, most often to signal semantic equivalence between reformulating and reformulated units (e.g., \u003cem\u003ereunions–meetings, supervision–control\u003c/em\u003e), or to provide synonyms (e.g., \u003cem\u003eisolated–disconnected, judged–scrutinized\u003c/em\u003e). At times, or also introduced an alternative possibility, though without extended elaboration (Excerpts 6–8).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"6\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eDiabetes is a disease in which our cells are unable to obtain glucose from blood which results in high blood glucose \u003cstrong\u003eor\u003c/strong\u003e blood sugar levels.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAs a result of such a long exposure to social networking sites, people tend to read \u003cstrong\u003eor\u003c/strong\u003e encounter a lot of information \u003cstrong\u003eor\u003c/strong\u003e news either through posts \u003cstrong\u003eor\u003c/strong\u003e *while chatting with friends and family who in turn may have read it on social media.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eHow long should a director \u003cstrong\u003eor\u003c/strong\u003e producer wait before releasing a film based on social disturbance?\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf the 820 parenthetical typographic markers, 68.66% functioned as reformulations, with clarifications (44.63%) and acronyms (24.02%) dominating. The remaining 31.34% were citations, endophoric markers, and asides. \u003cem\u003eIn addition, such as\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003elike\u003c/em\u003e accounted for 36.9% of exemplification markers, largely used to illustrate concepts and abstract nouns such as \u003cem\u003efactors, benefits\u003c/em\u003e, or \u003cem\u003eresources\u003c/em\u003e (Excerpts 9–11). By contrast, inter-sentential elaboration through markers like for example and for instance occurred in only 2.59% of cases, suggesting that students seldom extended their arguments through fuller exemplification or analogical reasoning. Although definitional constructions with the copula \u003cem\u003eis\u003c/em\u003e occasionally introduced key concepts (e.g., Excerpt 11), most instances of \u003cem\u003eis\u003c/em\u003e served purely grammatical functions in passive structures.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"9\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eDeveloping appropriate infrastructure, \u003cstrong\u003esuch as\u003c/strong\u003e greenhouse facilities and efficient water management systems, is crucial to facilitate alternative farming practices’ scalability and commercial viability.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eGradually smartphone gained popularity because of its unique features \u003cstrong\u003elike\u003c/strong\u003e text messaging, voice calling ,etc.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eThe immune system \u003cstrong\u003eis\u003c/strong\u003e a complex biological system consisting of cells, organs and chemicals that functions to keep the body healthy.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis pattern highlights a restricted repertoire of organizational strategies. Students’ elaboration was primarily confined to clarifying terminology, acronyms, and abstract concepts, while more advanced strategies of developing arguments through examples, analogies, or summaries were rare. This tendency is consistent with the pedagogical and disciplinary constraints of technical reports, which prioritize clarity, precision, and data presentation over expansive rhetorical elaboration. However, the reliance on intra-sentential clarifications also reflects a limited capacity to build hierarchical or multi-layered arguments, as is more common in expert academic writing (Triki, 2024). In professional discourse, elaboration often functions to situate findings within broader disciplinary debates, while in student writing it remained largely at the level of definitional clarification and illustration.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe organizational profile of these texts also intersects with credibility and stance. Because elaboration markers were used mainly for clarification rather than for sourcing alternative perspectives, students’ writing tended to reinforce authorial assertions instead of opening space for competing views. This supports earlier observations (Wette, 2017) that student writers rely on factual, observable information rather than citation-worthy arguments. As a result, organizational markers contributed to a straightforward, report-like style, consistent with the genre’s informational purpose but limited in terms of authorial positioning and dialogic sophistication.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCredibility\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this study, credibility is understood as the broader rhetorical work of establishing reliability, authority, and trustworthiness of claims (Hyland, 2002a; Ye, 2021). While citation is a prominent strategy for constructing credibility, it is only one among several. Expert writers typically distribute credibility across multiple resources: by evaluating prior work, integrating figures and tables, employing impersonal style to signal objectivity (Hyland \u0026amp; Tse, 2005), or affiliating with disciplinary communities. By contrast, the student corpus analyzed here displayed a narrow conception of credibility, realized almost exclusively through citation and evidential references.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo understand these practices, we extracted all instances of the typographical marker parenthesis (including unconventional ones) and searched for 3–4 word n-grams signaling evidentials (e.g., \u003cem\u003eaccording to\u003c/em\u003e + NP, \u003cem\u003ea/some + study, recent research suggests\u003c/em\u003e). Of the 820 instances of parenthesis in the corpus, only 164 were citations—less than two per report. Using Swales’ (Swales, 1990) typology, we distinguished integral and non-integral forms: 81.7% were non-integral, author–year references at sentence endings, while only 18.3% were integral citations. This predominance of non-integral attribution echoes Swales’ (2014a) observation that student writers favour attributive over evaluative citations. Moreover, most instances were attributions rather than critical evaluations of prior knowledge(Yan \u0026amp; Ma, 2024), suggesting that citation functioned as a legitimizing add-on rather than as a dialogic positioning device.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e-gram analysis of evidentials further supports this finding. We found 303 instances of \u003cem\u003eaccording to\u003c/em\u003e + NP, but unlike expert writers, who use this form to reference external authority, 70.9% of cases in our corpus referred internally to the report’s own data, figures, or surveys. This blurring of external vs. internal authority resembles Lee and Chen’s (2009) findings in L2 Chinese dissertations and demonstrates that students often treated their own findings as if they carried external weight. In some cases, citations were both stylistically unconventional and grammatically flawed. For example, Excerpt 12 misuses quotation marks and relegates the source to a parenthesis, obscuring the relationship between claim and evidence. Reformulation into an integral citation, as in Excerpt 13, would have established authorial authority more clearly.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"12\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAccording to “The findings of the study were discussed at the World Microbe Forum meeting,” screen time can also contribute to stress levels… (Bhardwaj, 2021).\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eCorroborating with the findings discussed at the World Microbe Forum meeting, Bhardwaj (2021) noted that screen time could also contribute to stress levels…\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen used more effectively, citations primarily served to justify results by providing parallel evidence that reinforced students’ own findings, as in Excerpt 14. Across the corpus, external sources were rarely used to frame research questions or engage with alternative perspectives; instead, they tended to validate the idea that a given problem was “worth investigating.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"14\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eFrom the figure below we calculated that the expected frequency of students leaving their appliances on sleep mode… According to recent research, it has been shown that keeping electronic devices on standby mode… leads to an overall increase of 18% in the power consumption (Vasiliu, Nedelcu, \u0026amp; Magdun, 2021).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaken together, these patterns show that credibility in student reports was constructed almost entirely through citation, and even here, often through non-integral attribution or internal referencing. Other strategies commonly used by expert writers—such as evaluating the authority of prior studies, signaling disciplinary alignment, or projecting objectivity through impersonal style—were largely absent. This over-reliance on citation-as-credibility not only narrows the rhetorical repertoire available to students but also constrains their authorial positioning, as it limits their ability to negotiate knowledge claims within a disciplinary framework.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eStance\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStance markers were the most frequently occurring proximity resources in our corpus, outnumbering markers of argument, organization, credibility, and engagement combined. Table 3 presents their distribution across the three stance categories. Boosters were the most frequent type, followed by hedges and attitudinal stance markers. A majority of the boosting devices (63.54%) were high-confidence reporting verbs such as \u003cem\u003eshow, find, establish, view, believe, think,\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eknow\u003c/em\u003e, which served to project certainty in claims and to reinforce the authors’ interpretations of their findings. Hedges, while less frequent, were largely realized by four modal verbs (\u003cem\u003ecould, may, might, would\u003c/em\u003e), which together accounted for 37.51% of hedging uses. Interestingly, the modal \u003cem\u003ecan\u003c/em\u003e alone appeared with nearly the same frequency as all four combined, but was employed less to signal tentativeness than to indicate causal or probabilistic relations (e.g., \u003cem\u003ecan lead to, can result in\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e[Insert Table 3 here]\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe analysis of 3–4 word bundles further demonstrates students’ preference for categorical stance. Participant-oriented bundles were overwhelmingly attitudinal stance bundles, particularly anticipatory-\u003cem\u003eit\u003c/em\u003e structures (e.g., \u003cem\u003eit is essential, it is important\u003c/em\u003e), which conveyed strong evaluations while simultaneously signaling reader alignment. Similar to writers in the hard sciences, students frequently drew attention to interpretations of data using anticipatory-it bundles and boosting adverbs (e.g., \u003cem\u003eespecially, significantly, highly\u003c/em\u003e), thereby foregrounding their confidence in the validity of claims. Attitudinal adjectives such as \u003cem\u003eimportant, popular, essential\u003c/em\u003e were more common than affective adverbs (\u003cem\u003eunfortunately, surprisingly\u003c/em\u003e), reinforcing the finding that students’ stance-taking emphasized assertiveness rather than subtlety or nuance (see Excerpts 15–17).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"15\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eIt is essential for students to practice mindful engagement on social media platforms…\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eThe study’s findings indicate that AI integration significantly aids students in most academic disciplines…\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eThe role of social media has always been under suspicion because real news does not go viral…\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSelf-mention was another prominent stance resource, with first-person plural pronouns (\u003cem\u003ewe, our, us\u003c/em\u003e) far more frequent than singular I. As shown in Table 4, these pronouns served dual functions. On the one hand, they reinforced authorship and collaboration, marking the report as a collective endeavour. On the other, they functioned as engagement devices, constructing solidarity with readers by presenting arguments as shared knowledge or collective reasoning (Hu \u0026amp; Cao, 2015; M. Luzón, 2024). For example, \u003cem\u003ewe\u003c/em\u003e frequently co-occurred with obligation modals (\u003cem\u003emust, should, need to\u003c/em\u003e), producing strong, directive claims that enlisted the reader as a co-author (Excerpts 18–19). Similarly, \u003cem\u003eour\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eus\u003c/em\u003e were used both to frame collective ownership of the research process (Excerpt 20).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e[Insert Table 4 here]\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"18\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWe\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003emust\u003c/strong\u003e understand that the immune system is a group of numerous cells in our body that fight pathogens.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eWith increasing scarcity of safe drinking water, \u003cstrong\u003ewe\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003ecan conclude that… water will become more expensive than gold.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOur\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003estudy discovered that participants who got parental support… were more likely to build stronger bonds with their parents.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen compared with hedges, the corpus contained substantially more boosting verbs, attitudinal adjectives, and boosting adverbs. This suggests that students’ stance-taking was strongly assertive and contractive, leaving little dialogic space for alternative perspectives. These findings echo Aull and Lancaster (2014) and Wu and Paltridge (2021), who observed that first-year undergraduate students tend to rely heavily on boosters rather than hedges. Yet, in our ESL context, students’ preference for boosters and attitudinal stance markers appears even more pronounced, serving as persuasive devices to compensate for limited engagement with external sources (see Credibility). Although epistemic modals (\u003cem\u003emay, might, could\u003c/em\u003e) were present, they were often used to express causal or inferential relations (e.g., \u003cem\u003emay lead to, might be the cause\u003c/em\u003e) rather than genuine uncertainty. Very few stance markers expressed skepticism or alignment with reader values, suggesting that stance in these reports was primarily a tool of persuasion and assertion rather than negotiation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn sum, the stance profile of student technical reports was booster-heavy, categorical, and collectively voiced. This pattern reflects both the pedagogical nature of the task—where students are encouraged to claim ownership of findings—and the disciplinary context of engineering and technical writing, which privileges clarity, certainty, and results-driven reasoning. Compared with expert writing, however, students’ stance-taking lacks balance: their reliance on boosters and self-mention stresses confidence but restricts dialogic flexibility, limiting their ability to position themselves within broader disciplinary conversations.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEngagement\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTable 5 shows the distribution of engagement devices in the corpus. The most frequent resources were writer-oriented directives, particularly modal obligations (\u003cem\u003eshould, must, need to\u003c/em\u003e), imperatives, and adjectival predicates (\u003cem\u003eit is important to, it is crucial to\u003c/em\u003e), which together accounted for 62.67% of all engagement markers. These were most commonly used in the conclusion and recommendation sections, where students urged readers to adopt specific courses of action. As Hyland (Hyland, 2002a, p. 217) notes, such directives function to “express an obligation on the reader,” and in our corpus they often pointed to tangible actions intended to solve real-world problems (Excerpts 21–24).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e[Insert Table 5 here]\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"21\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAdequate and reliable hardware, and software must be provided along with good internet connectivity to aid the online as well as offline components of the experience.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eSpend some time with your own self to realize the reasons for your depression.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eIf this isn't practicable because you need your phone for work, try switching as much as you can to your laptop or desktop.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eFinally, it is essential to have strong regulations and laws in place to protect privacy and hold organizations accountable for misusing personal data.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile these directives highlight students’ attempts to persuade, they were often discrete and stand-alone claims, with limited textual justification or reference to external sources. Unlike expert writers, who typically embed directives within disciplinary reasoning and evidence, students framed engagement largely as a set of prescriptive opinions. This reliance on obligation without justification reflects the results-oriented ethos of technical report writing, but also exposes the absence of dialogic negotiation with alternative perspectives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOther forms of engagement were far less common. The corpus contained only a small number of endophoric markers (3.7%), which exclusively referred to internal data (e.g., figures or tables) rather than to external resources (Excerpt 25). This suggests that students engaged readers primarily by directing attention to their own findings rather than by integrating broader disciplinary voices.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"25\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAccording to the data collected from the survey circulated among students of a University (\u003cstrong\u003esee Figure I\u003c/strong\u003e), 68% of the respondents chose streaming services as their typical method of music consumption.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReader mentions (\u003cem\u003eyou, your\u003c/em\u003e) appeared occasionally, often in the form of advice or recommendations, but they were generally directive and evaluative rather than invitational. Asides and parenthetical endophoric markers were marginal, indicating that students rarely stepped outside the linear flow of the text to comment directly to readers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaken together, the engagement profile of the corpus was dominated by directive obligation modals and prescriptive self-mention, positioning readers as co-responsible actors rather than independent evaluators. Compared with expert technical and academic writing—where engagement tends to rely on more subtle strategies such as procedural endophora, hedged directives, or inclusive questioning—student reports projected a more assertive, monologic stance. This strategy reflects both the pedagogical nature of the genre, where recommendations are expected, and the novice status of the writers, who rely on strong directives rather than nuanced strategies to secure reader alignment.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study examined proximity and positioning features in a corpus of undergraduate technical reports, a pedagogical genre central to engineering education. The analysis showed that student argumentation tended to be structurally simple and assertive, with heavy reliance on boosters and categorical stance markers, but limited use of hedges and dialogic strategies. Arguments were often outcome-focused, with elaboration largely confined to intra-clausal clarification of terms and acronyms, rather than extended examples or analogies. Credibility was narrowly constructed through attributional citations, often to common-sense information or internally generated data, rather than through evaluative engagement with disciplinary sources. Engagement was dominated by obligation modals and inclusive pronouns, which projected solidarity but often in directive or confrontational ways. These findings collectively suggest that while students positioned themselves with confidence, their rhetorical repertoire was restricted, limiting opportunities for nuanced negotiation with readers and disciplinary discourse (Vijayakumar, 2024).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the same time, several limitations must be acknowledged. The study focused on a single corpus of multi-authored student reports from one institution, which constrains generalizability across contexts. The absence of a comparative expert corpus limits the extent to which we can benchmark student practices against disciplinary norms. Moreover, although we coded a broad range of markers, we did not include other proximity resources such as metadiscursive nouns or passive constructions, which recent research highlights as central to persuasive prose (Conrad, 2018; F. Jiang \u0026amp; Hyland, 2018). These limitations mean that our findings should be interpreted as suggestive of broader tendencies rather than as comprehensive accounts of student academic writing practices.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe pedagogical implications flow directly from these findings. First, the overuse of boosters and lack of dialogic stance strategies suggest the need for explicit instruction in heteroglossic resources\u0026mdash;teaching students how to acknowledge, entertain, and evaluate alternative claims, rather than only assert their own. Second, the restriction of elaboration to definitional clarifications highlights the importance of training students to extend arguments through examples, analogies, and hypothetical scenarios. Third, the narrow conception of credibility as citation-as-attribution underscores the need to integrate source-based writing into report pedagogy, including instruction in evaluative and integral citation practices. Tools such as Zotero or Mendeley may support this shift, but more crucial is showing students how citation can construct authority rather than merely document sources. Finally, the reliance on obligation modals in engagement indicates a need to broaden students\u0026rsquo; repertoires to include subtler strategies such as hedged directives, procedural endophora, and reader-inclusive questions that invite rather than impose alignment.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDespite these limitations, this study contributes to the relatively underexplored area of EAP in higher education by documenting the discourse practices of technical report writing in a multi-authored, collaborative student corpus. By highlighting both the strengths (confidence, solidarity, clarity) and limitations (restricted repertoire, limited dialogic space) of student positioning, the study highlights the importance of genre-sensitive pedagogy in developing students\u0026rsquo; ability to participate authoritatively in disciplinary discourse. Future research should expand the scope by including comparative corpora of expert and novice writing, and by examining additional features such as passive voice and metadiscursive nouns. Such work will be crucial for refining EAP and ESP curricula that better prepare students for the communicative demands of technical and professional contexts.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec15\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003eEthics Declaration\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis research was conducted in full compliance with ethical standards for corpus-based studies and did not involve interventions with human participants or the collection of sensitive personal data. All sources of language data (e.g., published concordances/excerpts or institutional materials) are properly cited and used solely for scholarly purposes. The authors confirm that the study adheres to the journal\u0026rsquo;s COPE guidelines for ethical publication, data transparency, and integrity.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFunding Declaration\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAuthor \"A\" Conceptualization, Data Collection, Data Analysis, Writing the ReportAuthor \"B\" Review of Literature, Data Analysis, Reviewing the Manuscript\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAlghazo, S., Al Salem, M. N., Alrashdan, I., \u0026amp; Rabab\u0026rsquo;ah, G. (2021). 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(2024). \u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s start with the basics of the virus\u0026rdquo;: Engaging the public in two forms of explainers. \u003cem\u003eJournal of English for Academic Purposes\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e68\u003c/em\u003e(February), 101353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2024.101353\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e"},{"header":"Tables","content":"\u003cp\u003eTables 1 to 5 are available in the Supplementary Files section.\u003c/p\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Marker approach, Technical Report Writing, Student Writing, Metadiscourse","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7495462/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7495462/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eEmphasizing the importance of reader-centeredness in academic writing, we examined the linguistic markers of proximity and positioning in a corpus of technical reports written by the first-year undergraduate engineering students in a technological university. We developed a marker-based model proximity and positioning by adopting Hyland\u0026rsquo;s five facets namely \u003cem\u003eorganization, argument structure, credibility, stance\u003c/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eengagement\u003c/em\u003e and applied it to a corpus of 120 technical reports written by the first year engineering students in an English medium STEM university.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe findings revealed that students relied heavily on boosters over hedges, showed a preference for integral citations, and often blurred the boundary between facts and findings. While these discursive strategies show confidence and immediacy, they also narrowed rhetorical flexibility and risked misalignment with professional reporting. The analysis further highlights how group-authored reports generate uneven stance-taking and fragmented authorial voices, pointing to challenges of collaboration in academic writing.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBy situating technical reports as an occluded pedagogical genre at the interface of academic and professional discourse, the study contributes to corpus pragmatic accounts of learner writing. The results highlight the need for explicit instruction on hedging, citation conventions, and fact\u0026ndash;finding differentiation in technical writing pedagogy, particularly in ESL STEM contexts.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Technical Report Writing as a Pedagogic Genre: Metadiscourse Features of Proximity and Positioning in Student Writing","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-09-15 18:46:01","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7495462/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"9b2bb6f0-2171-492a-9d0f-4911546135eb","owner":[],"postedDate":"September 15th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-11-22T17:23:19+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-09-15 18:46:01","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-7495462","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-7495462","identity":"rs-7495462","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}