How is information content distributed in RA introductions across disciplines? An entropy-based approach

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in research article (RA thereafter) introductions. Most previous studies focused on the macro structures, rhetorical functions and linguistic realizations of RA introductions, but few intended to investigate information content distribution from perspective theory. The current study conducted an entropy-based distributional patterns introductions their variations across disciplines (humanities, natural sciences, social sciences). Three indices, that is, one-, two-, three-gram entropies, were used analyze 120 (40 each disciplinary area). results reveal that, first, is unevenly distributed, with Move 1 being highest, followed sequence by 3 2; second, three entropy indices may reflect different features introductions; and, third, found. In 1, sciences are more informative than those other two disciplines, as well. This has implications for genre-based instruction pedagogy academic writing, well broadening applications quantitative corpus methods into less touched fields.