Three Moves for a Successful Introduction

In the introduction of the present article (Pinto et al., 2021) the three moves of a research proposal (Swales & Feak, 1994) are included. The authors establish a research territory in the following example:  “Gamification techniques can be introduced to improve user’s engagement further and achieve the best possible results” (Pinto et al., 2021, para. 5). This example if followed by a review of the literature related to this topic from paragraph six to paragraph thirteen. Then, the authors establish the niche by stating “Although there is already some investigation regarding the use of VR to learn a foreign language, none of the identified studies included gamification” (Pinto et al., 2021, para. 14). Move three can be seen in the last part of the introduction where the authors outline the purposes of their research and the research questions that are going to structure this research paper. Regarding these questions, the first research question  “Can virtual reality technologies, with gaming strategies, be used to learn a foreign language?” (Pinto et al., 2021, para. 16) is not appropriate since it is a yes/no question which does not allow for adequete answers. This question could have been stated as: To what extend do virtual reality technologies, with gaming strategies, can be used to learn a foreign language?

Inconsistency in the use of acronyms can be spotted since although the authors used it appropriately in this case “Virtual Reality (VR)” (Pinto et al., 2021, para.5), in this example the rule is not being followed “CAVE, cave automatic virtual environments”  (Pinto et al., 2021, para.8) because the explanation of the acronym follows the acronym instead of preceding it.

According to the American Psychological Association (2002), in in-text citations the author and the year should always be mentioned when referring to others’ work. Nevertheless these authors do not include the year of publication in their citations. Instead,  they provided numbers for the readers to localise the authors in the reference list. Thus, APA style is not being followed in this article. This misuse of in-text citations can be improved by eliminating the numbers from the body of the article and the reference list, and by providing the name of the authors and the year of publication between parentheses as well as respecting alphabetical order in the reference list.

 

 

 

References:

American Psychological Association. (2002). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association.  6th Edition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Pinto, R.D.; Peixoto, B.; Melo, M.; Cabral, L.; Bessa, M. (2021). Foreign Language Learning Gamification Using Virtual Reality—A Systematic Review of Empirical Research. Educ. Sci. 2021, 11, 222. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11050222

Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills : a course for Nonnative speakers of English.