Swales’ CARS Model: Move 1 (Establishing a Territory)
This session continues Module 3 with Move 1 of John Swales’ Create a Research Space (CARS) model. You will learn to establish research exigency, make general consensus claims, and synthesize prior literature to open a research introduction.
By the end of this session, you will be able to:
- Explain the rhetorical purpose of Move 1 within Swales’ CARS framework for research introductions.
- Deploy Step 1 (Claiming Centrality) tactics to assert the importance, timeliness, and relevance of a research domain.
- Apply Step 2 (Making Topic Generalizations) to summarize the current consensus or state of knowledge in a field.
- Execute Step 3 (Reviewing Previous Items of Research) by selectively synthesizing key studies.
- Utilize content-neutral sentence frames from the Academic Phrasebank to draft fluent Move 1 paragraphs.
Overview of Swales’ CARS Model and Move 1 Purpose
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[00:00]
In session 9, you examined the architecture of an entire empirical research paper. In this session, we focus on one of the most important parts of that architecture, the opening of the research introduction. A strong introduction does not begin immediately with a narrow study, a technical procedure, or a single citation. First, it creates a research space. It shows readers why the broader area matters, what the field already knows, and why the writer is qualified to enter that scholarly conversation.
[00:33]
This is the purpose of John Swales’s CARS model. CARS means create a research space. It describes introductions as a sequence of rhetorical moves rather than simply a collection of background information. Move 1, which you will practice in this session, establishes the territory. Later moves establish a specific niche and explain how the present study will occupy that niche.
[00:59]
Move 1 usually develops in three steps. First, make a centrality claim. Explain why the general topic matters now. Second, provide a topic generalization. State what researchers broadly know or agree about. Third, review selected prior research. Introduce a small number of relevant studies that show how the field has investigated the topic. The goal is not to write a complete literature review. Instead, you are building a credible platform for the gap that will follow.
[01:29]
This is why citation tense matters. Present perfect often signals an ongoing body of work, while simple past is useful for reporting a specific finding from a named, dated study. Think of move one as establishing your scholarly coordinates. Before readers can understand what is new about your study, they need to understand the territory it enters, the conversations already taking place there, and the evidence that makes the next question worth asking.
What is the CARS model?
CARS means Create a Research Space. Linguist John M. Swales developed the model through genre analysis of research-article introductions. It explains that an introduction is not simply background information: it is a sequence of rhetorical moves that positions a new study in an ongoing scholarly conversation.
The full model contains three moves. Move 1: Establishing a Territory shows that the broad research area is significant and active. Move 2: Establishing a Niche identifies a gap, limitation, question, or unresolved problem. Move 3: Occupying the Niche states how the present study will address that need. This session concentrates on Move 1 because a credible gap can only be established after the reader understands the wider territory.
Purpose of Move 1: establishing a territory
Move 1 demonstrates to the academic community that the general research area is significant, active, and worth investigating. Before a writer can justify a specific study, the reader needs to agree that the broader topic matters at all.
Joining the ongoing conversation
The writer’s goal in Move 1 is to establish themselves as a legitimate, informed member of that specific discourse community — someone who knows the field’s history, its current state, and its key contributors, before proposing anything new.
Step-by-Step Breakdown of Move 1 Tactics
Move 1 has three tactical steps, typically used in this order.
Step 1Claiming centrality / importance
Action: Describing the research problem and asserting why the general topic matters to society or a wider research community.
Tactics: Highlighting real-world impacts, policy relevance, or scientific urgency.
“The study of [Topic] is central to modern [discipline] policy…”
“In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in [Topic]…”
“[Topic] has become a major issue for researchers in [Field]…”
Step 2Making topic generalizations
Action: Presenting general statements regarding the current state of knowledge, widespread consensus, or standard practice in the field.
Tactics: Summarizing broad trends without focusing on specific individual authors yet.
“[Topic] has been extensively studied across various contexts…”
“It is generally agreed that [phenomenon] plays a critical role in…”
“Standard practice in [field] usually relies on…”
Step 3Reviewing items of previous research
Action: Introducing and synthesizing key prior studies that establish what is currently known.
Crucial distinction: Move 1 Step 3 is not an exhaustive, multi-page literature review; it is a selective synthesis of foundational studies meant to set up the gap in Move 2.
“Recent studies have focused on the relationship between [Variable X] and [Variable Y] (e.g., Smith et al., 2021)…”
“In their seminal work, Jones (2019) demonstrated that…”
“A number of studies have examined [Topic] from a [qualitative/quantitative] perspective…”
Move 1 Sentence Architecture and Citation Tenses
Citation tense patterns in Move 1
| Tense | Used for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Present perfect | Steps 1 and 2: general trends or bodies of work stretching up to the present. | “Researchers have investigated…” / “Interest in X has grown…” |
| Simple present | Established consensus or current facts. | “X plays an essential role in Y.” |
| Simple past | Step 3: citing specific, dated findings from individual prior studies. | “Chen (2020) observed that surface temperatures decreased…” |
Avoid common Move 1 pitfalls
Pitfall A: Starting directly with a hyper-specific citation before establishing general centrality or context.
Pitfall B: Over-claiming, or writing historical essays rather than focusing on contemporary research relevance.
Integrating Functional Phraseology
Curated sentence databanks
Resources such as the Academic Phrasebank provide content-neutral sentence frames for smoothly transitioning between centrality claims, topic generalizations, and literature references. These frames work across virtually any discipline because they carry no subject-specific vocabulary of their own — only the structural scaffolding.
Using a databank is not a shortcut around original thinking; it is a way to spend your effort on the ideas and citations rather than reinventing basic transitional phrasing every time you draft an introduction.
Move 1 Drafting Workshop
Select a research topic from your own field and draft a 3-sentence Move 1 opening using the three tactical steps.
Sample student draft
Step 1Understanding energy storage efficiency is central to the global transition toward renewable power systems.
Step 2Lithium-ion battery performance has been extensively studied under standard laboratory conditions over the past decade.
Step 3Recent empirical studies have demonstrated that thermal stress significantly degrades battery lifespan during rapid charging cycles (e.g., Kim & Patel, 2022).
Sample answer: formative feedback and academic writing
Step 1 Supporting first-year students’ development of academic writing has become an important priority for higher education institutions seeking to improve retention and equitable participation.
Step 2 Researchers have extensively investigated formative feedback as a means of helping students identify weaknesses and revise their written work more effectively.
Step 3 In a classroom study, Ahmed and Lewis (2022) found that students who received timely, criterion-based feedback made more substantive revisions than students who received only end-of-task grades.
Tense check: “has become” and “have investigated” use present perfect for continuing relevance and an ongoing body of research; “found” uses simple past for a specific, dated study.
Drafting a Move 1 Research Opening
Write a cohesive, 150-word Move 1 introductory section for a real or hypothetical research paper in your field.
Requirements: Label [Step 1: Centrality], [Step 2: Generalization], and [Step 3: Literature Review] in brackets throughout your draft. Ensure accurate citation tense usage: present perfect for Steps 1 and 2, simple past for specific dated findings in Step 3.
Model answer: Move 1 opening — feedback literacy in first-year university writing
[Step 1: Centrality] Developing students’ capacity to interpret and use feedback has become an increasingly important concern in higher education, particularly in first-year courses where learners are adapting to unfamiliar expectations for academic writing. As institutions seek to improve retention and equitable participation, feedback literacy has become central to discussions of effective assessment design.
[Step 2: Generalization] Researchers have investigated formative feedback across a wide range of disciplines and learning environments. It is generally agreed that feedback is most useful when students can identify the criteria being applied, understand the gap between their current and intended performance, and act on guidance in subsequent work. Recent research has also emphasized that feedback processes require active student engagement rather than the passive receipt of comments.
[Step 3: Literature Review] In a longitudinal study of undergraduate writers, Carless and Boud (2018) demonstrated that students’ ability to judge the quality of their own work influenced how effectively they used feedback. Similarly, Winstone et al. (2022) found that structured opportunities to discuss comments increased students’ reported willingness to revise. More recently, Patel (2024) observed that first-year students valued feedback most when it was linked explicitly to assessment criteria and accompanied by a clear opportunity for revision.
Why this works: The draft moves from broad relevance, to a field-level generalisation, to a selective synthesis of specific studies. Present-perfect forms (“has become,” “have investigated,” “has emphasized”) signal continuing trends and research activity; simple-past forms (“demonstrated,” “found,” “observed”) report dated findings from individual studies. The citations are illustrative placeholders: replace them with accurate sources from your own field.
Session 10 Summary Sheet
Download a one-page PDF summarising the three Move 1 steps, their sentence frames, citation tense patterns, and common pitfalls from this session.
Session 10: Swales’ CARS Model – Move 1
Centrality · generalization · literature review · citation tenses
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The three Move 1 steps
- Step 1: Centrality
- Assert why the topic matters; real-world impact, policy relevance, urgency.
- Step 2: Generalization
- Summarize consensus or standard practice, without naming individual authors yet.
- Step 3: Lit. Review
- Selectively synthesize foundational studies to set up the gap (Move 2).
Sample sentence frames
- Step 1: “In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in [Topic]…”
- Step 2: “It is generally agreed that [phenomenon] plays a critical role in…”
- Step 3: “In their seminal work, Jones (2019) demonstrated that…”
Citation tense patterns
- Present perfect (Steps 1-2): “Researchers have investigated…”
- Simple present: “X plays an essential role in Y.”
- Simple past (Step 3): “Chen (2020) observed that…”
Common pitfalls
A: Opening with a hyper-specific citation before establishing general centrality. B: Over-claiming or writing a historical essay instead of focusing on contemporary relevance.
CARS in context
CARS means Create a Research Space. Swales’ three-move model positions a study within a scholarly conversation: establish the territory, establish a niche, and occupy the niche. This session focuses on Move 1, which makes a later research gap credible.
Move 1 self-check
- Centrality: Have I shown why the general topic matters now?
- Generalisation: Have I stated a well-supported field-level trend or consensus?
- Literature review: Have I selected relevant studies rather than listing everything?
- Tense: Have I used present perfect for ongoing research and simple past for specific findings?
Session 10 complete
You have covered the purpose of Move 1 in Swales’ CARS model, its three tactical steps, citation tense patterns, and functional phraseology for drafting research introductions. Download your takeaway summary any time from the previous step.