Medical research article(RA) is a specific genre with constrained choice of content and style. The knowledge about similarities and differences between English and Chinese medical RAs

as well as their influencing factors will improve the quality and quantity of publications in international medical journals for Chinese medical workers. In the present study 15 complete RAs were selected respectively from English and Chinese medical journals based on the principles of representativity

reputation

accessibility and timeliness. Moves and steps were determined with reference to Swales and Nwogu’s models

and their distribution and frequency were recorded and genre comparative analysis was performed. The results showed that the English and Chinese RAs shared generally the similar generic structure of 11 common moves. However

obvious cultural differences were found in the frequency

sequence and length between the two corpora. The findings of the present study will provide a practical guide for Chinese medical workers to have their papers published in English medical journals.