With the general growth of feminist work in many academic fields, it is hardly surprising that the relationship between language and gender has attracted considerable attention in recent years…. Accordingly, Coates (1988) suggests that research on language and gender can be divided into studies that focus on dominance and those that focus on difference.

Much of the earlier work emphasized dominance. Lakoff's (1975) pioneering work suggested that women's speech typically displayed a range of features, such as tag questions, which marked it as inferior and weak…..

Some studies, however, have taken a different approach by looking not so much at power in mixed-sex interactions as at how same-sex groups produce certain types of interaction. In a typical study of this type,…..

Commentary: This text is organised in chronological sequence, the dominance theorists having preceded, if not provoked the reaction of, the "difference" theorists. Note the structure is signaled at the end of the introductory paragraph; you should try to signal to the reader if you have a structure planned, and then carry out your promise. Don’t change the sequence unless you have good reason, and then warn the reader you are doing that.