According to Bhatia (1997), “[g]eneric integrity is the product of the conventional features of a specific generic construct ... [that] often constrain the use of linguistic resources (lexico-grammatical as well as discoursal), and are frequently invoked to arrive at a reasonable interpretation of the genre or even determine the choice of the genre to suit a particular context” (360-362).

Ansary and Babaii (2005) use and summarize Bhatia’s definition of “generic integrity,” simply stating that it is the genre’s “recognizable structural identity” (271).