Given the adoption of the policy 'publish or perish' in academia, scholars are compelled to be actively involved in research work and subsequently disseminate their discoveries in an international forum. In an attempt to enhance the opportunities for successful international publication, this study has the objective of scrutinizing the discussion section texts of research articles (RAs) in three engineering sub-disciplines: civil, software, and biomedical engineering. Two central questions are addressed in this study: 1) What is the generic identity of the discussion section in each of the three sub-disciplines? and 2) What textual features potentially differentiate one sub-discipline from the others? Three datasets of 92 stand-alone discussion sections randomly selected from RAs published in the top five journals of the three sub-disciplines were compiled and subsequently analyzed using genre analysis. To address the first objective, methodically, the generic structure obtained for each sub-discipline reveals what 'moves' and 'steps' were commonly used and how frequently these moves were used in each sub-discipline. At this juncture, the linguistic features used to express each move were highlighted. To address the second objective, the frequencies of occurrence of each move and step were statistically calculated to identify significant differences across the three datasets. The analysis of the section shows that the three sub-disciplines share a common set of three moves, with variations distinctly observed at the step level. This study provides the detailed textual description of the engineering discussion sections in each of the three sub-disciplines. The findings have substantial pedagogical implications for English language teaching in general and for ESP education in particular. This study is also beneficial in preparing scholars and engineering practitioners with the generic expectations of each sub-discipline and meanwhile boosting the visibility of non-English speaking researchers in an international forum.