Abstract Sections in Research Articles

A Comparative Analysis of Abstract Sections

Genre analysis has gained significant importance in the field of English for Specific Purposes (Dudley-Evans, 1994). Of particular interest has been the analysis of research papers (RPs) and articles (RAs) and the description of their main sections in terms of structure, content and language use. Abstracts are one of these sections and, according to the American Psychological Association (APA, 2010), they “can be the most important single paragraph in an article” (p. 26). As Swales and Feak (1994) put it in simple words: “If they [the readers] like your abstract, they may read your paper (…). If they do not like it, they may not.” (p.210). From this perspective, abstracts are more necessary for readers than for writers because at times when information abounds, the reader needs to be “highly selective in his reading, often focusing on skimming abstracts and key words” (Swales & Feak, n.d., para.1). Since 2005, abstracts have been studied by many researchers (Swales & Feak, 2010) who aimed to describe their main characteristics and establish an appropriate classification accordingly. Swales and Feak (1994, 2010), for example, analysed the content of different abstracts and distinguished two main types: informative and indicative.  They also differentiated between results-driven and summary abstracts, depending on the author’s writing approach. Likewise, the organizational format of abstracts has led to a further classification by academics into structured and unstructured abstracts. The former has been regarded as “an essential tool for researcher” (Bayley, 2003, Title section) “(…) for searching and quickly extracting needed information” (para.4) thanks to its division into sub-headings. The latter is more concise and consists of a long, unbroken paragraph. Additionally, Swales and Feak (1994) described five discourse moves within the structure of abstracts, each serving a different purpose.  However, comparative studies that could apply this knowledge to the analysis of abstracts from different fields are still needed. This work aims to discuss the structure comparatively, content and language use in four abstracts taken from the field of education and medicine.

Although many differences were found among the articles, a noticeable similarity should be mentioned. The abstracts in all the four articles purport to inform the readers about the content of the article by providing clear and concise information of what has been done and the findings obtained (informative abstracts as defined by Swales and Feak, 1994; Swales, 1990). However, one of the most noticeable differences found between the abstracts analysed is associated with their format: the two medical abstracts, written by Cunningham, Kramer and Narayan (2014) and by Kulkarni et al. (2013), fall into the category of structured abstracts; while the two educational abstracts, written by Prince (2012) and by Li and Hegelheimer (2013), can be framed within the unstructured type. This observation is consistent with Hartley’s (2004) idea that structured abstracts are “commonplace in all serious medical research journals” (p.368).  Both medical articles include the subheadings Background, Methods, Results and Conclusions. This may be due to the fact that they belong to the same medical journal and, therefore, comply with the same rules and standards for publication. Contrary to these abstracts, the abstracts from the education field are both a paragraph long, with no subheadings.

The four abstracts considered for this analysis are written as what Swales and Feak  (1994) call RP (or RA) summaries, offering only a reduced version of the major ideas developed in the article. The medicine article by Cunningham, Kramer and Narayan (2014) includes within this summary the five moves described by Swales and Feak (2010). Move 1 (background, introduction and/or situation) and Move 2 (present research and/or purpose) are included under the subheading Background, assigning one sentence for each move. Move 3 (methods, materials, subjects and/or procedures) is presented under the subheading Methods, Move 4 (results and/or findings) is introduced under the subheading Results and Move 5 (discussion, conclusion, implications and/or recommendations) corresponds to the text under the subheading Conclusions. The latter does not refer to implications, recommendations or issues for further discussion. The same structure can be found in the article by Kulkarni et al., although one difference deserves mentioning: Move 2 is not included by the authors. Never do they state the purpose of their research in the background section. 

It is interesting to note, in addition, that neither of the two abstracts from the field of education includes Move 1 in its text. The authors directly start from Move 2, referring to the present research and its purpose. Prince (2012), for example, begins “this paper presents firstly a set of seven principles that lie behind the development of a vocabulary learning resource (… ) and secondly an experiment investigating the use of narrative as a device to facilitate recall of target words”(p.103). Li and Hegelheimer´s (2013) opening sentence is “in this paper, we report on the development and implementation of a web-based mobile” (p.135). The last three moves appear in these abstracts though in the article by Li and Hegelheimer (2013) the language is more explicit: "A mixed methods approach was chosen to investigate (...)" (p.135). 

Considering Swales and Feak´s (2010) analysis of linguistic features in abstracts, Moves 1, 2 and 5 should be written in the present, while Moves 3 and 4 should be expressed through the past tense. This is partially true in the abstract by Cunningham, Kramer and Narayan (2014) given that the authors choose to present their conclusions (Move 5) through the past tense instead of the present tense: “incident obesity between the ages of 5 and 14 years was more likely to have occurred at younger ages, primarily among children who had entered kindergarten overweight” (p.403). Kulkarni et al.(2013), however, follow Swales and Feak’s guidelines, writing their conclusions in the present perfect tense: “the rate of triplet and higher-order births has declined over the past decade in the context of a reduction in the transfer of three or more embryos during IVF” (p.2218). Prince (2012) and Li and Hegelheimer (2013), on their part, digress from Swales and Feak’s recommendations by writing their research results in the present. Prince states that “results indicate that linking sentences containing target words within a narrative framework leads to better recall on an immediate post-test than when sentences are unrelated” (p 103) and Li and Hegelheimer write “our analyses show that students’ performance on Grammar Clinic assignments reflects their progress in self-editing” (p.135).

Swales and Feak (1994) also sustain that abstracts should use the impersonal passive, avoiding the use of the pronoun "I" and removing, in this way, the focus from the writers to the work. Nevertheless, in this analysis it has been noticed that only one of the four abstracts (the one by Prince, 2012) follows this guideline while in the other three, the personal pronoun We and the possessive adjective Our are used. For example, Kulkarni et al. (2013) start the methods subsection of their abstract with the phrase “We derived the rates of multiple births after natural conception from data on distributions of all births from 1962 through 1966” (p. 2218). A last feature worth pointing out is the use of jargon and abbreviation. In this respect, the writers of both, the medical and education articles, have resorted to using some specific terminology that seems indispensable for an accurate, concise description of the content of the article. Examples of this are abbreviations like "IVF" (Kulkarni et al., 2013, p.2218) and "SLA" (Li & Hegelheimer, 2013, p.135).

The comparative analysis carried out in this paper shows that variations in the organizational format and language use among the four abstracts analysed exist, affecting the proportion of information provided to the readers in each case. Although most of these differences seem to be related to specific conventions derived from the field of studies the authors belong to, others may be the result of the authors’ style and preferences given that they occur within the same field. However, regardless of these variations, it can be concluded that the writers have not failed to include the relevant information expected to be found in any scientific abstract.

References

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Cunningham, S. A., Kramer, M. R. & Narayan, K. M. (2014). Incidence of childhood obesity in the United States. The New England Journal of Medicine, 370(5), 403-411. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1309753/NEJMoa1309753

Dudley-Evans, T. (1994). Genre analysis: an approach to text analysis for ESP. In M. Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in written text analysis (pp. 219-228). London: Routledge.

Hartley, J. (2004). Current findings from research on structured abstracts. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC442180/pdf/i0025-7338-092-03-0368.pdf

Kulkarni, A.D.,  Jamieson, D.J., Jones, H.W., . Kissin, D.M., Gallo, M.F., Macaluso, M. &  Adashi, E. Y. (2013). Fertility treatments and multiple births in the United States.  The New England Journal of Medicine,  369(23), 2218-2225. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1301467

Li, Z., & Hegelheimer, V. (2013). Mobile-assisted grammar exercises: Effects on self-editing in L2 writing. Language Learning & Technology, 17(3), 135–156. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/october2013/lihegelheimer.pdf

Prince, P. (2012). Towards an instructional programme for L2 vocabulary: Can a story help?. Language Learning & Technology, 16(3), 103-120. Retrieved from: http://llt.msu.edu/issues/october2012/prince.pdf

Swales, J. M. & Feak, C.B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills: A course for nonnative speakers of English. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Swales, J. M. & Feak, C.B. (2010). From text to task: Putting research on abstracts to work. In M.F. Ruiz-Garrido, J.C. Palmer-Silveira & I. Fortanet-Gómez (Eds.), English for professional and academic purposes (pp. 167-180). Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Swales, J. M. & Feak, C.B. (n.d.). Journal Article Abstracts. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.