Comparative Analysis of Four Abstracts in
Specialized Journals
Garcete Marisol
Burgos Madia
Writing
academic summaries has become a task in itself in which writers briefly display
their understanding of the sources analyzed. Research Paper abstracts are
considered one type of summary in the sense that they attempt to succinctly
condense the content of a Paper that has already been produced (Swales &
Feak, 1994). Authors (APA, 2011; Swales & Feak, 1994; Wallwork, 2011) agree
that the audience should be in mind because it is the readers who will
determine whether to continue reading the entire research based on how
appealing the abstract is.
Producing
this kind of summary has been claimed to be a particularly complex process to
such an extent that a number of handbooks and books have been published to
provide detailed guidance on how to construct them. Although exploration of
abstracts across disciplines has been carried out, the comparison and contrast
of several Abstract sections is still limited. It is the
purpose of the present paper to analyze the Abstract sections
of four Research Articles (RA) in specialized journals: two in the
field of education by Aydin and Yildiz (2014) and by Collentine (2009) and
two in the field of medicine by Gregg et al. (2014) and by Reynolds et al.
(2006).
Both
RAs in the educational field by Aydin and Yildiz (2014) and by Collentine
(2009) present an Abstract section embedded in the
first page at the beginning of the RA between the title and the Introduction of
the paper. Neither of the Abstracts conforms to all standard APA conventions
since they were not written on a new page and the label Abstract does not appear. They were both typed
in single-spaced format on the very next line below the authors as a single
paragraph in block format. No titles or subtitles have been included
indicating that the organizational format is unstructured. As for word length,
they both respect the limit range: 190 in the RA by Aydin and Yildiz (2014) and
203 in the RA by Collentine (2009).
The
article by Aydin and Yildiz (2014) directly starts with the scope of the study,
whereas the one by Collentine (2009) takes two long sentences to introduce the
topic. The MRAD structure (Methods-Results-Analysis-Discussion) is followed
orderly in a results-driven approach “because [they] concentrate
on the research findings
and what might be concluded from them” (Swales and Feak, 1994, pp.210-211). They are both informative abstracts since
they look back to the past depicting what researchers have done and the results
the study has yielded.
Regarding
linguistic features the article by Aydin and Yildiz (2014) makes use of past
simple and past passive voice whereas the article by Collentine (2009) mainly
makes use of present simple tense for established knowledge and past simple.
While impersonal passive has been used in the article about wikis, the article
about computer-mediated communication has chosen a human agent: the subject
pronoun we. Key words have only
been included in the article by Aydin and Yildiz (2014); according to Wallwork
(2011) “it makes sense to have key words in your abstract (and title too)
because it forces you, the author, to decide what words in your paper really
are important. The key words are also the words that readers are looking for in
their initial search and then when they actually scan your abstract” (p.190).
Abstract sections in the medicine field RAs by
Gregg et al. (2014) and by Reynolds et al. (2006) bear an obvious resemblance.
The sections have been placed below the title and authors on the first page.
The headline Abstract has been typed in capital letters and
centered. Both abstracts follow the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results and
Discussion) formula and are structured with bolded red sub-headings identifying
the main sections of the RP: Background, Methods, Results and Conclusion. Both RAs are
informative relying heavily on data. For example, “rates
of all five complications declined between 1990 and 2010, with the largest
relative declines in acute myocardial infarction (−67.8%; 95% confidence
interval [CI], −76.2 to −59.3) and death from hyperglycemic crisis (−64.4%; 95%
CI, −68.0 to −60.9), followed by stroke and amputations, which each declined by
approximately half (−52.7% and −51.4%, respectively)” (Gregg et al, 2014, p.
1514). There is a clear-cut look into the past and
a thorough description of what researchers have done.
Some
of the linguistic specifications outlined by Graetz (1985) (as cited in Swales
and Feak, 1994) are followed in these sections: there is a use of full
sentences in simple past tense throughout most of the section; present perfect
is also used under the headings Background and Conclusion in the article by Gregg et al. (2014).
Regarding the writing approach, it might be said that both authors have adopted
a RP Summary approach that provides “one – or two –
sentences synopses of each of the four sections” (Swales and Feak,
1994, p. 211). Regarding word length, these RAs surpass the typical range:
there are 322 words in the article by Gregg et al. (2014) and 311 in the one by
Reynolds et al. (2006). Even though it is longer, it contributes to
readability. Key words have not been included in any of the RAs.
As
Wallwork (2011) claims, “abstracts are like advertisements for your paper” (p.
184). Therefore, they should be written in such a way that readers will feel
compelled to read the entire article. In doing this, researchers should not
neglect to comply with standard lineaments. The abstracts in the education
field and the ones in the medicine filed reveal some similarities. Even though
they do not share format characteristics, they are self-contained summaries
that seem to be accurate, concise, coherent and readable.
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Z. &Yildiz, S. (2014). Using wikis to promote collaborative EFL
writing. Language Learning & Technology, 18 (1),
160-180. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/february2014/aydinyildiz.pdf
Collentine,
K. (2009). Learner use of holistic language units in multimodal, task-based
synchronous computer-mediated communication. Language
Learning & Technology, 13(2),
68-87. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/vol13num2/collentine.pdf
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E. W., Li, Y., Wang, J., Rios Burrows, N., Ali, M. K., Rolka, D., ... Geiss, L.
(2014). Changes in diabetes-related complications in the United States,
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doi:
10.1056/NEJMoa1310799
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10.1056/NEJMoa052619
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