Contrastive Analysis of Abstracts in Medicine and Education Research Articles

By Paula Gabriela Ferrari

Even though there are no figures available as to the amount of scientific literature that is annually published in all languages, it is undeniable that the world output of Research Articles (RAs) has  drastically increased to several millions in the last two decades.  Owing to the ¨North-South imbalance in the world¨ (Swales, 1987, p. 43), English has become the ¨de facto language¨ of RAs (Simionescu & Simion, 2004, p.129).  Two natural consequences may be derived from this: First, the   scientific style of English has become more sophisticated as it has ¨evolved to meet the needs of scientific method and of scientific argument and theory¨ (Halliday & Martin, 1993, p.84).  Second, publications in national languages do not have the same status as English-refereed ones (Swales, 1987).

Although the quality of the abstracts does not necessarily affect the journal editors’ decisions to accept or reject RAs (Swales & Feak, 2004, p. 282), abstracts are considered a genre critical to the work of academics. The main reason for this is that the scholars’ selection of RAs to read is based on the discursive means displayed in both titles and abstracts (Swales & Feak, 2004, p.282).   Given that academic writers need to position themselves as competent community members, Swales (1990) describes the mastery of drafting abstracts as the ¨rite de passage¨ of entry into the discourse community.   Being a recurrent and high stakes text, abstracts have been studied by many scholars (Swales, 1990; Hyland, 2004; Swales & Feak, 2004). However, their generic patterns and formal characteristics are still not completely understood  and there is  little research focusing on the rhetorical variations between RA abstracts pertaining to different fields.   The purpose of this paper is to comparatively analyze the structure of four abstracts: two in the field of education by Chen and Cheng (2013) and Crossley and McNamara (2013) and two in the medicine field by Fonarow et al. (2014) and Vandelanotte, Sugiyama, Gardiner, and Owen (2009).  The present work evaluates whether this small corpus of abstracts follows generally agreed abstracting guidelines, thus contributing to a better understanding of the genre.

As noted by Swales and Feak (2004), journal-specific requirements inevitably need to be considered (p.323) when writing or analyzing RAs.  In this respect, it should be noted that  Vandelanotte et al.’s (2009) RA follows the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (URMs), drawn up by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), whereas the RA by Fonarow et al. (2014) adheres to the style guidelines set by the American Medical Association (AMA, 2007).  According to the URMs (2007), the abstract should ¨should state the study’s purpose, basic procedures (selection of study participants, settings, measurements, analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical and clinical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions¨ (p.13). With certain differences, the AMA (2007) also requires structured abstracts of no more than 300 words for original investigations, which is the case of the abstract by Fonarow et al. (2014). 

The two abstracts in the education field, in turn, are unstructured  and seem to follow the rules established by the American Psychological Association (APA, 2010).  While Chen and Cheng (2013) appear to have respected APA’s (2010) suggestions for writing abstracts of case studies, Crossley and McNamara (2013) have conformed to the prescriptions for abstracts of empirical studies.  It is interesting to note, however, that neither of these  abstracts is isolated on a new page.  Instead of centering the heading ¨Abstract¨, Chen and Cheng (2013) show it flush left.  In Crossley and McNamara’s (2013) RA, this heading is missing.  Another point which should be underlined is that the two abstracts respect the word extension prescribed by APA (2010) of 150-250 words (p.26).

 In terms of genre-analysis, Swales and Feak’s (2010) moves analysis of abstracts provides a well-established theoretical framework.  The abstract by Vandelanotte et al. (2009) consists of twelve sentences.  Move 1 (background, introduction and/or situation) includes the opening sentence, which provides background information about the topic and is written in the present simple, and Sentence (S.) 2, where a gap in the literature is established as to the association between leisure-time internet and computer use with obesity when the authors state that: ¨ However, little is known about the extent to which adults’ Internet and computer use is associated with weight status…¨ (Vandelanotte et al., 2009, Abstract).  This gap is expressed in the present simple, passive voice.   Move 2 (present research and/or purpose) is presented under the subheading ¨Objective¨ and is expressed through S. 3 in the present simple tense: ¨The objective is to examine associations…¨ (Vandelanotte et al., 2009, Abstract).  Move 3 (methods, materials, subjects and/or procedures) is included under the subheading ¨Methods¨ with S.4 and S.5 written in the past simple.  Move 4 (results and/or findings) is introduced under the subheading ¨Results¨ and includes the next four sentences in the past simple.  For instance, when it is stated that ¨ Leisure-time physical activity levels were largely independent of Internet and computer use.¨ (Vandelanotte et al., 2009, Abstract) Finally, move 5 (discussion, conclusion, implications and/or recommendations) corresponds to the next three sentences under the subheading ¨Conclusion¨ and they are written in the present simple tense. For example, when it is stated that ¨ Longitudinal studies are required to examine further…¨ (Vandelanotte et al., 2009, Abstract).

Regarding Fonarow et al.’s (2014) abstract, the same five moves have been made in a total of seven sentences and two lexically-dense phrases.  Move 1 comprises the first three sentences under the subheading ¨Importance¨.  S.1 states the importance of a timely administration of a drug in acute ischemic stroke and is expressed in the present simple.  S.2 describes in the present perfect the situation of US patients in that condition and S.3 describes in the past simple a national initiative to improve the situation.  Move 2 is achieved by introducing a long infinitival phrase under the subheading ¨Objectives¨.  Under the subheading ¨Main Outcomes and Measures¨, move 3 can be identified and it encompasses S. 4 and S.5 written in the past simple and a condensed noun phrase which describes the variables measures in the study.  Move 4 is made under the subheading ¨Results¨ and includes S.6 in the past simple followed by a chart.  Finally, move 5 is achieved via S. 7 in the past simple.

            With regard to Chen and Cheng’s (2013) RA, it is noteworthy that move 3 is missing in their abstract.  Move 1 includes two sentences: S.1 expresses in the present simple a generalization about supervision when the authors state that ¨Supervision is an essential part of language teachers’ professional experiences.¨ (Chen & Cheng, 2013, p.1)  and S.2 (written in the same tense) describes the current state of knowledge: ¨The literature on language teacher supervision from the past few decades consists largely of descriptions …¨ (Chen & Cheng, 2013, p.1).  Move 2 is performed through S.3 in the present simple: ¨This study makes a unique contribution to this field as it offers a detailed account of…¨(Chen & Cheng, 2013, p.1).  Move 4 is accomplished in S.5, which is expressed in the past simple when it is expressed that ¨However, the supervisor’s visits and suggestions did not create a lasting impact on helping …¨ (Chen & Cheng, 2013, p.1) and move 5 is made in S.6 by clarifying that the implications of this study are given in the RA: ¨Practical implications as well as future research directions are offered to conclude the paper.¨ (Chen & Cheng, 2013, p.1).  This sentence in particular explicitly reveals the meta-textual nature of the abstract genre (Swales, 1990).

          Crossley and McNamara (2013), on their part, omit move 1 in their abstract and open with move 2 in a single sentence in the present simple: ¨This study explores the potential for automated indices related to speech delivery,…¨ (p.171).  After that, they achieve move 3 by providing two sentences in the past simple, passive voice; for instance, when the authors express that ¨ A stepwise linear regression was used to explain the variance in human judgments of independent speaking ability …¨ (Crossley & McNamara,2013,p.171). Move 4 includes Ss. 4 and 5 and are also written in the past simple tense.  Move 5 encompasses S.6, which states what the study demonstrates in the present simple when Crossley and Mc Namara (2013) say that ¨These analyses demonstrate that, even in the absence of indices related to pronunciation and prosody…¨ (p.171), and S.7, in which some implications are mentioned: ¨These findings have important implications for understanding the construct of speaking proficiency and for…¨ (p.171).

            Due to the need to show professional credibility within their communities (Swales, 1990; Hyland, 2004), RA writers are bound to draw on their resources to instill elements which claim significance in their abstracts.  This can be seen, for instance, in Vandelanotte et al.’s (2009) S.2 when the authors state that ¨However, little is known about…¨ (Abstract section).  According to Hyland (2004), the writers’ decision to indicate a gap in the literature does not amount so much to the need of reflecting the RA structure but to their necessity to validate their research topic and claim insider status (p.79).  Another example can be found in Chen and Cheng’s (2013) S.3, when the authors employ a ¨promotional statement¨ (Hyland, 2004, p. 75) as a strategy to stress the importance of their work: ¨This study makes a unique contribution to this field, as it offers a detailed account of …¨ (Chen & Cheng, 2013, p.1).

The present paper analyzed four abstracts belonging to two different fields in the light of the style conventions followed and of their linguistic features based mainly on Swales and Feak’s (2010) study of moves.   A preliminary analysis of this corpus immediately revealed their informative nature  as they all provide the readers with the main findings (Swales and Feak, 2004).  However, when closely examined, certain differences surfaced suggesting that, even though some generic patterns are shared in the four cases, in one way or another each abstract fails to fully conform to a universal pattern.  Therefore, some differences in the writers’ choice of moves could be attributed to the editorial directives set out in the journal’s submission guidelines.  Another reason for the discrepancies in move structuring of the abstracts can be related to the disciplinary variations.  Because abstracts are ¨significant carriers of a discipline’s epistemological and social assumptions¨ (Hyland, 2004, p.63), some degree of divergence among the abstracts was naturally perceived.    Although it is vital to underscore that, as a result of the limited size of the corpus of abstracts analyzed, the findings in this paper cannot be claimed to be representative of the entire medical or education abstract genre, it can be stated that the writers of these four abstracts applied a variety of discursive markings to build on their credibility within their specific discourse communities while adhering to journal-specific guidelines.

Contrastive Analysis of Abstracts in Medicine and Education Research Articles by Paula Gabriela Ferrari is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

References

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