Research article abstracts: Complying with the specifics of the field

Research article abstracts: Complying with the specifics of the field

Research article abstracts may be defined as succinct but comprehensive accounts of a much more intricate and longer text. In this respect, Winkler and McCuen-Metherell (2008) pronounce an abstract to be "a summary of the major ideas contained in [a] research paper" (p.119). Varied though their structures may be, most abstracts assume a vital importance at the time of enticing potential readers to explore the contents of a specific study. Accordingly, these substantial paratext elements of the academic discourse emerge as "more important for the reader than for the writer" (Swales & Feak, 1994, p.210). Indeed, given its relevance for the genre and considering that the ultimate makeup of an abstract will largely be determined by the requirements of its area of study, the present paper intends to develop a componential analysis of four abstracts in the fields of medicine and education[YAC1] .

Considering that general-particular analysis of papers constitutes a most valuable process of deductive examination, the four abstracts will be studied in terms of general classifications.  Swales and Feak (1994) present a distinction between abstracts which are written as a map for a research paper (RP) and those that are designed as texts for conferences.  Additionally, the differentiation is deepened by contrasting informative abstracts against indicative ones.  Not only do these types of abstracts display different structures and design features but they are characteristically used in dissimilar contexts. While the former mostly pervades research papers, the latter can be frequently detected in conferences.

In line with this, it can be stated that Jørgensen, Zahl and Gøtzsche (2010) and Martinez, Assimes, Mines, Dell’Aniello and Suissa [YAC2] (2010) expose informative abstracts as summaries of their research.  The reader appears to be guided along the sections of the RP.  It is for such reason that a large amount of information is included by means of a brief but clear description of what the researchers have done.   In terms of design structure, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ITCMJ) (2009) state that

[t]he abstract should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study’s purpose, basic procedures (selection of study subjects or laboratory animals, observational and analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical significance, if possible), principal conclusions, and funding sources. (para.1)

Careful examination of Martinez’s et al. (2010) and Jørgensen’s et al. (2010) paper allows for the interpretation of a full subordination to the requirements of the scientific field.  Contrastively, King (2002) and Kokonis’ (1993) abstracts can be defined as exponents of argumentative texts in that they intend “to convince the audience that [their] claim is true based on the evidence [to be] provided” (The Purdue OWL, 2010, para.1). In this sense, the texts in question assume characteristics of indicative abstracts by summarizing information from the body of the research article without providing specific results.

Structural analysis is essential when studying abstracts as a genre.  Swales and Feak (1994) and Swales (1990) state that, depending on whether the abstract displays a number of headings or is presented as a single text, they can be classified as structures or unstructures in nature.   Jørgensen et al. (2010) and Martinez’ et al. (2010) abstracts reveal a clear structural division.  Both texts share the following bolded headings: objective, design, setting, participants, results and conclusion.  It is worth noticing that the former also includes a main outcome measure section.  A different pattern is exposed in King (2002) and Kokonis’ (1993) summaries which are organized in a long single paragraph without headings.  A comparative analysis may result in the conclusion that the flexibility allowed by unstructured organizations makes the distribution of information within the paragraphs vary from one text to the other.  While Kokoni (1993) introduces the objective of the paper at the beginning of the paragraph, King (2002) presents the purpose of her study in the last sentence of the abstract.

In order to maximise the analysis of abstracts, linguistic characteristics can be approached.  Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak (1994), detail a number of linguistic aspects permeating the abstract writing process.  Since Jørgensen et al. (2010) and Martinez’s et al. (2010) texts have only a few linguistic elements in common, differences emerge as worth remarking.  Both Jørgensen et al. (2010) and Martinez et al. (2010) introduce objectives through an infinitive clause, and none of the abstracts contain abbreviations or jargon.  Both setting sections are characterized by full sentences with past tense use, and the result sections are similarly formed by a number of full sentences with mostly impersonal constructions.  However, while Jørgensen et al. (2010) use only impersonal constructions, Martinez et al. (2010) use an active personal sentence introduced by the plural pronoun we.  The design section also presents differences.  Jørgensen et al. (2010) introduce a two-full-sentence paragraph, an active sentence followed by a passive one.  Different is the case of the design section in Martinez’s et al. (2010) text which exposes a single noun phrase paragraph.  As regards the participants’ section, Jørgensen et al. (2010) make use of a single impersonal sentence paragraph, while Martinez et al. (2010) combine three full sentences revealing active and passive structures.   Different from what Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak (1994) state, conclusions in both abstracts were written with past tenses.  In contrast, King (2002) and Kokonis (1993) use single paragraph abstracts which are linguistically characterized by the presence of full sentences with the use of present tenses.  Although the use of personal active sentences prevails, there are few instances of impersonal constructions[YAC3] .

In regard to the approach to abstract writing, Swales and Feak (1994) distinguish results-driven abstracts from RP summaries.  In their abstracts, Jørgensen et al. (2010) and Martinez et al. (2010) appear to present the main ideas to be later discussed along the paper, the evidence to support their ideas and the reasons to put those ideas into discussion.  Both texts constitute examples of results-driven abstracts, because they present findings from researches with the aim of drawing final conclusions from them.  As for King (2002) and Kokonis’ (1993) texts, since main ideas, the evidence to support them and the reasons for their discussion do not seem to be easily detectable, they can be said to assume the character of sketches or plans which present ideas for future action in education.

The aforementioned analysis supports the premise that audiences[YAC4]  establish crucial restrictions when writing a text of a specific genre.  Abstracts appear to evidence that they are written not for the benefit of the writer, but for that of the reader.  These texts are brief but rich due to the fact that they compress large amounts of information to serve as maps for the reader.  Such short length turns them into lexically dense and grammatically intricate pieces.  After having analysed the four abstracts in terms of classification, structure, linguistic characteristics, and approach to writing, deep contrasting differences between educational and medical RP could be found.  This may constitute evidence enough to state that field requirements for the writing of a same genre determine the different characteristics formerly mentioned.  While the scientific field of medicine demands clearly structured and labelled abstracts, the social field of education allows more flexibility at the moment of structuring and writing the texts[YAC5] .

References

Hubbuch, S. M. (1996). Writing research papers across the curriculum. (4th ed.). Harcourt Brace: Fort Worth, TX.

Jørgensen, K., Zahl, P., & Gøtzsche, P. (2010). Breast cancer mortality in organised mammography screening in Denmark: Comparative study. MBJ Journals. Retrieved May 28^th, 2011, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2844939/ doi: 10.1136/bmj.c1241