Comparative Analysis of Four Abstracts in Specialized Journals

Comparative Analysis of Four Abstracts in Specialized Journals

Burgos Madia

Garcete Marisol

UCAECE

     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.

References

 American Psychological Association. (2011). Publication Manual (6th ed.). British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: Washington, DC. 

Aydin, 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

Gregg, 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, 1990-2010 [Electronic version]. The New England Journal of Medicine, 370 (16), 1514-1523.

doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1310799

Reynolds, C., Dew, M.A., Pollock, B. G., Mulsant, B. H., Frank, E., Miller, M. D., … Kupfer, D. J .(2006). Maintenance treatment of major depression in old age [Electronic version]. The New England Journal of Medicine, 354, 1130-8.

doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa052619

Swales, J.M., & Feak, C.B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Ann Harbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Wallwork, A. (2011). English for writing Research Papers. Italy: Springer.

doi: 10.1007/978-1-4419-7922-3