Comparative Analysis of four Abstracts in Specialized Journals

        Research Articles (RA) are composed by several parts. Each part has its own characteristics in relation to structure and language. Abstracts are the first part included in any RA, between the main title and the rest of the paper, but the last part written by researchers. They are defined within the meta-textual nature of genres as they describe the main text. Therefore, they are formal summaries of a finished RA meant to attract the readers’ attention. Hubbuck (1996) defines abstracts “as brief summaries of the major points made by an author in a book or article” (p. 126). Similarly, Swales and Feak (1994) explain that abstracts consist of one paragraph made of four to ten sentences.

     Concerning the type of abstract, Swales and Feak (1994) state that they could be informative or indicative, structured or unstructured. Additionally, Swales and Feak (1994) argue that there exist certain linguistic specifications to describe them. They should include the use of full sentences, the use of the past tense, impersonal passive, the absence of negatives and the avoidance of abbreviations and jargon. They argue that in general, conclusions tend to be written in present, while opening sentences tend to be written in present or present perfect and sentences describing results tend to show tense variation to produce different effects on the reader.  

      Authors have also contributed with formulaic paragraphs to write proper academic abstracts. However, not many abstracts from different disciplines such as education and medicine have been deeply analyzed or compared so as to specify similarities and differences among them. In this paper, four RA abstracts, two from the field of education and other two from the medicine field, will be compared as regards their structure and linguistic patterns. 

     Following Swales and Feak’s (1994) description of the abstracts structure and main characteristics, the chosen abstracts from the field of medicine, one written by   Bonner, C. et al. (2014) and the other written by Devereux R. et al. (2014) are structured and informative, since both of them contain bolded headings identifying the main sections in the RA. Moreover, they include extracts from the articles so they are heavy on data; also, they look to the past to refer to what the researchers did.  Both abstracts follow IMRAD (Introduction-Methods-Results-And-Discussions) formula.

      As regards their linguistic features, the methods and results sections in the given abstracts were written in past tenses to indicate how the researchers performed the studies, for example in “General practitioners in New South Wales, Australia, recruited 26 patients with CVD/lifestyle risk factors who were not taking cholesterol or blood pressure-lowering medication in 2012” (Bonner et al., 2014, para. 3). However, the opening sentences were written in present tenses, such is the following case in “The postpartum state is associated with a substantially increased risk of thrombosis” (Deveroux et al., 2014, para. 1). Full sentences and the absence of negatives are evident throughout them. However, none of the abstracts included any keywords.

    Now, considering Swales and Freak’s (1994) description, in both abstracts from the field of education, one written by Liu et al, (2000) and the other written by Zhao (2003), we may affirm they share some similarities. They are unstructured as they are presented in one long an unbroken paragraph. Besides, they are informative as they review literature on the analyzed issues setting the goals or purpose of the mentioned review, for instance in Zhao’s (2003) article: “This review study is intended to address three related issues in technology and language education” (para. 1). Similarly, both articles discuss the findings in different categories.  This part is explained extensively as it occupies almost half of the abstract length. However, the last part has been developed differently: Zhao (2003) mentions a positive conclusion of the said findings while Liu et al. (2000) discuss issues for future research. Regarding keywords, both articles include this subheading immediately below the one-paragraph abstract and there have been written four expressions in each of them.

     As for their linguistic characteristics, the education abstracts comply with some features such as absence of negative, use of third person and use of active and passive voice. In the article written by Zhao (2003), present simple is used in the opening sentence of the abstract, there is tense variation in the body with predominance of past simple to express results and, finally, the conclusion is stated in past simple. On the other hand, in the abstract written by Liu (2000), present simple and present perfect may have been used throughout the whole piece to show contemporary relevance, for example in “The goals of this review are (1) to understand how computers have been used in the past eleven years (…)” (para. 1).

     All in all, with respect to the features that characterize abstracts, we may conclude that the four of them are descriptive in nature considering they describe the main texts. We can also infer that they are expository in view of the fact that they transmit information in a clear and concise manner. They are carefully written summaries of the RAs which aim to attract readers’ interest to continue reading the rest of the articles. Nevertheless, they present different organizational formats. The abstracts in the field of medicine are structured while the ones in the field of education are unstructured and shorter. Nevertheless, in Hubbuck’s (1996) terms, all of them are the “paper in capsule form”. Finally, we might state  that as they are were written in a proper academic style, they fulfil their aim to attract the reader’s interest in reading it thouroughly.

 References

Bonner, C., Jansen, J., Newell, B.R., Irwig, L., Glasziou, P., Doust, J., Dhillon, H. & McCaffery, K. (2014). I Don’t Believe It, but I’d Better Do Something About It: Patient Experiences of Online Heart Age Risk Calculators. J Med Internet. Retrieved from http://www.jmir.org./2014/5/e120

Devereux R., Elkind M., Hovsepian D., Kamel H.,  Navi B., Sriram N. (2014) Risk of a Thrombotic Event after the 6-Week Postpartum Period. The New England Journal of Medicine. Retrieved from http://www.proyectoteam.com/pdf/Articulomes_marzo2014.pdf

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

 Liu M., Moore Z., Graham L., Lee S., (2000) A Look at the Research on Computer-Based Technology Use in Second Language Learning: Review of Literature from 1990-2000. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. University of Texas – Austin.  Retrieved from  http://jabba.edb.utexas.edu/it/seclangtechrev.pdf

Swales, J.M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. (Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series).Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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

Zhao, Y. (2003).  Recent Developments in Technology and Language Learning: A Literature Review and Meta-analysis. CALICO Journal. Michigan State University. Retrieved from https://calico.org/html/article_279.pdf