Abstracts

Abstracts in research papers

Research papers provide writers the possibility to become members of a discourse community. They also are essential for the sharing of ideas about a certain topic. A research paper is divided into several parts that compose the paper as a whole. Those parts are: Title, Abstract, Acknowledgement, Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussions, Recommendations, Reference, and Appendixes.  The present paper delves into the analysis of the Abstract of four different papers, one of them coming from the medicine field and the other three coming from the education field. 

Those papers are “Treatment of hypertension in patients 80 years of age or older” written by Hypertension in the Very Elderly Trial (HYVET) in 2008; “Using DVD feature films in the EFL classroom” published in 2002 and written by Jane King; “Video in EFL classroom” written by Rammal in 2006; and “The video in the classroom: Agatha Christie’s 'evil under the sun' and the teaching of Narratology through the film” written by Kokonis in 1993. The abstracts of these papers will be analyzed by exploring their structure, by classifying them and by analyzing their linguistic features.

            Abstracts are defined within the meta-textual nature of genres as they need another text to exist. They are “a brief summary of a major point made by an author in a book or article” (Hubbuch, 1996, p. 126). Therefore, they are expected to be written once the author has finished the article or book. Abstracts are also descriptive texts as they describe the main text, which is the article or book. Swales and Freak (1994) also state that abstracts “consist of a single paragraph containing from about four to ten full sentences”.

            Bearing this in mind, especially noteworthy is the fact that not all the papers follow this rule posited by Swales and Freak. The paper coming from the medicine field has four different paragraphs divided into different sections. Should one join all the sentences, one would have a paragraph of 10 sentences. Apart from that, the paper written by King has two sentences. Therefore, it seems that there is no exact length for an Abstract.

            Depending on the type, Abstracts may have different structures. The most accepted layout forms a paragraph that contains an Introduction/Background part, with one sentence long; Materials and Methods part, with two to three sentences; Results part, with three to four sentences; and the Conclusion part, with one or two sentences. Considering the four Abstracts that are being analyzed, there is only one of them that follows this pattern, which is the RP that comes from the medicine field. This paper has the first two sentences that form the Introduction, two sentences for the Materials and Methods part, 5 sentences for the Results and one sentence for the Conclusion.

            On the other hand, the paper written by Rammal (2006) has one paragraph that contains one sentence that forms the Introduction and one sentence for the Conclusion. The paper written by King has no Results, neither Conclusion. And the paper written by Kokonis has no sentence in the Conclusion part. Consequently, it can be said that even though there is one most accepted layout, writers use the structure that they think is convenient for them according to their own set of beliefs.

            As regards the linguistic features used by the authors, it can be acknowledged the fact that all the abstracts have full sentences and that there is absence of negatives in all of them. Passive voice is present in all these papers although some active voice sentences could be found. Regarding tenses, present is the most frequently used even though some past sentences have been detected when stating the methods and the results. In all the papers coming from the education field, there are no abbreviations. However, in the paper dealing with medical issues, there are some abbreviations which are likely to be part of their medical jargon.

         Swales and Feak (1994) classify abstracts according to what their main aim is. Therefore, Abstracts can be informative or indicative. The former will provide the reader with the main findings; and the latter will indicate what kind of research has been done. Besides, Abstracts can also be divided into unstructured or structured depending on their organizational format. It is very likely that informative Abstracts are unstructured. However, this is not what the analysis of the four papers has shown. On the contrary, the medicine paper, which is rather informative with specific data and results and which describes what the authors have done in detail, is also the only one which is structured. All the other Abstracts are indicative and unstructured, that is to say, all of them do not include specific information nor contain bolded or italicized headings.

Reference

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

Hypertension in the Very Elderly Trial (HYVET, 2008). Treatment of hypertension in patients 80 years of age or older. The New England Journal of Medicine, 358(18). Retrieved from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=24127

King, J. (2002). Using DVD feature films in the EFL classroom. ELT Newsletter.  Retrieved from http://www.eltnewsletter.com/back/February2002/art882002.htm

Kokonis, M. (1993). The video in the classroom: Agatha Christie’s “evil under the sun” and the teaching of narratology through the film. Education Resources Information Center. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED393427&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED393427

Rammal, S. (2006). Video in EFL classroom. Karen’s Linguistic  Issues, November. Retrieved from http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/using%20video

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