ESP Draft 1 Allende, Lacanna & Rodriguez ABSTRACTS IN RAs Abstracts Features in Education and Medicine Abstract writing

ng plays an undeniable function in the overall writing of

Research Articles (RAs); ideally, abstracts provide a clear synopsis of the articles thesis, research conditions and conclusions. Hubbuch (1996) defines abstracts "as brief summaries of the major points made by the author in a book or article". Their function shall be evaluated in four different abstracts belonging to two disciplines: Education and Medicine. King (2002) and Almerich et al. (2005) are the authors of two RAs related to the education field, while Jrgensen et al (2010) and Wijeysundera et al. (2010) have written the medicine papers. This paper's aspiration is to provide an analysis of diverse abstracts according to the American Psychological Association (APA, 2010), which obviously does not apply for medical abstract writing; more general academic abstract conventions in abstracts will also be evaluated. As far as the American Psychological Association requirements for abstracts writing are concerned, An abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of the article; it allows readers to survey the contents of an article quickly and, like a title, it enables persons interested in the document to retrieve it from abstracting and indexing databases. (APA, 2010, p. 25) In short, abstracts should be dense with information, clear, concise, non-evaluative, accurate, coherent, readable and mainly understandable (APA, 2010). Accordingly, abstracts may be considered as more important for readers than for writers, basically

ESP Draft 1 Allende, Lacanna & Rodriguez ABSTRACTS IN RAs

because they are written to attract the audience, to make them think that the summarized research article or paper is worth reading (Swales & Feak, 1994). As regards structural patterns, the medicine abstracts are more results-driven, whereas the educational ones exemplify RP summary approaches, as described by

Swales & Feak (1994): Results-driven abstracts [...] concentrate on the research findings and what might be concluded from them .The other approach is to offer an RP summary abstract in which you provide one or two sentence synopses of each of the four sections (pp. 210-211). In fact, Wijeysundera et al. (2010) and Jrgensen et al.s (2010) research articles (RAs) are clearly structured, described by BRKI & OKI (2002, p. 208) as "intended to be informative, with a detailed structure, which do not exceed 250 words". Additionally, both medicine papers contain bolded headings, with each of these identifying the main sections in each paper. The pattern utilized has been suggested by Ad Hoc Working Group for Critical Appraisal of the Medical Literature (as quoted in BRKI et al., 2003) according to which "authors of articles with direct clinical implications [should] ... write their abstracts with seven explicitly defined headings: Objective, Design, Setting, Patients, Interventions, Measurements and Main Results, and Conclusions and with a partially controlled vocabulary" (p. 207). Conversely, the educational articles by Almerich et al. (2005) and King (2002) apparently follow an unstructured pattern, consisting of a single, unified and

ESP Draft 1 Allende, Lacanna & Rodriguez ABSTRACTS IN RAs

unbroken paragraph between 100 and 150 words approximately, as Swales and Feak (1994) explain. Yet, there are some common features in these papers. Both papers appear to follow the Introduction-Methods-Results and Discussions (IMRAD) formula "which includes Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion" as mentioned by BRKI et al. (2003, p. 207). As regards the inclusion of key words below the body of an abstract, only the article by Almerich et al. (2005) contains a list, right below its abstract. All the same, none of the four abstracts under the current analysis has been presented following APA requirements to their fullest. In fact, in no case has the abstract been presented on a separate page nor has the heading Abstract in each paper been typed under the light of APA conventions. To exemplify, Wijeysundera et al. (2010) and Jrgensen et al.s (2010) abstract headings are neither centered nor typed in upper and lower cases respectively. Moreover, both terms have been typed in bold letters. In relation to abstracts belonging to empirical studies, APA (2010) declares that they should include the problem under investigation, the participants description, key features in methodology, main findings, conclusions and possible implications for future research. In fact, the medicine abstracts under the current exploration provide a detailed account of the steps followed during their respective research processes; for instance, both abstracts begin with an opening segment dedicated to their objects of study. Moreover, these abstracts appear to be heavily informative in type, as they mainly describe what the researchers did. However, the educational abstracts by Almerich et al. (2005) and King (2002), provide a generalized summary of the information presented in their studies,

ESP Draft 1 Allende, Lacanna & Rodriguez ABSTRACTS IN RAs apparently not including too many details but focusing more on possible future implications.

As far as linguistic features are concerned, the use of full sentences seems to have been applied in the research abstracts under analysis, as well as the absence of negatives and the avoidance of abbreviations and jargon. Considering the use of tenses, King (2002) and Almerich et al. (2005) do not use simple past in the writing of their abstracts, as Swales and Feak (1994) explain. On the other hand, Jorgensen et al. (2010) and Wijeysundera et al. (2010) have written the abstracts using simple past tenses and impersonal passive. In Jrgensen et al. (2010) active voice is also used instead of passive when they discuss design "We used Poisson regression..." (p. 1) and also in the conclusions, "We were unable to find an effect..." (p.1). In this respect, there is a heated long-standing discussion upon whether or not to use passive voice in scientific writing. Langdon-Neuner, E. (2007), who seems to favor active voice usage, clearly states that the "American Medical Associations Manual of Style, among many other style books, clearly states that the active voice is preferred in scientific writing except in instances in which the actor is of less interest than what is acted upon" (p. 96). However, practice and some other publications seem to favor passive voice usage. With respect to the use of acronyms in abstracts, King (2002) introduces her topic by using the acronyms DVD and VHS without clarification for first time citation, a requisite in APA style. However, one may claim these specific acronyms have become lexical items in themselves due to usage. Also, the acronym presented in Almerich et al.s

ESP Draft 1 Allende, Lacanna & Rodriguez ABSTRACTS IN RAs (2005) abstract, ANOVA (p. 127), has not been overtly specified either. On the other

hand, the medicine articles abstracts by Wijeysundera et al. (2010) and Jrgensen et al. (2010), specifically clarify their acronyms in their Methods sections when firstly used. Thus, Wijeysundera et al. (2010) explain RCRI as Revised Cardiac Risk Index (p. 1), and Jrgensen et al. (2010) specify RR as Relative Risk and CI as confidence interval (p. 1) for their standards of measure. Basically, diverse abstract analysis approaches have been used to compare these articles; as an overall outstanding characterization, the medicine papers abstracts are structured and results-driven whereas the educational ones are unstructured and RP summary like. Linguistic features like the use of tenses and acronyms have also been evaluated; in this latter respect, Jorgensen et al. (2010) and Winjundera et al. (2010) follow APA style because clarification of acronyms is found. Tenses vary apparently due to inner academia restrictions; yet in Jrgensen et al. (2010) there is a marked tendency towards using active voice in scientific writing. On average, the four abstracts under the current analysis are likely to be considered appropriate exemplifications of the most outstanding differentiating features that characterize academic articles belonging to diverse fields in research.

ESP Draft 1 Allende, Lacanna & Rodriguez ABSTRACTS IN RAs References Almerich, G., Surez, J., Orellana, N., Belloch, Bo, R. & Gastaldo, I. (2005). Diferencias en los conocimientos de los recursos tecnolgicos en profesores a partir del

gnero, edad y tipo de centro [Abstract]. RELIEVE, Revista Electrnica de Investigacin y Evaluacin Educativa, 11 (2), pp. 127-146. Retrieved May 2013, from http://www.uv.es/RELIEVE/v11n2/RELIEVEv11n2_3.pdf American Psychological Association (2010). Publication Manual (6th ed.). Washington, DC: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. BRKI, S. , ENOVI, M. & OKI, Z. (2003) . Title, abstract, key words and references in biomedical articles. Archive of Oncology. 11(3):207-9. Faculty of Medicine Novi Sad, Serbia and Montenegro. DOI: 001.89:025.4:001.811 Hubbuch, S. M. (1996). Writing research papers across the curriculum (4th ed.). Harcourt Brace: Fort Worth, TX. Jrgensen, K., Zahl, P-H., & Gtzsche, P. (2010) Breast cancer mortality in organized mammography screening in Denmark: comparative study [Abstract]. BMJ Online First. Retrieved May 2013, from http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c1241 King, J. (2002). Using DVD feature films in the EFL classroom [Abstract]. The Weekly Column. ELT Newsletter, 88. Retrieved May 2013, from

ESP Draft 1 Allende, Lacanna & Rodriguez ABSTRACTS IN RAs http://www.eltnewsletter.com/back/February2002/art882002.htm Langdon-Neuner, E. (2007). Do we need proof? The Write Stuff. 16 (3 ), ISSN

1854-8466. Retrieved May, 2013 from http://www.emwa.org/PastTWS/TWS%2020073%20v04.pdf Swales, J.M., & Feak, C.B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Ann Harbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Wijeysundera, D., Beattie, W., Elliot, R., Austin, P., Hux, J. & Laupacis, A. (2010). Non-invasive cardiac stress testing before elective major non-cardiac surgery: population based cohort study [Abstract]. BMJ Online First. Retrieved May 2013, from http://www.docstoc.com/docs/44925182/Non-invasive-cardiac-stress-testingbefore-elective-major-non-cardiac