Integrative Assignment - Final Version - Allende, Lacanna & Rodriguez
ABSTRACTS IN RAs
Abstracts' Features in Two Different Fields: Medicine
and Education
Abstract writing plays an
undeniable function in the overall writing of Research Articles (RAs); ideally,
abstracts provide a clear synopsis of the article’s 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 Jørgensen 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 because they are written
to attract the audience, to make them think that the summarized research
article or paper is worth reading (Swales and 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 and
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
Jørgensen et al.’s (2010) research articles (RAs) are clearly structured,
described by BRKIÆ & OKIÆ (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 BRKIÆ 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 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
BRKIÆ 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 Jørgensen 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, 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 Jørgensen 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 Association’s 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
(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 Jørgensen 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 Jørgensen 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, Jørgensen et al. (2010) and Wijeysundera
et al. (2010) follow APA style because clarification of acronyms is found.
Tenses vary apparently due to inner academia restrictions; yet
in Jørgensen 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.
References
Almerich,
G., Suárez, J., Orellana, N., Belloch, Bo, R. & Gastaldo, I. (2005).
Diferencias en los conocimientos de los recursos tecnológicos en profesores a
partir del género, edad y tipo de centro [Abstract]. RELIEVE, Revista
Electrónica de Investigación y Evaluación Educativa, 11 (2),
pp. 127-146. Retrieved May 2013, from
American Psychological Association
(2010). Publication Manual (6th ed.). Washington,
DC: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.
BRKIÆ, S. , ENOVIÆ, M.
& OKIÆ, 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.
Jørgensen, K., Zahl, P-H., &
Gøtzsche, P. (2010) Breast cancer mortality in organized mammography screening
in Denmark: comparative study [Abstract]. BMJ Online First. Retrieved
May 2013, from
King, J. (2002). Using DVD feature films in
the EFL classroom [Abstract]. The Weekly Column. ELT Newsletter, 88.
Retrieved May 2013, from
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%202007-3%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
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario