The Importance of Abstracts in the Academic Writing

An abstract is considered a formal summary which transmits clear, accurate and concise information. The abstract is typed in a separate page and inserted between the title and the first page of a paper. Hubbuch (1996) defines abstracts “as brief summaries of the major points made by an author in a book or article” (p.126). The aim of the present study is to analyze and compare different abstracts of different articles from medicine and education fields.

Abstracts are divided into different sections: Introduction/background or Study design/objective, Materials and Methods, Results and Conclusions. According to Swales and Feak (1994), abstracts can be classified as the one included at the beginning of a paper and conferences abstracts. There are other types of abstracts: informative, indicative, unstructured or structured (Swales & Feak, 1994; Swales, 1990).

On the one hand, in the articles based on the medicine field, Gotzsche, Jorgensen and Zahl (2009) and Austin et al. (2009) introduce informative abstracts since they describe what the researchers did and provide readers with the main findings based on heavy data. Unstructured abstracts are also introduced because they consist of one long, unbroken paragraph.

On the other hand, in the articles based upon the education field, Rammal (2006) and King (2002) present indicative abstracts which describe what the researchers intend to do and indicate what kind of research has been done. Structured abstracts are also presented which contain bolded or italicized headings.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA) (2008), there are five levels of headings which organize hierarchy the presentation of the information in a document to orient the reader. The heading structure is divided into sections; each one follows a top –down progression from the highest level of heading in order to outline a paper.

Gotzsche, Jorgensen and Zahl (2009) present the Results and the Discussion sections with three subheadings whereas Austin et al. (2009) introduce two subheadings in the Methods and Discussions sections. Rammal (2006) divides one of the sections into four subheadings whereas King (2002) divides a section into two subheadings.

Broadly speaking, the four abstracts analysed in the present paper may be brief and accurate and they might contain specific data on their specialized field, that is to say, medicine and education. They are the most important paragraphs in each journal and they are written in scientific prose which is used in academic documents. 

In the articles based upon the medicine field, the primary audience might be any reader in the field, since the abstracts include heavy data and describe what researchers did. In fact, Gotzsche, Jorgensen and Zahl (2009) describe what researchers did in order to determine breast cancer mortality in organised mammography screening in Denmark whereas Austin et al. (2009) describe what researchers did in order to determine the association of non-invasive cardiac stress testing before elective major non-cardiac surgery. 

In the articles based upon the education field, the primary audience might be conference reviewers since the abstracts do not include specific results and describe what the researchers intend to do. To put it another way, Rammal (2006) intends to provide teachers of English as Foreign Language (EFL) with teaching methods which may be implemented in the classroom whereas King (2002) ) intends to provide teachers of English as Foreign Language (EFL) with pedagogical options dealing with the use of DVD feature films in the classroom.

All in all, the four abstracts do not include evaluative language since summary writers should avoid temptation, i.e., they should not include personal subject language which evaluates the sources. They are objective since personal opinions are not included and the authors’ main ideas are reported. As Reid (1994) states “The function of the conclusion is for the summary writer to restate the original conclusions found in the article.”

References

American Psychological Association (2008). Publication Manual (5^th ed.). Washington, DC: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

Austin, P. C., Beattie, W. S., Elliot, R. F., Hux, J. E., Laupacis, A., & Wijeysundera, D. N. (2009). Non-invasive cardiac stress testing before elective major non-cardiac surgery: population based cohort study.

Retrieved June 2012, from http://bmj2010;340:b5526

Gotzsche, P. C., Jorgensen, K, J., & Zahl, P. H. (2009). Breast cancer mortality in organised mammography screening in Denmark: comparative study.

Retrieved June 2012, from http://bmj2010;340:c1241

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

King, J. (2002). Using DVD feature films in the EFL classroom. The weekly column. [Abstract]. Retrieved June 2011, from http://www.eltnewsletter.com/back/February2002/art882002.htm

Ramal, S. (2006). Video in the EFL classroom. Retrieved June 2011, from http://www.usingenglish.com/articles/video-in-efl-classrooms.html

Reid, J. M. (1994). The process of paragraph writing (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.

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 Harbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.