An analysis of abstracts in medical and economics journals: Microstructure and practical applications
PDF

Keywords

abstract
LSP
ESP
microstructure
economics
medicine
journal

How to Cite

Mureşan, O., & Kic-Drgas, J. (2019). An analysis of abstracts in medical and economics journals: Microstructure and practical applications. Glottodidactica, 46(1), 109–125. https://doi.org/10.14746/gl.2019.46.1.07

Abstract

Writing abstracts, both in a professional and academic environment, is a crucial
skill, reflecting the ability to think synthetically and express thoughts in a concise way. Due to the rising popularity of indexing scientific papers in different databases, abstracts can determine the readability of a paper and its future quotation rate. This paper presents the results of an analysis of the microstructure of 40 abstracts from prestigious impact factor medical and economics journals, offering guidelines for designing abstract writing exercises in foreign language courses for specific purposes

https://doi.org/10.14746/gl.2019.46.1.07
PDF

References

Bakin, Z. (2018). Writing an abstract – common mistakes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynUiPhi8qEc (access: 10.04.2019).

Bartmiński, J. (1992). Streszczenie w aspekcie typologii tekstów. In: T. Dobrzyńska (ed.), Typy tekstów (pp. 7–14). Warszawa: PAN IBL.

Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analyzing genre: Language use in professional settings. New York: Longman Publishing.

Busa, M. G. (2005). The use of metadiscourse in abstracts: A comparison between economics and psychological abstracts. Dialogue Within Discourse Communities, 31–47.

Busch-Lauer, I.-A. (1995). Abstracts in German medical journals: A linguistic analysis. Information Processing and Management, 769−776.

Borko, H. / Chatman, S. (1963). Criteria for acceptable abstracts: A survey of abstracters’ instructions. American Documentation, 14, 149−160.

Can, S. / Karabacak, E. / Qin, J. (2016). Structure of moves in research article abstracts in applied linguistics. Publications Open Access Publications, 4 (3), 23, DOI:10.3390/publications 4030023.

Cao, Y. / Xiao, R. (2013). Native and non-native English abstracts in contrast. A multidimensional move analysis. Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 27, 1, 111−134, DOI:10.1075/bjl.27.06xia.

Cross, C. / Oppenheim, Ch. (2006). A genre analysis of scientific abstracts. Journal of Documentation, 62, 428–446, DOI: 10.1108/00220410610700953.

Cheng, A. (2008). Analyzing genre exemplars in preparation for writing: The case of an L2 graduate student in the ESP genre‐based instructional framework of academic literacy. Applied Linguistics, 29, 50−72.

Cohen-Vida, M. / Cohen-Vida, I. (2012). How to teach writing abstracts in a foreign language? Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 46, 4981–4985.

Dahl, T. (2004). Some characteristics of argumentative abstracts. I: Akademisk Prosa. Bergen: Romansk institutt, Universitetet Bergen.

Frydrychova-Klimova, B. (2012). Teaching formal written English. Hradec Kralove: Gaudeamus.

Frydrychova-Klimova, B. (2015). Teaching English abstract writing effectively. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 186, 908–912.

Gillaerts, P. / Van de Velde, F. (2010). Interactional metadiscourse in research article abstracts. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 9, 128−139.

Grabowska, M. (1979). Streszczenia dokumentacyjne (Wybrane problemy). Warszawa: Centrum Informacji Naukowej, Technicznej i Ekonomicznej.

Graetz, N. (1985). Teaching EFL students to extract structural information from abstracts, reading for professional purposes. Leuven: ACCO.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1996). Literacy and linguistics: A functional perspective. In: R. Hasan / G. Williams (ed.), Literacy in society (pp. 339–376). London: Longman.

Hernon, P. / Schwartz, C. (2010). Writing an abstract. Library & Information Science Research, 32, 173−187.

Hyland, K. (2009). Writing in the disciplines: Research evidence for specificity. Taiwan International ESP Journal, 1, 5−22.

ISO 214:1976. Documentation – Abstracts for publications and documentation, https://www.iso.org/standard/4084.html (access: 20.03.2019).

Kim, Y. / McDonough, K. (2008). Learners’ production of passives during syntactic priming activities. Applied Linguistics, 29, 149−155.

Koltay, T. (2010). Abstracts and abstracting: A genre and set of skills for the twenty-first century. Oxford: Chandos Publishing.

Martín-Martín, P. (2005). The rhetoric of the abstract in English and Spanish scientific discourse: A cross-cultural genre-analytic approach. Bern: Peter Lang.

Mikołajczyk, B. (2007): Ausgewahlte Aspekte der Textsorte autographes Vorwort einer wissenschaftlichen Abhandlung im Deutschen und Polnischen – Versuch einer Konfrontation. Glottodidactica, XXXIII, 29−46.

Mureșan, O. / Kic-Drgas, J. (2018). On the macrostructure of abstracts in medical and economics journals and its LSP implications. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 11 (1), 137−152, DOI:10.29302/jolie.2018.11.1.10.

Nelson, N. W. / Van Meter, A. M. (2007). Measuring written language ability in narrative samples. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 23 (3), 287−309.

Nwogu, K.N. (1997). The medical research paper: Structure and functions. English for Specific Purposes, 16 (2), 119–38.

Pho, P. D. (2009). An evaluation of three different approaches to the analysis of research article abstracts. Monash University Linguistics Papers, 6 (2), 11−16.

Piqué-Noguera, C. (2012). Writing business research article abstracts: A genre approach. Ibérica, 24, 211−232.

Pho, P. D. (2008). Research article abstracts in applied linguistics and educational technology: A study of linguistic realizations of rhetorical structure and authorial stance. Discourse Studies, 10 (2), 231−250.

Pulikowski, A. (2011). Abstrakt ustrukturalizowany jako sposób na uporządkowanie informacji o treści publikacji i rozszerzenie możliwości wyszukiwawczych. Prezentacja na konferencję „XI Krajowe Forum Informacji Naukowej i Technicznej”, Zakopane 20−23.09.2011, http://eprints.rclis.org/18628/1/pol.pdf (access: 10.03.2019).

Puranik, C. / Lombardino, L. J., / Altmann, L. J. (2007). Writing through retellings: An exploratory study of language-impaired and dyslexic populations. Reading & Writing, 20, 251−272.

Puranik, C. / Lombardino, L. J. / Altmann, L. J. (2008). Assessing the microstructure of written language using a retelling paradigm. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 17, 107−120.

Pytlik, R. (2005). Abstrakt w dobie dzisiejszych publikacji naukowych na przykładzie niemieckich i polskich prac językoznawczych, Języki Obce w Szkole, 1, 24−27.

Russell, D. R. (2007). Rethinking the articulation between business and technical communication and writing in the disciplines. Useful avenues for teaching and research. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 21, 249−277.

Salager-Meyer, F. (1991). Medical English abstracts: How well structured are they? JASIS (Journal of the American Society for Information Science), 42 (7), 528−531.

Salager-Meyer, F. (1992). A text-type and move analysis study of verb tense and modality distribution in medical English abstracts. English for Specific Purposes, 11 (2), 93–113. DOI: 10.1016/S0889-4906(05)80002-X.

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

Szyszkowska, K. (2016). Abstrakt jako narzędzie organizacji i zarządzania informacją i wiedzą. Debiuty Bibliologiczno-Informatologiczne, 4, 40−49.

Trzęsicki, K. (1986). Streszczanie jako operacja nad tematyczno-rematyczną strukturą tekstu. In: T. Dobrzyńska, (ed.), Teoria tekstu (pp. 41−53). Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich.

Ufnalska, S. (2008). Abstracts of research articles: Readers’ expectations and guidelines for authors. European Science Editing, 34 (3), 63−65.

Weissberg, R. / Buker, S. (1990). Writing up research: Experimental research report writing for students of English. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.