Muñoz, Verónica L.
Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto
Abstract: Research article (RA) abstracts are a genre in the academic community that makes possible the easy access to information through the speedy circulation of reported results in online retrieval systems. This paper reports a corpus-based study on the global organization of RA abstracts in agriculture. This study is expected to reveal information for pedagogic purposes in ESP reading and writing instruction. This paper relates to the CLIL environment and the content dimensions in that a better understanding of the RA abstract can help to prepare students for internationalization and integration in the international scientific community and for their preparation for future studies and working life.
1. Introduction
The publication of research articles in scientific journals has increased significantly since “scholars and practitioners perceive periodicals to be the most valuable resource for their continuing education and for sharing new knowledge”
(Cross and Oppenheim, 2006, p. 429). The increase in the speed of dissemination of research literature has been possible due to the awakening of online
information retrieval systems which enable storage and retrieval of information and facilitate the rapid circulation of new academic information (Stotesbury, 2003). As a result of the rapid delivery of information and the growing amount of scientific papers, academics are unable to review all the literature and keep up with the developments in their fields of study. This calls for the development of a systematic and condensed document, the abstract, that can present information in a consistent manner and help scholars reduce the amount of time to search and process the massive research output “and keep up with the hyper-production of knowledge in their fields” (Hyland, 2000, p. 64). RA abstracts make possible the easy and immediate access to information and have become a standard feature of articles (Hyland, 2000). Abstracts aid the searching and selection process and help to overcome the burden produced by the overwhelming amount of information (Cross and Oppenheim, 2006). In addition, especially in developing countries, the abstract may be the only means to access information due of problems in the acquisition of material (Salager-Meyer, 1992).
The abstract has a fundamental role because it “provides the reader with a brief preview of the study based on information from the other sections” (Weissberg and Buker, 1990, p.184). Most abstracts present in a condensed way the macropropositions of the accompanying article and inform the readers about the content of the article (Martín-Martín, 2003). Thus, scholars rely on the abstracts to decide whether the full text merits further attention. In addition to serving as a time-saving device and “a tool for mastering and managing the ever increasing information flow in the scientific community” (Lorés, 2004, p. 281), abstracts are a promotional genre where “writers are seeking to highlight their research in order to hook readers and convince them” (Hyland and Tse, 2005, p. 131). Abstracts are a growing field of study in linguistics, which “stems from the need to understand the mechanisms which underlie these multifunctional texts” (Lorés, 2004, p. 281).
From the 1990s the RA abstract as a genre gained in importance and developed into a useful piece of text in its own right (Salager-Meyer, 1992). Since then, studies of abstracts “have focused on both the rhetorical moves and linguistic features found in this genre” (Samraj, 2002, p. 42). A number of studies have analyzed the schematic structure or global organization of the RA abstract, suggesting conventional ways or elements for its organization (Weissberg and Buker, 1990;
Salager-Meyer, 1992; Bhatia, 1993; Busch-Lauer, 1995; Hyland, 2000; Samraj,
2002; Martín-Martín, 2003; Lorés, 2004; Cross and Oppenheim, 2006). Each of these studies has proposed a schematic structure of the abstract from various disciplines.
The present study is an attempt to further contribute to the research concerned with the rhetorical structure of RA abstracts in a variety of disciplines. It is expected that the data collected add to the work that has been conducted on the structure of RA abstracts within the hard sciences, the soft sciences and the humanities. The primary purpose of this paper is to analyze the rhetorical structure of a small number of RA abstracts from agriculture written in English and published in scientific journals. Concerns with the textual organization of RA abstracts motivated the following question: Which is the preferred rhetorical organization of RA abstracts in the field of agriculture?
2. Methodology
This study sets out to analyze the global organization of agriculture RA abstracts through the analysis of the abstract macrostructure in terms of its constituent elements. The theoretical framework for analysis is based on the genre analysis model outlined by Swales (1990) because it provides an “insightful and thick description of academic and professional texts and is a powerful tool for determining form-function correlations” (Bhatia, 1993, p. 11). The methodological framework for analysis is based on Swales's concept of the communicative category move, “a discoursal or rhetorical unit that performs a coherent communicative function in a written or spoken discourse” (Swales, 2004, p. 228).
The method followed in this study was a move analysis of each abstract because it
“is useful to think of moves as discriminatory elements of generic structure”
(Bhatia, 1993, p. 32).
The move analysis was carried out in three stages. First, I examined the overall textual organization of each abstract for an overview of the general characteristics of the abstracts. Second, I scanned each abstract in detail and signaled the beginning and end of each move using square brackets. The literature on abstract moves and the categories identified in earlier analyses were useful in identifying textual boundaries. Finally, I reviewed the abstracts and the divisions identified and found similarities -recurrent rhetorical elements- and differences -elements that varied across the abstracts. Moves were identified as a clause, a sentence, or a
group of sentences, in each case representing an independent unit with a status as a constituent in the abstract structure. This study was carried out on a corpus of 18 RA abstracts selected at random from the last volume of six different refereed, scientific journals from agriculture.
3. Results
Overall, the analysis of the abstracts reveals significant differences in relation to the arrangement and sequencing of moves rather than in terms of the structural components of the abstracts. That is, the results indicate that variations are mostly perceived in the representation and progression of moves rather than in the presence or absence of moves as structural components. On the whole, the abstracts analyzed do not appear dissimilar in terms of the types of rhetorical moves. Five structural components were generally observed in the structure of the abstracts: Introduction (I), Purpose (P), Method (M), Results (R), Conclusion (C).
The introduction is the introductory section where the authors include some background information on the topic and a general indication of the context of the research, or point out a gap in the field of study. The purpose move is the section where the authors specify the primary objectives and the scope of the study. In the method section the authors mention the methodology through a description of the materials and procedures. The results section announces the most significant results and the principal findings. In the conclusion move the authors provide a closing remark on the most important finding and highlight the significance of the study.
As regards the frequency of occurrence of each move throughout the corpus, all the moves identified occur in more than 66 % of the abstracts (Table 1). The results and conclusion moves appear consistently throughout the corpus. The Results section is observed in all the abstracts and the conclusion section is included in all except one abstract. The Purpose section is the third move most frequently used since it appears in 88.88 % of the abstracts. The Introduction and the Methods moves are not used as frequently as the Results, the Conclusion, and the Purpose moves. The Methods move occurs in 83.33 % of the abstracts and the Introduction move occurs in 66.66 % of the abstracts.
Move Raw numbers Percentages
Introduction Purpose Methods Results Conclusion
12 abstracts 16 abstracts 15 abstracts 18 abstracts 17 abstracts
66.66%
88.88%
83.33%
100%
94.44%
Table 1 - Frequency of distribution of structural units in the abstracts - Raw numbers and percentages
Some differences were observed in the number of sections in each abstract.
38.89% of the abstracts contain four moves and the same percentage includes five sections, whereas only 16.67% of the abstracts contain three sections (Table 2).
Only one abstract includes six sections. This indicates that both the four-element pattern and the five-element pattern show the most frequent occurrence.
Table 2 - Number of rhetorical moves in the abstracts - Raw numbers and percentages
Number of divisions Raw numbers Percentages
6 sections 1 abstracts
7 abstracts 7 abstracts 3 abstracts
5.56%
38.89%
38.89%
16.67%
5 sections 4 sections 3 sections
18 abstracts 100%
A notable observation is that on occasions some indication is made about the methodology in the form of a nominalization inserted in moves like the purpose and the results, as in “Additional in vitro mycoparasitism demonstrated that…”,
“Sequence analysis of the gene for translation elongation factor 1 (tef1) confirmed the…”. Also, it was observed that two moves are sometimes realized in two clauses combined into a single sentence. The presence of a sentence pointing to the purpose of the study and the methodology in combined form is a recurrent pattern observed. The purpose is usually introduced through a to-infinitive clause, which is preceded by a clause describing the method, as in “Field trials were established in 2001 and 2003 in Ontario to determine the potential of mesotrione applied…”, “A survey was done to search for potential biocontrol agents…”.
There are significant deviations as to the arrangement of moves in the abstracts since 10 possible patterns were observed in a corpus of 18 abstracts (Table 3). One dominant sequence was found to be the most frequent move structure, occurring in 6 abstracts: I + P + M + R + C. The second pattern most used is I + P + R + C, which appears in 3 abstracts. In both patterns, the abstracts open with the introduction, which is followed by the purpose section. In the first sequence, the results are presented after the methods and before the conclusion. The second sequence does not contain a methods section. Both patterns end with a conclusion move. Another sequence, P + M + R + C, was found to occur in 2 abstracts. This pattern differs from the previous sequences in that it does not open with the introduction move. The three patterns mentioned before include both the results section and the conclusion section. The rest of the patterns observed occurs each in 1 abstract and altogether present a variety of move arrangements.
Sequence/Pattern Raw numbers Percentages
I + P + M + R + C 6 abstracts 3 abstracts 2 abstracts 1 abstracts
33.34%
16.67%
11.12%
5.55%
I + P + R + C P + M + R + C
P + M + R
1 abstracts 1 abstracts 1 abstracts
5.55%
5.55%
5.55%
M + R + C I + M + R + C I + M + P + M + R + C
1 abstracts 5.55%
I + M + P + R + C
1 abstracts 1 abstracts 18 abstracts
5.55%
5.55%
100%
P + I + M + R + C M + P + R + C
Table 3 - Possible sequences /patterns in the abstracts - Raw numbers and percentages
4. Discussion
The results suggest that the rhetorical structure of agriculture abstracts does not follow a fixed pattern. Previous studies identified the rhetorical organization of the RA abstract to correspond to the macrostructure of the research article –the IMRD structure- (Salager-Meyer, 1992; Bathia, 1993; Swales, 1990). However, the
present study shows that although abstracts in the field of agriculture generally represent the contents typically included in the research article, they do not necessarily follow the structure and argumentation of the research paper.
The Results move can be considered the obligatory structural component because it is present in 100% of the abstracts in the corpus. The importance attributed to this move may be explained by the fact that the main findings of the study are the contribution of a specific research in the scientific community and is the most relevant element of the research article, which should be highlighted in the abstract. The Conclusion move is another element that seems to be compulsory in the rhetorical structure of RA abstracts since the analysis revealed a strong tendency to close the abstract with a conclusion. In addition to the Results and Conclusion being placed in prominent position, emphasis is also given to the Purpose move, through which the scope of the study is stated.
The results showed that 83.33 % of the abstracts include a Methods move, thus showing that the Methods section does not occur as frequently as the Results and the Conclusion. A possible explanation for this is that in some abstracts information about methodology is embedded into the Purpose and Results sections in the form of a nominalization and not as an independent move. In such cases, the authors briefly indicate only some aspects of methodology within the Results and Purpose moves, thus drawing attention to the findings and the scope of the study rather than the methodology. It is interesting to note that this is a distinct finding since in the literature the Methods move is recurrently identified as a characteristic move in the rhetorical structure of abstracts. The analysis also indicated that 66.66 % of the abstracts include the Introduction move, which is the least observed section. This tendency may be either because lines of research are more clearly delimited in the hard sciences, so scholars do not need to situate the research through an introduction (Lorés, 2004) or because of space restriction in abstracts, which confines the writers to avoid unnecessary information (Salager- Meyer, 1992).
Scholars and researchers all intend to communicate scientific research to the other members of the academic community by means of publication in international journals. Given that English has been established as the language of international scientific communication, non-native academics who aim to publish necessarily have to show a good command of the discourse conventions that
characterize international scientific writing and technical communication (Martín- Martín, 2004). This leads to ponder the pedagogic value inherent in the examination and explicit description of the abstract textual organization, which reveals the conventional sectioning of this genre. The results obtained in the present study can be used for formal and systematic reading and writing instruction in ESP courses, and can be addressed to teachers, university program designers, and curriculum planners.
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