The writing of abstracts

Academic abstracts: Varied parameters according to the research field

The American Psychological Association (APA, 2010) determines that an “[a]bstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of the article; it allows readers to survey the contents of an article quickly (…)” (p.25).  Audiences should be attracted to go on reading the rest of the study from a limited number of words which form part of this important section. For that reason APA (2008) advices writers on being accurate, concise, and coherent as well as non-evaluative when documenting information.  An abstract then may be a fundamental section in a research article, being required by the majority of scholarly journals for the submission of papers.  Despite this, it should be clarified that the abstract as well as the rest of the article is likely to adjust to the specifications of the journal and the field of research pursued.  Either in the social sciences as well as the hard sciences, writers may undergo a complex process when preparing this piece since as Swales (1990) maintains an abstract is “a rite de passage” for entering the academic community (as cited in Orasan, n.d).  This present work is intended to analyze and compare four abstracts developed in the field of medicine and education.

Wijeysundera, Beattie, Fraser, Austin, Hux and Laupacis (2010) have produced an in-depth abstract for a medicine research paper which exceeds the usual wording (more than 150 words).  It presents heading division, following no particular format.  As for the introduction the objective seems to be clearly stated: To correlate variables in the study.  This part is followed by the obtained results which sustain the hypotheses made and the conclusion part which correlates non-invasive cardiac stress testing with life promising prospects. Yet the method section is not labeled after that name but “interventions” is the name provided (Wijeysundera, Beattie, Fraser, Austin, Hux & Laupacis, 2010). It states the steps that would appear in the body of the paper.  It is a “brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of the article” (APA, 2010, p. 25) that resembles a report on an empirical study (APA, 2010, p. 26).  However, results or findings are comprehensibly presented in short concise sentences, but there is not method section explained.  There is use of complete sentences with predominance of past passive and past verbs; they are clear as regards the summary of ideas made still there is abundant use of terminology which hinders understanding of some concepts.  The axiom of conciseness is kept: “be brief, and make each sentence maximally informative” (APA, 2010, p.26).

In line with the above example, The New England Journal of  Medicine (2008) presents a research paper whose abstract section seems to be intended to transmit information about the positive effects of antihypertensive treatment in patients 80 years of age or older.  It is possible to state that this section is developed on a separate sheet of paper as well as being situated between the title and the first page of the research work. According to APA (2008), the number of words for an abstract should not exceed 200 words. However, this abstract section does not comply with APA specifications for surpassing the number required. In addition, the Introduction-Method- Result-And-Discussion (IMRAD) formula appears to be replaced by background, methods, results and conclusion parts. Although the abstract must have been written akin to the authors’ notions, it should be noticed that the piece appears to be directed to an audience with understanding on the topic. As Swales and Feak (1994) clearly express "research abstracts are more important for the reader than for the writer" (p. 210). Regarding linguistic features, the present abstract includes full sentences in the past, the use of impersonal passives and the absence of negatives (Swales & Feak, 1994; Swales, 1990).  Nevertheless, the results part is full of abbreviations and jargon which make difficult its comprehension for a non-doctor community.

Writing abstracts within the Social Sciences does possible entail fewer standards to meet. King (2002) has produced an abstract whose parts may be covertly stated. According to its usage, this abstract is more specifically written in the field of teaching foreign languages.  As set out by Lancaster (1991), this may be an informative summary of the paper to be dealt with further on (cited in Orasan, n.d). There is background information as regards the rise of films as pedagogical resources for classroom use. This abstract could be in line with theoretical studies as well. Therefore, it is not designed after the Introduction-Method- Result-And-Discussion (IMRAD) model with no subheadings used. Yet, the use of phrases and connectors such as “this paper starts (…)” and “finally” clarify the research questions.  These, in turn, are related to the implementation of “film viewing approaches” and the criteria reached after deep analysis in order to favor motivation in classroom environments (King, 2002).  The online writing laboratory (OWL, 2010) claims that an abstract to be good “is intelligible to a wide audience” (Writing report abstracts). This abstract would fit that axiom since language is clear and concise to involve a teaching community in general.  Making the most of DVDs can apply to a science teacher in the same way as a foreign language one. Moreover, it does not contain results, conclusions or recommendations. Still, it presents the scope of the study, in this case, to evaluate the benefits of film viewing in the classroom (King, 2002).

 Likewise, Rammal (2006), whose research article is aimed at encouraging teachers of English to use video materials in the foreign language classroom, develops an abstract comprised in the Humanities. There seems to be no structured format since the summary is attained through a two-sentence paragraph. There is an opening statement that introduces the topic of the RA. However, there is no reference to methods, results as well as conclusions in the abstract. Moreover, there is no use of past tenses, which characterizes this part. There are several writers who discuss that among the parts of an abstract, the problem which gives rise to the research work is bound to be delimited. In this case, Rammal (2006) has not highlighted sections but signals the focus of the project and the main concern under investigation through the opening line: The design of audio-visual material for EFL. Although the approach or method is not expressed either, Rammal (2006) by means of the transition word “however” has narrowed the topic. Consequently, it is probable to refer to this summary as an indicative one where the writer “provides a brief description to help the reader understand the general nature and scope of the original document without going into a detailed step by step account of what the source text is about” (Lancaster, 1991; as cited in Orasan, n.d).

After analyzing and comparing the four abstracts which introduce diverse topics in different research articles within the fields of medicine and education, it has been possible to reach the following conclusions. The four abstracts seem to clearly state the purpose of these studies, although they do not clearly cope with the IMRAD formula. However, the information presented at the very beginning of each document appears to successfully attract the reader’s attention for being concise, specific and objective. In addition, linguistics features may be well-produced when expressing the main purpose of this section. Significantly enough is the fact that the abstracts in the medicine field tend to be directed to professionals who belong to that community and who may share common knowledge so that comprehension is reached. Another similarity is the exceeding number of words in these summaries. Somewhat different are the abstracts comprised in education. Namely, the number of words is fewer and subheadings are not employed. There seems to be distinctive parameters in both cases which may be aimed at common understanding for the reader with no attention to formula in structure or layout. Altogether, as stated by several scholars, an abstract entails a rather complex task, one which may vary according to the research field as well as the Journal’s requirements.

References

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

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual (6^th ed.). Washington, DC: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

Becket, N. S., Peters, R., Fletcher, A. E., Staessen, J. A., Liu, L., Dumitrascu, D., et al. (2008). Treatment of hypertension in patients 80 years of age or older. The New England Journal of Medinice. Retrieved June 2011, from http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0801369

King, J. (2002). Using dvd feature films in the efl classroom. The weekly column, 88. Retrieved June 2011, from http://www.eltnewsletter.com/back/February2002/art882002.htm

Online Writing Laboratory. (2010). Report abstracts. Retrieved May 2011, from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/656/01/

Orasan, C. (n.d). Patterns in Scientific Abstracts. University of Wolverhampton.  Retrieved May 2011, from http://www.wlv.ac.uk/~in6093

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

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.

Wijeysundera, D. N., Beattie, W. S., Elliot, R. F., Austin, P. C., Hux, J. E., & Laupacis, A. (2010). Non-invasive cardiac stress testing before elective major non-cardiac surgery: Population based cohort study. British Medical Journal, 340, b5526. doi: 10.1136/bmj.b5526

The Dos and Don'ts of the Academia

Dealing with academic conventions during the process of writing

Taking into account that academic research articles are intended to report on results so as to produce new knowledge and theories as well as solving problems (Sampieri, Collado & Lucio, 1998), it is necessary to bear in mind that a specific framework should be carried out when dealing with these kinds of investigations.  According to the established academic standards, several parts should be present when composing research papers.  In addition, writing research reports (RP) in the educational field implies understanding the dos and don’ts of the academia.  All along this paper, a document in the field of science education will be analyzed considering the American Psychological Association (APA, 2007) academic conventions for communicating important findings.

Villoria’s (1998) RP seems to be an expository document which has been written to explain the social research methodology with reference to “the researcher’s job” (para. 1).  Considering types of research papers, the author has made use of an argumentative model in order to support her claims by means of the necessary evidence (Copley, Greenberg, Handley & Oaks, 1996). It should be noticed that Villoria’s (1998) paper lacks of an abstract section and other parts which are commonly found in any research article (RA).  For that reason, the document seems to correspond to a research paper (RP) genre for transmitting advances in the field of educational investigations.  According to Teiltelbaum (1975), RA differs from term papers due to critical thinking, evaluation and analysis of the different sources which are intended to provide an answer to the research question as well as relevant evidence to support the thesis statement.

Conversely to analytical papers, Villoria’s (1998) argumentative document develops through a problem-solution (P-S) structure which is thought to be more suitable for argumentative and evaluative texts. The author has made use of a situation, problem, solution and evaluation sequence for enhancing the audience’s reflection about the researcher’s role as well as the process of selection among others. By situating the reader within a context and then describing the problem regarding the social science researcher’s job, Villoria (1998) appears to be able to provide possible solutions based on substantial sources.  The author refers to previous works all along the development of her document, so as to support her arguments by means of reliable evidence.  

Although APA (2008) advises not to use footnotes “because they are often expensive for publishers to reproduce” (p. 202), Villoria (1998) has benefited from this resource. It seems as she has allowed the audience to identify sources and clarify concepts which have been mentioned in the text above.  In addition, the writer has reinforced her claims by evaluating the problem and, at the same time, providing a solution through critical assessment.  By suggesting the reader that “el investigador debe asumirse como un artesano activo porque va a construir algo y para ello va a tomar innumerable decisiones” (Villoria, 1998, para. 17), the writer is expressing her personal opinion through evaluative comments in the last part of her work.

By analyzing Villoria’s (1998) article as well as identifying the academic procedure for dealing with the different RP sections, it has been possible to reach the following conclusions.  The author seems to have presented her study in a well-balanced and comprehensible fashion taking into account the dos and don’ts of the academia.  She has been capable of engaging the audience through a process of reflection by applying APA conventions for either the transmission of information or outcome reports.  Although writers are free to choose between presenting isolated or blend sections, Villoria (1998) seems to have considered linguistics characteristics as well as layout and format following a problem-solution structure for discussing relevant features.  Consequently, it is possible to affirm that in order to produce academic pieces of writings, such as the previous research report, the writer has been able to apply specific requirements for coping with the academic demands.

References

American Psychological Association (2007). Concise rules of APA style. Washington, DC: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

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

Copley, C., Greenberg, L., Handley, E., & Oaks, S. (1996). The writer’s complex. Empire State College. Retrieved May 2011, from http://www.esc.edu/esconline/across_esc/writerscomplex.nsf/home

Hernández Sampieri, R., Fernández Collado, C., & Baptista Lucio, P. (1998). Metodología de la investigación. 2nd. Ed. McGraw Hill. México.

Lindón Villoria, A. (1998). De la investigación en ciencias sociales, de las “tesis” y la metodología de la investigación. El Colegio Mexiquense, A. C. 17, 1-7. Retrieved May 2011, from http:// www.cmq.edu.mx/component/docman/doc.../141-di0150111.html

 Teitelbaum, H. (1975). How to write theses: A guide to research paper. Monarch Press: New York, N.Y.

Academic styles in research articles

Identifying academic conventions in the fields of medicine and education

Sampiere, Collado and Lucio (1998) explain that after the research work finishes and results are ordered, organized and evaluated, findings need to be communicated through a report which will take different forms which may vary from books to audiovisual material like DVDs. “It is then important to define the type of report to be adopted which will rely on (a) the reasons why the research work emerged, (b) the audience the research is directed to, and (c) the context where it will be introduced” (Sampiere, Collado & Lucio, 1998, p. 502).  A medical article and an educational research work have been drawn from scientific journals in different academic fields. Both studies bear distinctive characteristics as regards citation styles and handling of results findings albeit resemblances in report division.

The research article (RA) in the field of medicine is concerned with the benefits of living in farming environments by being exposed to a great variety of microorganisms which have proved to protect children from asthma. While the educational article is a descriptive study about the children's perception of their schools as related to their long-term development. Taking into account the results, discussions and conclusions sections in RAs, these two studies have developed their work through different structures. According to Swales (1990), the diverse parts of a research document may be presented in isolation or integrated together, as in the case of the results and discussions sections. For some authors the former may stand separated from the latter, while for other writers the results section needs to be blended with the discussions one depending on the kind of research.

Considering that the result section introduces the main findings of the research (Swales, 1990), it is possible to recognize the outcomes in both works by analyzing the information that the authors have presented by means of academic conventions. Not only has data information been developed along the text format, but also through tables and figures, since this kind of resources provides the authors with the possibility of presenting a great amount of gathered information in a small space (American Psychological Association, 2007).  In the medical study, the researcher makes reference to the numbered figures and tables that appear on separate pages of the paper, while the tables in the educational field stand between paragraphs. Additionally, both research articles make use of past tenses for the collected data explanation, so as to clearly inform the audience about their findings.

It should be noticed that DeMarie (2010) has included tables in order to supplement information. Still, the author has centered but not italicized headings. Yet, general notes “[which] refer to some aspect of the entire table” and specific notes are used to clarify meaning of “a particular column or row” (APA, 2007, p. 82).  The medicine article also misses to italicize table headings neither it locates them flush right but centered. As far as figures are referred to, both convey with APA requirements in reference to titles in lower and uppercase form as well as figure and number italicized. Especially noteworthy is the use of graphs to establish comparison of variables between the children on farms: Control group and the children on rural areas: Reference group (Ege, Mayer, Normand, Genuneit, Cookson, Phil, Fahrlander, Heederik, Piarroux & Mutius, 2011).

Regarding format, not only the discussion but also the conclusion sections are hold together in Ege et al. (2011) where the authors analyze the outcomes in the light of their findings. Similarly to the educational article, the study in the field of medicine has covered the analysis of data gathered in the results section. Furthermore, these studies seem to answer the hypotheses made (Sampiere, Fernandez-Collado & Lucio, 1998).  DeMarie (2010) outlines the findings as presented in the research questions. Ege et al. (2011) employ the same mechanism in order to discard the notion that microbial exposure on farms is related to childhood asthma. However, the latter has made use of an unnecessary expression for signaling the concluding paragraph which is not commonly employed in serious academic writing (APA, 2007).

DeMarie (2010) incorporates a discussion section, further enhanced by a recommendation section and a concluding paragraph. Except for the fact that these three are written in isolation, it would be in accordance with Sampiere, Collado and Lucio’s proposal (2008). However, the author appears to have chosen a clear-cut division so that the audience is able to trace the line of thought pursued. The discussion part clearly states the key issues found in the study as well as a comparative analysis of the groups analyzed. It can be noticed the use of process-paragraphs and past tenses.  Further still, the author recommends applying auto-photography, interviews and picture selection as methods of information gathering so that the researcher may get a fairly complete picture of what a school is like through children’s eyes (DeMarie, 2010).  A conclusion is then reached, and the author appears to acknowledge some enlightening results on the understanding children might have of their schools from a “bottom-up perspective” (Katz, 1993; as cited in DeMarie, 2010, Conclusion section, para. 1).

Using an author-date citation style, authors should list all works cited in the text alphabetically at the end of the article. Bearing in mind APA (2010) recommendations for reference list citations, rules for documenting sources must not be ignored, such as autho(s), date of publication, title of the source, place of publication, publisher and any other relevant data. However, the educational study uses a modified editorial style based on the fourth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, since it differs from the APA style principally in the use of authors' names as they appear in the cited articles rather than the use of only first initials. By the same token, the medical article does not cope with APA style requirements for dealing with reference lists, since authors entries have not been order alphabetically, but numerically regarding the order in which each source has been cited in the body of the paper. It can be noticed, yet, that reference entries are double-spaced, and authors are named if the number does not exceed six. Otherwise, the three first are named followed by et al.

Although writers are free to choose between presenting isolated and blend results, discussions as well as conclusions sections due to their own purposes, it is important to accept that linguistic characteristics for research articles presentations should be considered as necessary features regarding academic conventions. For that reason, it could be possible to believe that researchers should be capable of performing academic writing skills when dealing with research studies. Identifying a problem, summarizing data, stating and evaluating solutions as well as enhancing the reader’s reflection through convincing arguments seem to be valuable processes for coping with research documentations. All in all, the outlined sections should provide the reader with explanations, assumptions, interpretations, assessment as well as possible alternatives by means of an appropriate use of academic features and patterns for researching investigations.

References

American Psychological Association (2007). Concise rules of APA style. Washington, DC: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual (6^th ed.). Washington, DC. 

Edge, M., Mayer, M., Normand, A.C., Genuneit, J., Cookson, W., Phil, D., & Mutius, E.V. (2011). Exposure to environmental microorganisms and childhood asthma. The New England Journal of Medicine, 364 (8), 701-709. Retrieved May 2011, from http:// www.nejm.com.org

DeMarie, D. (2001). Successful versus unsuccessful schools through the eyes of children: the use of interviews, autophotography, and picture. Early Childhood Research and Practice, 12 (2). Retrieved May 2011, from http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v12n2/demarie.html

Hernández Sampieri, R., Fernández-Collado, C., & Lucio, B.P. (2008). Metodología de la Investigación (4th ed.). México: McGraw-Hill.

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