A Comparative Analysis: Are all Abstracts the Same?

            When looked up in a dictionary, the term abstract is simply defined as “a short summary of a report, speech, or academic paper” (The Macmillan English Dictionary, 2002) or “a short written statement containing only the most important ideas in a speech, article, etc.” (Longman Online Dictionary, 2011). Such definitions do not acknowledge some distinguishing aspects, such as structure, purpose and language, which play a big part when it comes to defining abstracts. This paper aims at describing those aspects, based on Swales and Feak’s (1994) theory of academic writing, and carrying out a thorough analysis of four abstracts from medicine and education papers. The degree to which those features are present in one field of study or the other will be analyzed, and a conclusion as to how much field-related they might be will be reached.

            Depending on their format, abstracts can be classified as structured or unstructured. Both types are organized into sections in correspondence with the main parts of the paper, i.e. Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. However, they show a central difference: whereas structured abstracts are rather long and provide separate paragraphs with headings for each section, unstructured ones are composed of one single paragraph with a couple of sentences for each section. On the basis of the data provided by the abstracts analyzed in this work, it can be suggested that structured format seems to be preferred in medicine papers, in which the steps of research are detailed and the findings seem to be the most relevant information from the very beginning. On the other hand, abstracts in education papers appear to be unstructured and shorter, the results are mentioned by the end of the abstract - as it is the case in Almerich et al.’s (2005) abstract – or they are not mentioned at all – as in King’s (2002) text.

            A brief digression from the main topic is allowed here to mention the fact that the abstracts from medicine analyzed here do not use the term Discussion to introduce their last section; Conclusion is used instead. Although there seems to be some substantial difference between these two concepts, Swales and Feak (1994) prefer not to go deep into classification, “we will not distinguish between these two terms, since the difference is largely conventional, depending on traditions in particular fields and journals” (p.195). As this analysis is carried out in the light of Swales and Feak’s (1994) theory – and medicine is not our field so as to delineate a definition of the terms – it has been decided to keep them as synonyms for the purpose of our study; we acknowledge, though, they may differ from one field to another.

            Swales and Feak (1994) suggest a second criterion for classification depending on the information provided in the abstract. In the light of their theory, abstracts can be indicative or informative. “Indicative abstracts merely indicate what kind of research has been done. Informative abstracts additionally give the main results.” (p. 81). As it was stated above, medicine abstracts are prone to highlight the results of research; thus, they could be well classified as informative. In the field of education, however, there seems to be a preference for indicative abstracts. On the limited data available, we have found general summaries in which results are briefly mentioned – as it is the case in the paper on Information and Communication Technologies – or they are not mentioned at all – as in the paper about DVDs.

            Another aspect which seems to be relevant when analyzing abstracts is language. Graetz (1985) proposes the following items:

1.     The use of full sentences

2.      The use of the past tense

3.      The use of impersonal passive

4.      The absence of negatives

5.      The avoidance of abbreviation of abbreviation, jargon, symbols and other language shortcuts that might lead to confusion. (as cited in Swales & Feak, 1994, p. 212)

Swales and Feak (1994), however, disagree on the second item. They claim that “tense usage in abstracts if fairly complicated” (p. 212) and that present simple and present perfect are also used in Research Papers (RP) summaries, especially in opening sentences and conclusions. The following opening sentences and conclusions from abstracts illustrate their point:

The integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in education supposes that faculty must possess competencies for it. […] Therefore, the personal and contextual factors influence in the knowledge of techno-logical resources on the part of faculty (Almerich et. al, 2005 p.127).

Whether the treatment of patients with hypertension who are 80 years of age or older is beneficial is unclear. It has been suggested that antihypertensive therapy may reduce the risk of stroke, despite possibly increasing the risk of death [...]. The results provide evidence that [...] (Beckett et. al, 2008, p.1887).

            The abstracts analyzed in this work are made up of full sentences and self-contained structures. Nevertheless, incomplete sentences can be found in the Methods section of the abstract about cardiac stress testing, in which some nominal phrases are used: “Setting: Acute care hospitals in Ontario, Canada, between 1 April 1994 and 31 March 2004” (Wijeysundera et al., 2009, p.1). The same can be seen in the subsections Design, Setting, Interventions and Main outcome measures. As regards the use of impersonal passive, a linguistic resource “necessary to describe process” (Swales & Feak, 1994, p.63), our analysis suggests that they are more frequent in medicine than education RP abstracts. This could be explained on the basis that, in medicine, the process of research and the results are far more relevant than who carries them out, the agent.

            Another aspect mentioned above is the avoidance of negative structures. It is advisable to use “appropriate negative forms” (Swales & Feak, 1994, p.18) such as little or few instead of not much or not many. Only one negative structure is found in the abstracts analyzed herein: “score methods were used to reduce important differences between patients who did or did not undergo preoperative stress testing” (Wijeysundera et al., 2009, p.1). Nevertheless, alternative words, as the ones suggested, seem to be used in most cases in spite of negative sentences. Finally, abbreviation, acronyms and shortcuts are in general avoided in the four abstracts. In those very few cases in which acronyms are used, they are either well-known to the reader, such as “DVD has vastly replaced traditional VHS as the movie medium of the new millennium” (King, 2002, p.1), or clear reference to their meaning is provided so as to make reading smooth “[i]n an analysis of subgroups defined by Revised Cardiac Risk Index (RCRI) class” (Wijeysundera et al., 2009, p.1).

            On the basis of the present analysis, it can be concluded that abstracts are more than short summaries. They are complex texts, with their own linguistic and structural rules. As Swales and Feak (1994) put it, “[s]ometimes [...] writing a summary becomes a task in itself” (p. 105). Slight differences may be found from one field to another, depending on the characteristics of research and the purpose of the text. Medicine abstracts, for instance, seem to be long, structured and informative; whereas abstracts in the education field appear to be short, unstructured and indicative, in some cases. There seems to be no difference as regards the linguistic features analyzed, though. Passive voice, complete sentences and absence of negatives appear to be some of the characteristic structures shared by RP abstracts, regardless of their field of studies. Whether the findings of this work can be extended to all medicine and education abstracts is subject for further study based on extensive data, probably, and in the light of alternative theories.

References

Almerich, G., Suárez, J. M., Orellana, N., Belloch, C., 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, 11 (2), 127-146. Retrieved May 2011 from http://www.uv.es/RELIEVE/v11n2/RELIEVEv11n2_3.htm

Beckett, N., Peters, R., Fletcher, A., Staessen, J., Liu, L., Dumitrascu, D., … Bulpitt, C. (2008). Treatment of hypertension in patients 80 years of age or older [Abstract]. The New England Journal of Medicine. Retrieved May 2011 from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18378519

King, J. (2002). Using DVD feature films in the EFL classroom. [Abstract]. ELT Newsletter, 88. Retrieved May 2011 from http://www.eltnewsletter.com/back/February2002/art882002.htm

Longman Online Dictionary. (2011). From http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/abstract_2

Macmillan English Dictionary (1^st ed.). (2002). Macmillan Publishers Limited

Swales, J.M., & Feak, C.B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. A. Harbor, (Ed.). Michigan, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Wijeysundera D. N., Beattie, W. S., Elliot, R. F., Austin, P. C., Hux, J. E., Laupacis, A. (2009).

Non-invasive cardiac stress testing before elective major non-cardiac surgery: Population based cohort study. [Abstract]. BMJ Journals. Doi: 10.1136/bmj.b5526. Retrieved May 2011 from http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.b5526.full