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Analysis of abstracts has seldom been involved in disciplines and journals where Arabic is used. Hence, this study examined the rhetorical structures of abstracts across four unrelated disciplines in Arabic: law, linguistics, medicine and police. The corpus consisted of 40 Arabic abstracts, with 10 abstracts from each discipline. The data was analy...
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... 5 illustrates how verb tenses are used in the introduction move across the four disciplines. Table 8 below shows how verb tenses are used in the results move in linguistics, medicine and police. In the conclusion move, 20% of the RA abstracts across disciplines used the past tense and 17.5% used the present tense. ...Citations
... 6). [33] Вариации секций рукописей в различных научных областях продемонстрировали, что частотность реализации ходов и шагов риторической структуры может различаться в разных дисциплинах [36][37][38][39]. Однако в общем и целом практически все ходы могут быть представлены в каждой конкретной секции в исследованиях из разных дисциплин. ...
The Discussion section in the manuscript of an original empirical study is the most creative and challenging part to construct. Incorrect discussion of results in many manuscripts submitted to scientific journals often leads to their rejection, even if the results themselves hold potential significance for the scientific community. The absence or poor quality of interpretation of results by the authors can negatively affect the overall perception of the study by readers. The most complete functional implementation of the Discussion section is achieved by adhering to its rhetorical structure. The purpose of this article is to analyze the functions, content, and rhetorical organization of the Discussion section of an original empirical study. The main function of the Discussion section is to interpret and explain the significance of the study’s results, highlight the current state of knowledge on the stated problem, and explain new aspects arising from the results obtained. Authors also need to specify the external validity of the data and demonstrate how these data can be generalized. The most effective way to implement the stated function is by relying on a model of the interdisciplinary rhetorical structure of the Discussion section , which can be modified according to the conventions of the discipline and the characteristics of the specific study. Depending on the study’s logic, certain rhetorical moves or steps of the structure may be omitted; however, a more comprehensive list of moves provides a more thorough interpretation of the results. Understanding the content of each move and its steps allows authors to present all necessary information regarding the obtained results in a way that ensures their objective and unambiguous perception by readers.
... Abstracts also crucially determine "whether the readers would find the research paper relevant or not with their research" (Kurniawan & Sabila, 2021, p.318). Alhuqbani (2013) has argued, for instance, that many potentially good research articles are overlooked because their abstracts have been written carelessly. Writing abstracts in English, part of academic writing, is meant to break the language barrier and to administer global distribution of the insights presented in the articles. ...
Despite the existence of many studies on the analysis of grammatical errors in writing, little scholarly work reports the errors in academic articles, especially in medical journals. To fill this empirical gap, the present study investigates grammatical errors within written English abstracts of academic articles from a nursing journal in Indonesia. In particular, it attempts to classify the errors based on a surface strategy taxonomy proposed by Dulay et al. (1982), namely misformation, omission, addition, and misordering. The method used is content analysis. The results of this study indicate that errors were found from all four classification categories. Further, we noted that the most commonly found errors were in the category of misformation followed by omission, addition, and misordering. The findings of this research are expected to serve as a reference for future scholars when avoiding errors in writing English abstracts for academic articles.
... Readers or examiners of research articles or papers are busy people who have lots of works to do. For that reason, most readers limit their initial research looking at titles and abstracts before choosing what Research Articles (RA) to select and read (Alhuqbani, 2013). ...
which complements proposals, articles, and dissertations, is a remarkable convention in scientific studies since it creates access for readers and authors to read or publish studies or articles. Research abstracts (RA) function as the gateway to view an article, journals' selection for contributions, and for conferences to accept or reject articles (Lores, 2004) In this study, we aimed to investigate the preferences of writers in 160 PhD dissertation abstracts, encompassing both male and female native and non-native authors, across various fields of study, both in the hard and soft sciences. Our primary objective was to discern the writers' inclinations towards utilizing specific linguistic resources, as proposed by Martin and White's Appraisal theory (2005), to convey their positions and engage with the perspectives articulated by their peers. The analysis of the data, conducted using statistical methods, unveiled a pervasive utilization of appraisal resources by the writers, enabling them to articulate their viewpoints, prospects, perceptions, and evaluations concerning diverse subjects. Among these resources, Attitude resources stood out prominently, constituting a substantial 84% of the total Appraisal resources employed in all the abstracts. Graduation resources held an intermediate position, while Engagement resources were the least utilized. Within the realm of Attitude subcategories, Appreciation resources emerged as the most prevalent. Remarkably, female authors specializing in the soft sciences displayed a higher degree of proficiency in the use of these resources, surpassing their counterparts in other categories. This finding suggests that female writers in the soft sciences possess exceptional interpersonal communication skills, making them particularly persuasive and inspirational. The implications of this study extend to the domains of language teaching and learning, material development, and syllabus design. It sheds light on how writers employ linguistic resources to convey their positions effectively, offering valuable insights for educational practices and curriculum enhancement.
... Among the scarce studies on Arabic academic abstracts, some adopted a genre analysis of data rather than focusing on metadiscourse per se. Alhuqbani (2013), for example, carried out a genre-based analysis of Arabic abstracts in different fields, with a focus on move structure, based on a corpus of 40 abstracts. He notes that the move structure in abstracts of various disciplines differs greatly, attributing this to the fact that "the Arabic journals' publication policy […] leaves the writing of abstracts at the researchers' disposal" (Alhuqbani 2013: 379). ...
Research on metadiscourse and rhetorical features in modern Arabic academic writing is scarce both in quantity and in scope. Abstracts, in particular, are a severely understudied academic register. This study aims to fill a gap in the study of academic abstracts in Arabic by providing a more comprehensive analysis of metadiscourse in Arabic academic abstracts. The data for the study includes a corpus of 400 Arabic abstracts, which have been labeled according to two variables: (a) abstract type (journal or dissertation); and (b) author gender (male, female, mixed gender). The analysis follows the theoretical framework proposed by Hyland (2019), as the data has been annotated for both textual metadiscourse (transition markers, frame markers, evidentials, endophorics and code glosses) and interpersonal metadiscourse (hedges, boosters, attitude markers, engagement markers and self-mentions). Results show that Arabic academic abstracts are rich in both types of metadiscourse features. Transition and frame markers have the highest frequency in the textual domain, while boosters and self-mentions are highly frequent in the interpersonal domain. Endophoric markers and hedges are the least used types of metadiscourse in the data, but engagement markers are surprisingly more frequent than previously thought.
... Along with their critical roles and functions in research areas, thesis abstracts have gotten a lot of attention and they have been studied from a variety of perspectives. Because there are many research articles released online these days, most readers restrict their research to titles and abstracts before deciding which Research Article or thesis abstracts to start reading the rest (Alhuqbani, 2013). ...
Due to a large number of academic information available throughout the world, research abstracts have become extremely important. Abstracts are used by readers to access an article, by journals to pick contributions, by conferences to approve or reject papers (Lores, 2004 as cited in Al-Khasawneh, 2017). Therefore, in this study, the writer would like to analyze the generic structure of a thesis abstract by using Swales & Feak’s (2004) model, namely (1) background, (2) aim, (3) method, (4) results, and (5) conclusion. In order to analyze the genre or generic structure of thesis abstracts, this study uses a qualitative case study approach. Ten (10) English thesis abstracts written by undergraduate students from the English education study program are collected using purposeful random sampling. The researcher sorts the thesis abstracts from the last two years and the theses which have used the quantitative method as their methodology. Findings show that the purpose move (M2), the method move (M3), and the result/finding move (M4) were the most frequent moves that occurred in the abstracts written by undergraduate students enrolled in the English education study program. However, the introduction move (M1) and the conclusion/discussion move (M5) occur less frequently. It could be concluded that the majority of the thesis abstract follows Swales & Feak’s (2004) five-move pattern. While in some thesis abstracts, the move “introduction” and “conclusion” are not included.
... Indeed, the usefulness of RA abstracts cannot be underestimated. For example, Alhuqbani (2013) reveals that, after the title of a RA, most readers pay attention to abstracts. This is because, through the abstract, authors can persuade an audience to read their entire work and establish themselves as qualified members of a discourse community (Hyland, 2000;Martin-Martin, 2005;Swales, 2004). ...
As a key genre in the academic discourse community, research articles (RA) have enjoyed great popularity over the years. A key component of the RA is the RA abstract. Its essence is seen in its objective of giving an overview of the study. Given the dearth of genre analysis in the Forensic Linguistics discipline, the study aimed at exploring the move structure and lexico-grammatical features of RA abstracts published in Forensic Linguistics. Adopting Hyland's five-move model for analysing abstracts, the study randomly sampled ninety (90) RA abstracts from three different Forensic Linguistics journals. Guided by Hüttner's classification model, the study identified the Purpose move as an obligatory move with 100%. It was revealed that the abstracts follow the semi-linear move sequence, i.e., M1>M2>M3>M4, which was the preferred pattern. The highest textual space was allocated to the Introduction move, and the average number of words in the abstract was 264. With the linguistic realisation of the moves, the present verb tense was preferred, occurring frequently in the Introduction, Purpose, Product and Conclusion moves. Adjunct adverbials were found to dominate the Introduction move, while disjunct adverbials never occurred in any of the moves. The study has insightful implications for pedagogy, knowledge in the field of Forensic linguistics, and further research.
... Due to the fact that examiners or readers are very busy doing their work, most of them limit their search, and they want to know from the first glance whether the manuscript is worth reading or not (Alhuqbani, 2013). For this reason, according to Kossasih (2018), four reasons make abstracts play a vital role in articles. ...
... When our study is compared with other studies by Tseng (2011) and Alhuqbani (2013), it has been found that they both included the same similarities and differences in tenses usage. This means that in the introduction, purpose, and conclusion moves, they tended to use the present simple tense, whereas in our study, introduction, purpose, product, and conclusion moves present tense was mostly used, but the method and product moves were different in the tense usage because past tense was used more which is similar to Alhuqbani's and Tseng's findings. ...
Writing a thesis or dissertation is a challenging procedure as it is one of the requirements of getting a graduate and postgraduate diploma. Writing an abstract like other parts of a thesis or dissertation has its criterion. For this reason, due to globalism, those abstracts written by non-native English speakers may lack some of the features of the abstract genre and move that must be included. This study examines the moves of M.A. and Ph.D. abstracts written by Turkish students between the 2009 and 2019 academic years on foreign language education at Cyprus International University. The data consisted of 50 abstracts chosen randomly from the ELT department. For the analysis, Hyland’s five-move model has been used. The study results reveal that 40 abstracts did not follow the five moves that Hyland has put forward. Moreover, it can be stated that the absence of some moves in the abstracts may cause restraint for readers to comprehend these studies in terms of communicative purposes.
... No limitations were provided in Move 5. The finding of the frequency of this move contrasts that of Alhuqbani (2013) who identified M4 as optional. Given the obligatory status of this move, it can be attributed to the importance of the author's place on it to provide implications and or suggestions. ...
Genre studies have contributed to revealing the communicative purposes and structural properties particular to specific discourse communities. Research articles (RA) have been the focus of most genre studies for the past four decades. RA abstract is important because it summarizes the work, persuades readers, and ‘sells’ the article locally and internationally. An emerging academic discipline that has been under studied is Biostatistics. The study aimed at exploring the move structure and lexico-grammatical features of RA abstracts published in Biostatistics. Forty (40) RA abstracts were extracted from four different Biostatistics journals. Hyland’s five-move structure model was adopted to guide the analysis. Using Hüttner’s classification model, the most frequent move was the Product, with a 100% occurrence. While the Introduction move was core, the Purpose, Method, Product and Conclusion moves were obligatory. It was revealed that the abstracts follow the completely linear five-move structure, i.e., M1>M2>M3>M4>M5. While the study revealed that the total number of words in an abstract is 244, the Product move had the highest textual space in the abstract. With the linguistic realisation of the moves, the past verb tense was preferred, occurring frequently in the Method move. The Introduction and Conclusion moves recorded frequent use of modal verbs. Personal pronouns were characteristic of the Method move. These linguistic realisations served to differentiate one move from the others. While the study contributes to research on RA abstracts generally, it guides the practice of abstract designing in Biostatistics. Finally, it offers insights for further research.
... Many scholars have researched the move structure of research article abstracts and final project report abstracts. Alhuqbani (2013), for example, examined Arabic research article abstracts in the Middle Eastern areas (law, linguistics, medical, and police). His study's findings revealed that abstracts in the medical area were following Bhatia's or Hyland's models. ...
This study was conducted to investigate the move structures of the final project report abstracts produced by the undergraduate students of the English Education Department (EED-UMK) Indonesia and by the Secondary Education undergraduate students of Central Bicol State University of Agriculture (CBSUA) Philippine. This study employed the content analysis method. Sample final project reports from EED-UMK and CBSUA were gathered and analyzed. The findings of this research revealed that the abstracts of EED-UMK and CBSUA used different move structures patterns. The majority of EED-UMK abstracts (80%) referred to Hyland's five move structures, which consisted of introduction, purpose, method, product, and conclusion (I-P-M-Pr-C). Meanwhile, one of the CBSUA abstracts (20%) applied Bathia's four move structures consisting of purpose, method, result, and conclusion (P-M-R-C). The remaining of the EED UMK and CBSUA abstracts did not address either Bathia's or Hyland's styles. This study concludes that the two Universities have different style structures in writing the final report abstracts. This study suggests that students use the move structure style consistently in their abstracts.
... Moreover, Swales & Feak (2004) suggest a five-move pattern of RA abstract, they are background, aim, method, results, and conclusion. Those two types of abstract move patterns are called conventional move structures (Alhuqbani, 2013) Recorded as a hard copy of RA abstracts, Paltridge and Starfield (2007) feature that there are two different ways the understudies can perceive the theoretical. In the first place, the RA unique is perceived as the rundown of their postulation, or second; it very well may be seen as the outline of their review that has been led before. ...
Scholars and practitioners should be aware that writing a good and eye-catching abstract is significant but tough work. Scholars and researchers are challenged to produce an informative and persuasive abstract to be accepted then published in either national or international publication and they should know the current characteristics of abstracts written by the students or apprentice writers. The study aims at examining the comparison of discourse structure and linguistic features between English abstracts of research articles by Indonesian researchers and English abstracts of the thesis by Indonesian scholars. The corpus data were taken from 10 research articles abstracts of Indonesian researchers concerning English education published in ERIC and 10 thesis abstracts of the graduate program of English Education in UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. Thus, a genre-based analysis proposed by Bhatia’s move structure and Swales’ and Feak’s move structure will be used to investigate the discourse structure and Paltridge starfields will be used to investigate linguistic features. The results indicated that 60% of abstracts published in the international journal were organized well while 40% of thesis abstracts were not organized well. Furthermore, past tenses were frequently used in both article abstracts and thesis abstracts in terms of aim, method, and result move. While present tense was still used in aim and result move in article abstracts. In conclusion, most abstracts published in international publications used well organizational move. While most abstracts published in local ones are not used well organizational move.Keywords: Discourse structure; linguistic features; research article abstracts; rhetorical move; thesis abstracts.
