AN ANALYSIS OF RHETORICAL MOVES IN ABSTRACTS FOR CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
Abstract
An abstract plays a pivotal role because it represents the summary of the entire article. Therefore, it is the first thing that readers evaluate to determine if they should read the entire article. Hence, it is imperative for academics to provide an abstract that includes all essential rhetorical moves when writing an academic article. In lieu of this, the current study attempted to examine whether the abstracts provided in conference proceedings include the essential rhetorical moves and whether the moves are presented in the sequence according to the selected classification. The data for this study were collected using purposive sampling from 23 abstracts of empirical-based studies in nature from the selected conference. The abstracts were written in the English language and authored by academics in the field of language and education from higher institutions in various countries. Hyland’s (2000) five-moves classification of rhetorical moves was used as the coding in identifying the moves structure of the selected abstracts in this study. Other moves that emerged from the selected abstracts were added to Hyland’s (2000) classification. The moves structure data were analyzed using manifest content analysis while the sequence of moves data were analyzed using latent content analysis. The findings show that the majority of the abstract only partially contains the rhetorical moves as suggested by Hyland (2000) with a variety of moves sequence. Apart from Hyland’s (2000) five-moves, some authors included the theoretical aspect of their study in their abstracts. The implications of the findings were discussed within the context of professional development among higher institutions academics, particularly in academic abstract writing.
Keywords: Abstract, academics, academic writing, rhetorical moves, conference proceedings
Keywords
References
- Bonn, S. V., & Swales, J. M. (2007). English and French journal abstracts in the language sciences: Three exploratory studies. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6(2), 93-108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2007.04.001
- Bunton, D. (2002). Generic moves in Phd thesis introductions. In J. Flowerdew (ed.) Academic Discourse. (pp.57-75). Lon: Longman.
- Bunton, D. (2005). The structure of PhD conclusion chapters. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 4, 207-224.
- Cross, C., & Oppenheim, C. (2006). A genre analysis of scientific abstracts. Journal of Documentation, 62(4), 428-446. doi:10.1108/00220410610700953, http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00220410610700953
- Hartley, J., & Benjamin, M. (1998). An evaluation of structured abstracts in journals published by the British psychological society. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 68, 443-456. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1998.tb01303.x, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.1998.tb01303.x
- Hongwei, R. & Yuying, L. (2011). A Comparison Study on The Rhetorical Moves of Abstracts in Published Research Articles and Master’s Foreign-Language Theses. English Language Teaching, 4(1), 162-166.
- Huckin, T. (2006). Abstracting from abstracts. In M. Hewings (ed.), Academic Writing in Context (pp. 93-103). London: Continuum.
- Hyland, K. (2000). Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing. London: Longman.
Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
-
Authors
Harison M. Sidek
Noor Saazai Mat Saad
Hazleena Baharun
Mohamad Muzhafar Idris
Publication Date
April 22, 2016
Submission Date
April 21, 2016
Acceptance Date
-
Published in Issue
Year 2016 Volume: 2 Number: 4
Cited By
RHETORICAL STRUCTURE OF PROMOTIONAL GENRES: THE CASE OF RESEARCH ARTICLE AND CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS
Discourse and Interaction
https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2019-2-95Genre Analysis of Research Article Abstracts in English for Academic Purposes Journals: Exploring the Possible Variations across the Venues of Research
Education Research International
https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/3578179Genre Analysis of Abstracts of Research Articles Published in Biostatistics
International Journal of Literature, Language and Linguistics
https://doi.org/10.52589/IJLLL-A94THVEWUtilizing Pho’s Move in Composing Scientific Paper within AIMRD
IJORER : International Journal of Recent Educational Research
https://doi.org/10.46245/ijorer.v4i6.417