A comparative study on the rhetorical moves of abstracts in published research articles and Egyptian master's theses in applied linguistics

Abstract

Because readers have been overloaded by the dramatic increase in the publication of research articles in all fields of knowledge in the last ten years, abstracts of the research articles have become a standard gateway for those readers (Cross & Oppenheim, 2006; Lancaster, 2003).Thus, writing abstracts is a must for survival in the academic discourse community. However, research and journal editors have stressed that writing abstracts is challenging for nonnative, novice writers for two main reasons. First, there is a gap between the guidelines provided by the writing manuals and the abstracts of published articles. That is, these manuals give general instructions rather than training writers on the rhetorical moves used in published research (Cantor et al., 1994). Second, there are discrepancies between the instructions provided by some grammar books and courses regarding the use of some linguistic features and how they are used by experienced writers in published research (Hinkel, 2004). This thesis addresses this need and provides guidelines for producing relevant ESP writing materials for Egyptian- MA students of applied linguistics by: comparing the rhetorical moves in twenty abstracts of Egyptian MA theses (EMAs) and twenty abstracts in published-empirical research articles (RAs) and investigating the key words and tenses in these moves. The researcher randomly chose 5 abstracts from four different public universities that represent the four educational regions in Egypt: Cairo University from the Center, Alexandria University from the North, Suez Canal University from the Suez and Assiut University from the South. Furthermore, the abstracts of published research articles were randomly selected from two journals: 10 from Applied Linguistics and 10 from TESOL Quarterly. All the MA-theses and research articles were conducted and published in the period between 2007 and 2011. The researcher used an eight-move model adapted from Hyland's (2004) and Santos' (1996) models to analyze the selected abstracts. The analysis shows that there is agreement between both corpora in classifying the moves as obligatory or optional. While Move 3, Purpose, Move 4, Methodology and Move 5, Results are obligatory, Move 1, Situating the research, Move 2, Stating the problem, Move 6 Drawing conclusions and Move 7, Making recommendations are optional. The analysis shows several variations between the abstracts in both corpora and the suggested model of analysis. For instance, two new moves are identified in the analysis: the Delimitations Move and the Referent Move. The study concludes that these variations between the abstracts and the proposed model indicate that writers should choose the moves that best serve their purposes rather than include all the moves.

Concerning the use of lexical items and tenses in both corpora, the findings of the study indicate that the present simple is the predominant tense in most of the moves of the abstract, apart from the Methodology and the Results Moves, in which the past simple is the predominant one. Furthermore, it is observed that some of the Egyptian writers show a lack of awareness of the function of the present simple when they use it in Move 4, the Methodology. Regarding the lexical items used in both corpora, the analysis shows that while the Egyptian writers use verbs that denote firm conclusions, the native writers use verbs that would allow for other interpretations. In addition, while the Egyptian writers use authoritative tone to give recommendations, the native writers impersonalize theirs. Thus, the study suggests that the Egyptian, novice writers need to be introduced to the mistakes identified in this study in their academic writing courses.