Abstract
This study seeks to compare and contrast the rhetorical moves in abstracts of students’ term papers and published articles in the field of Computer and Communications Systems Engineering. The reason is to identify to what extend the rhetorical moves used in the abstracts of students’ term papers approximate to the published articles. Using Santos’ (1996) five move pattern as the model of analysis, the data indicated that both the abstracts in the students’ term papers and the published articles did use some of the rhetorical moves. However, the pattern of use did vary among them. Furthermore, the study also revealed that abstracts with a complete five moves presented a more comprehensive overview of the content of the study when compared with abstracts with limited moves. These findings could heighten the awareness of the student writers as to how abstract writing should be structured and it could also increase their sophistication in the crafting of an effective abstract. Finally, the data could also form as an informed input for both writing instructors and program designers to incorporate the learning of the rhetorical moves in abstract writing instructions.
Highlights
An abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the content of an article or research proposal (Fain, 1998).It allows the readers to view the contents without having to read the complete article
Abstract writing has an accepted formal structure that is known and accepted by the discourse community. This formal structure or organization in abstract writing is realized in the form of the rhetorical moves in abstract writing. Such a notion was first mooted by Swales (1981, 1990) who investigated the introduction of Research Articles (RA) and found them to contain a regular pattern of ‘moves’ and ‘steps’
The findings revealed that Move 1 and Move 2 were seen to be the obligatory moves for the two groups of writers the total occurrences of both moves were higher in the expert abstracts
Summary
An abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the content of an article or research proposal (Fain, 1998).It allows the readers to view the contents without having to read the complete article. This formal structure or organization in abstract writing is realized in the form of the rhetorical moves in abstract writing Such a notion was first mooted by Swales (1981, 1990) who investigated the introduction of Research Articles (RA) and found them to contain a regular pattern of ‘moves’ and ‘steps’. Within Move 1, the writer has to claim centrality to his work, making topic generalization and reviewing previous research (see Table 1). He has to establish a niche (Move 2) where the writer has to indicate the gap of his research and concluding with Move 3 which is occupying a niche where the writer announces the purpose of his study
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