Tracing the development of an emergent part-genre: The author summary

Abstract

The ongoing revolution in scientific publishing has led to a proliferation of new genres and part-genres designed to promote journal contents and attract new readers. One such innovation is the “author summary”, presented in some scientific journals as a non-technical summary intended for students. This article investigates the author summary, showing how it generally differs both qualitatively and quantitatively from the corresponding abstract. However, it also shows that there is a fairly high degree of uncertainty as to how the author summary should be written: the features are still unstable, and three distinct patterns can be observed: the “situated summary”, the “technical summary” and the “minimalist summary”. In view of this situation, the second phase of the research consisted of a reader perception study carried out in a group of 50 students. The results show that they found the “situated summary” preferable to the other types, and that this would therefore provide the most appropriate model for teaching purposes.