Moves and Metadiscoursal Analyses of Abstracts of Published and Unpublished Humanities and Social Science Research

The first impression of any scholarly work done is influenced by the research article (RA) abstract. Most analyses of RA abstracts concentrate on general structure, but little attention has been paid to the differences in move structures and metadiscoursal resources between expert and novice abstract writings. The purpose of this study was to analyze the organizational and metadiscoursal characteristics of RAs in the humanities and social sciences by comparing published abstracts by expert scholars with unpublished abstracts by student writers. This study analyzed fifty RA abstracts using Hyland’s (2000) five-move framework and his (2005) Interpersonal Model of Metadiscourse through frequency count and manual text analysis. The results suggested that published abstracts emphasized the ‘Product’, ‘Conclusion’ and ‘Method’ moves more than unpublished abstracts, which highlighted ‘Conclusion’, ‘Product’ and ‘Purpose’ more. This suggested that the former focuses on summarization, whereas the latter centered on rationale. Furthermore, unpublished abstracts utilized “interactional metadiscoursal resources” to a much greater extent than published abstracts, demonstrating that such unpublished work attempted more directly to engage the readers. Consequently, unpublished abstracts were less frequent with labels as “interactive metadiscoursal resources,” suggesting that published abstracts were organized and flowed through the text more clearly. These unpublished abstracts concentrated on engaging the readers less and structural issues more. Incorporating tools such as specifying components of studies and adding constructive feedback can help improve the self-reflection and evaluative tools. Blending formal and interactive writing approaches in training may also help achieve balance. Following these will help ensure that the authors' abstracts for publication and presentation are articulate, accurate, and efficient. Keywords: Genre analysis, research abstracts, move/step models, metadiscoursal resources, EAP