Comparative Analysis of Abstracts in Specialized Journals

María E. Casinelli and Clarisa A. Dornes

Universidad CAECE

Abstracts are formal summaries of finished research papers (RPs) and research articles (RAs). They are descriptive, as they describe the main text of an RP or RA, and expository, as they tend to provide information clearly and concisely. According to Hubbuch (1996), abstracts are “brief summaries of the major points made by an author in a book or article” (p.126). Similarly, Swales and Feak (1994) claim that RP abstracts “consist of a single paragraph containing from about four to ten full sentences” (p. 210). The American Psychological Association (APA, 2008) states that abstracts “allow readers to survey the contents of an article quickly” (p. 12). Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak (1994) explain that there are different kinds of RP and RA abstracts: informative and indicative, structured and unstructured. As regards linguistic features, these authors specify that abstracts are characterized by the use of full sentences, past tense and impersonal passive, the absence of negatives, and the avoidance of abbreviation and jargon. Concerning tense usage, they state that conclusions tend to be written in present, opening sentences in present or present perfect, and sentences describing results usually show tense variation.

Hubbuch (1996) and Swales and Feak (1994) are among the most renowned researchers and scholars who have analysed the structure of abstracts in academic papers. However, it is doubtful whether many academic abstracts have been compared across fields. 

It is imperative for student writers to learn how to write abstracts properly, following academic conventions. A good abstract can enable them to effectively attract readers to continue reading their productions. The present paper aims at providing a comparative analysis of four different abstracts, two from the field of education and two from the field of medicine. It is expected that an analysis like this one will enhance students’ knowledge on the writing of academic abstracts.

The analysis of the abstracts from the two articles on education, one by Wang and Smith (2013) and another one by Winke, Gass and Sydorenko (2010), revealed that both abstracts are informative, as they describe what the researchers did, and unstructured; i.e., they consist of one long and unbroken paragraph. They follow the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussions) formula but, contrary to APA’s (2008) conventions, they were not published on a separate sheet between the title and the first page of the body of the paper. This deviation may be explained by the fact that these are RAs and not RPs and, as such, changes in format may be due to publishing restrictions. The APA (2008) also stipulates that the word “Abstract” be centred and unformatted; a convention which has not been respected in these two RAs since both abstracts lack a heading. Another inconsistency found is that none of the abstracts has been double-spaced. However, the linguistic specifications described by Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak (1994) can be clearly observed in the two abstracts of the education RAs: full sentences, past tenses, impersonal passive, absence of negatives and avoidance of abbreviations and jargon. Wang and Smith (2013) have followed the general trend on tense usage strictly as the results section of their abstract presents tense variation and the conclusion has been written in present, as it can be observed in the sample sentence “Our study also instructs us of the necessity to empower the students in some form of materials development, as students themselves are best placed for knowing their learning preferences” (p. 129). Winke, Gass and Sydorenko (2010), on their part, have decided to write the whole abstract in the past tense.

The analysis of the abstracts from the two articles on medicine, one by Cooper et al. (2011) and the other one by Deveraux et al. (2014), disclosed that both abstracts are informative, as the ones found in the articles on education, since they also depict what the researchers did. However, these ones are structured, i.e., they contain bolded headings, each one identifying the main sections in the RA. This is a deviation from APA’s (2008) rule that abstracts should be a single, double-spaced paragraph, but it should be noted that the field of medicine usually follows the conventions of the Vancouver manual. Cooper et al. and Deveraux et al. also seem to have respected the linguistic conventions mentioned by Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak (1994) as regards the use of full sentences, past tense, absence of negatives and avoidance of abbreviations. Nevertheless, some jargon is used, probably because in abstracts from the field of medicine the use of specific medical terms is necessary. An example of the use of jargon is a phrase such as “Cox regression models” (Cooper et al., 2011, p.1896). It was also noticed that although impersonal passive is sometimes used, there are several examples of sentences in active voice with the pronoun We as subject, as in “We identified serious cardiovascular events [...] from health-plan data and vital records, with end points validated by medical-record review” (Cooper et al., 2011, p.1896). Concerning tense usage, both the results and conclusion sections in the abstracts by Cooper et al. and Deveraux et al. have been written in past tenses, with only one exception in the conclusion of the former, in which the first conditional is used.

A clear difference observed between the education and the medicine abstracts is the fact that the latter are heavily loaded with data supporting the results reported by the authors. Abbreviations are also used in these abstracts but they are always explained the first time they are mentioned. Of note, a second observable difference between both fields is the position of the abstracts within the RA: whereas in the medicine RAs they have been typed on a separate page, in the education RAs they appear right below the title and are directly followed by the first heading.

All in all it could be stated that the four abstracts under analysis comply with the rules described by Swales (1990), Swales and Feak (1994) and the APA (2008). They are all informative, they look to the past, they follow the IMRAD formula and they respect the linguistic features usually found in abstracts. The main distinguishing characteristic is in terms of structure: the abstracts from the field of education are unstructured but the ones from the field of medicine display a clear structure with highlighted headings. As mentioned above, the abstracts on medicine appear on a separate page whereas the ones on education are embedded into the RA as any other section, probably due to publishing restrictions, and partially deviate from APA’s (2008) standards as regards format. Despite these minor differences, it might be safe to assert that the authors of the four abstracts mostly respect the conventions of the fields they belong to.

References

American Psychological Association. (2008). Publication Manual (5th ed.).Washington, DC: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

Cooper, W. O., Habel, L.A., Sox, C. M., Chan, K. A., Arbogast, P. G., Cheetham, T. C.,… Ray, W. A. (2011). DHD drugs and serious cardiovascular events in children and young adults. New England Journal of Medicine. 365 (20), 1896-1904. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1110212

Devereaux, P.J., Mrkobrada, M., Sessler, D.I., Leslie, K., Alonso-Coello, P., Kurz, A.,… Yusuf, S. (2014). Aspirin in patients undergoing noncardiac surgery. The New England Journal of Medicine. [e-published ahead of print]. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1401105

Hubbuch, S. M. (1996). Writing research papers across the curriculum. (4th ed.). Harcourt Brace: Fort Worth, TX.

Swales, J.M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings (Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Swales, J.M., & Feak, C.B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Ann Harbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Wang, S., & Smith, S. (2013). Reading and grammar learning through mobile phones. Language Learning & Technology, 17(3), 117–134. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/october2013/wangsmith.pdf

Winke, P., Gass, S. & Sydorenko, T. (2010). The effects of captioning videos used for foreign language listening activities. Language Learning & Technology,14(1), 65–86. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/vol14num1/winkegasssydorenko.pdf

Analyzing the Citation of Sources in a Reference List

The American Psychological Association (APA, 2010) has established a set of rules and procedures known as APA style for formatting academic papers and citing sources appropriately. Concerning the References list in an academic paper, APA establishes a set of conventions that academic writers should follow for citing sources appropriately. However, some papers do not follow APA style conventions for citing sources, as they may follow a different manual, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA) manual, a system that according to Delaney (2007) is commonly used when authors work with manuscripts in various humanities disciplines such as English Studies, Language and Literature, Foreign Languages and Literatures, and Literary Criticism. It is important for student writers to learn to identify and recognize other academic styles applied to different fields following different manuals’ conventions, so as to be able to analyze what manual different articles follow. This paper aims to provide some insights on the citation of sources in a reference list, with the intention of evaluating whether the author has followed APA style when citing sources in the reference list or not.

The reference list under analysis, which has been presented as part of a sample list by Purdue OWL (2014) does not seem to follow the requirements established by APA (2010) as regards the title which should be used to label that list. The title “Works Cited” has been used to label the reference list, instead of “References”, the title that APA states should be used in the reference list. 

Reflecting on the way authors should be cited in the reference list according to APA (2010), it can be observed that in the reference list under analysis the conventions established by APA have not been respected, since APA states that the author’s last name should be written followed by the author’s name initials, and in this reference list the author’s surname is followed by the author’s first name in full form. An example of this can be observed in the following citation: “Dean, Cornelia. ’Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet.’ New York Times. New York Times, 22 May 2007. Web. 25 May 2009.” (Purdue OWL, 2014).

Regarding the titles of journal articles in a References list, it can be observed that in the reference list under evaluation the titles of journal articles have been enclosed within quotation marks, not complying with the APA (2010) rules for citing journal articles, which state that quotation marks should not be used to enclose the titles of short works such as journal articles.

 Concerning the documentation of the date of publication in this reference list, it can also be noticed that it does not follow APA (2010) citing conventions, which state that only the year of publication should be included within parentheses, after the author’s last name. In this reference list the publishing dates include not only the year but also a day and a month of publication. Even more striking is the fact that two dates have been included, which is rather confusing for the reader. Furthermore, the date is not enclosed within parentheses and it does not follow the author’s last name.

All in all, after evaluating this reference list it can be concluded that most of the requirements of APA style related to citations in a reference list have not been followed, as it can be found that there are lots of divergences in the way the sources have been documented in the reference list. So, it could be claimed that this reference list does not meet the requirements established by the American Psychological Association. This reference list seems to follow the conventions established by another manual, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA), a system that is commonly used to cite sources in papers belonging to the liberal arts and humanities.

References

American Psychological Association (2010). APA formatting and style guide.

Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

Delaney, R. (2007). Long Island University: MLA citation style. Retrieved February

23rd 2010 from http://www.liu.edu/CWIS/CWP/library/workshop/citmla.htm  

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). (2014). MLA Sample Works Cited Page. Retrieved

May 2014, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/12/ 

Comparative Analysis of Three Main Sections in Research Articles

María E. Casinelli and Clarisa A. Dornes

Universidad CAECE

 Research articles (RAs) have their own structure and are composed of different sections. Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak (1994) have described the structure that RAs should have, providing academic writers with guidelines about the elements which should be present in each section and the conventions to be respected when writing them. Focusing on the results and discussion sections in particular, it can be seen that they can be written together or separately, and that they are both descriptive in nature. The results section shows the main findings of the research but does not interpret its meanings, as the interpretation of outcomes should be done in the discussion section.The latter may be written in isolation or together with the conclusions, and it should restate the key findings with reference to the questions or hypotheses formulated in the introduction, comparing those outcomes with the ones found in the past literature. The conclusion, whether embedded in the discussion section or written separately, should tie the paper together by developing or making reference to some of the points mentioned in the introduction. Not only do RAs need to follow the conventions described by Swales and Swales and Feak, but they should also comply with the conventions established by The American Psychological Association (APA, 2007) as regards academic writing.

However, when examining RAs it is possible to see that sometimes authors do not follow some of the conventions above mentioned. Academic life may pose a challenge to college and university students, and in order to succeed it is necessary to participate actively in reading and writing activities which foster the development of thinking skills. Being able to analyze the structure of RAs and their linguistic characteristics is of utmost importance for student writers to develop such skills and to learn how to write an RA properly.

This paper aims at providing a comparative analysis of the results, discussion and conclusion sections in two research articles, one from the field of education by Wang and Smith (2013) and one from the field of medicine by Devereaux et al. (2014). It is expected that a detailed comparison like this one contributes to broaden students’ knowledge on academic writing and enhances their thinking skills.

In terms of general structure, it might be stated that the education article is a problem-solution text in which a situation was described, a problem was stated, and a solution was proposed, tested and evaluated. The conclusion, in turn, was developed as a persuasive-argumentative text, in which readers are persuaded to agree with the authors’ views. Examples of such persuasion are phrases like “We fully believe that having incentives [...]” or “linking mobile learning to a formal course evaluation may be a crucial step to improving [...]” (Wang & Smith, 2013, p. 129). The medicine article was also designed as a problem-solution text, but the discussion and conclusion section is more tentative: “Observational data have suggested [...]” and “the most effective time to restart aspirin would be [...]” (Devereaux et al., 2014, p. 1502). 

The results section in both articles was isolated from the discussion and its main function is to describe the findings related to the questions or hypotheses presented in the introductions. In the article on medicine, it was divided into four subsections: patients, study outcomes, differences between strata, and bleeding risk, whereas in the article on education, it presented three subsections, each of which displayed the outcomes related to a different research question. In the work by Wang and Smith (2013), the authors included some interpretations of the outcomes of the study in the results section, but the main analysis was performed in the discussion. As regards the use of tables and figures, in the article by Devereaux et al. (2014) they were referenced within the text of the results section, but were presented in the methods or discussion sections, for example. Conversely, the article from the field of education included one table in the results section, and both the reference to the table and its introduction were placed in the corresponding division. 

The discussion section in the article by Wang and Smith (2013) was isolated from the conclusion, which was presented separately. However, in the article by Devereaux et al. (2014), the conclusion was embedded in the discussion, the beginning of which was marked by the use of the phrase In conclusion. In both articles the discussion restated the key outcomes of the research with reference to the initial questions or hypotheses, and it also reminded the reader of the purpose of the studies. 

In their conclusions, all authors summarized their findings, evaluated their results and, in the case of the article related to education, suggested a subsequent course of action. Although the conclusion in the medicine article is considerably shorter compared to that in the education article, in both of them alluded to some of the points mentioned in the introduction, thus tiding the article together. 

The three sections analysed in this paper have been developed according to the text type expected for such sections: problem-solution and persuasive-argumentative. Regarding the use of academic language, it can be observed that hedging and tentative phrases can be found in the article on medicine, whereas the article on education also includes stronger or more emphatic phrases in its conclusion. The use of the signalling phrase In conclusion in the former is, according to Swales and Feak (1994), unnecessary and should therefore be avoided in serious academic writing. Concerning the use of tables and figures, the education article follows all the conventions established by the American Psychological Association (APA, 2007) in terms of organization, spacing, headings, numeration and title content. The article on medicine, on the other hand, follows these rules partially. It can be seen, for instance, that the way the tables have been used in the results section shows some incoherence, as they are cited in the results but are presented in other sections of the paper. This incoherence is rather confusing for the reader. The deviation from the rules as regards the use of tables and figures may be due to the fact that the field of Medicine usually follows the Vancouver system instead of APA.

All in all, both articles respect the conventions that Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak (1994) claim should be followed when writing the results, discussion and conclusion sections of a research article. The article written by Deveraux et al. (2014) deviates slightly from APA’s (2007) rules, possibly due to the fact that it belongs to the field of Medicine, but the education article seems to follow all APA’s conventions rigorously, as can be observed with the organization and structuring of tables and figures. By and large, it could be safely declared that the articles selected for the present analysis are in accordance with academic writing standards.

References

American Psychological Association. (2007). Concise rules of APA style. Washington, DC: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

Devereaux, P.J., Mrkobrada, M., Sessler, D.I., Leslie, K., Alonso-Coello, P., Kurz, A.,… Yusuf, S. (2014). Aspirin in patients undergoing noncardiac surgery. The New England Journal of  Medicine. [e-published ahead of print]. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1401105

Swales, J.M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings (Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Swales, J.M., & Feak, C.B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Ann Harbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Wang, S., & Smith, S. (2013). Reading and grammar learning through mobile phones. Language Learning & Technology, 17(3), 117–134. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/october2013/wangsmith.pdf

Comparative Analysis of Two Research Articles

Research articles (RAs) have their own structure and format, and they are composed of several parts or sections: title, abstract, acknowledgements, introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussions, recommendations, references, and appendixes. Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak (1994) provide academic writers with a description of the structure that RAs should have as well as guidelines about the elements which should be present in each section. Considering the introduction in particular, they claim that it should include three moves or cycles: establishing a research territory, establishing a niche, and occupying the niche. As regards the methods section, they claim that it is usually divided into three subsections: participants, materials, and procedure. However, when examining RAs it is possible to see that sometimes authors do not follow some of those conventions. Being able to analyze the structure of each section in an RA and its linguistic characteristics is crucial for student writers to learn how to write an RA properly. This paper intends to provide a comparative analysis of two research articles, placing the focus on the introduction and methods sections in each piece of work. The elements included in each section have been examined, as well as the way they have been sequenced, in order to identify whether the authors have included the components that should be present in each section, and whether they have respected the order in which those components should be presented in an RA.

In the article “The Effects of Captioning Videos Used for Foreign Language Listening Activities”, Winke, Gass and Sydorenko (2010) present an introduction that  includes the most important elements that according to Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak (1994) an introduction to a research article should have: establishing a research territory, by stating the present state of arts, referring back to what has been done and showing relevance for the study; establishing the niche by indicating the motivations for the study, indicating the gap that has been found in the area, and formulating questions about the situation; and occupying the niche by describing what the present research is about. However, though in most research articles the purpose of the study is usually mentioned in the last move in the introduction, in this case it has been presented at the beginning, with the phrase: “The purpose of this study is to investigate L2 learners’ use of captions while watching videos in a foreign language.” (Winke, Gass &Sydorenko, 2010, p. 65). This introduction seems to be structured in a general-specific movement, going from the purpose statement and a general discussion of the topic to particular questions. Furthermore, despite the fact that some past research is mentioned and some research questions are formulated in the introduction, there is a separate literature summary and research questions section after the introduction. Although the authors seem to have written a quite detailed and complete introduction, other elements could have been provided in the last move, such as a more detailed description of the nature of the research, explaining the reasons for selecting that type of research study, an announcement of main findings, and an indication of the research paper structure.

In the article “ADHD Drugs and Serious Cardiovascular Events in Children and Young Adults”, Cooper et al. (2011) present a very brief introduction which has no heading to identify it.  The introduction should be more complete as it “is the part of the paper that provides readers with the background information for the research reported in the paper. Its purpose is to establish a framework for the research, so that readers can understand how it is related to other research” (Wilkinson, 1991, p. 96, as cited in Pajares, 2007, p. 1). There is no literature review in this article, just some brief references to past research, as it can be observed in this sentence: “Although case reports from adverse event reporting systems can be an important source for identifying medication safety signals, they cannot reliably quantify risk.” (Cooper et. al., 2011, p. 1896) from Canada and the United States that have included cases of sudden death, myocardial infarction, and stroke in conjunction with the use of these drugs have raised concern about their safety” but no author citations are provided, and this is a serious weakness as “the review of the literature provides the background and context for the research problem. It should establish the need for the research and indicate that the writer is knowledgeable about the area” (Wiersma, 1995, p. 406, as cited in Pajares, 2007, p. 3). Furthermore, though three moves can be identified in the introduction to this article (creating a research space, establishing a niche and occupying a niche), other elements could have been included in this introduction too, such as a description of the research structure and the reasons for choosing that type of research.

The methods section in the article written by Winke, Gass and Sydorenko (2010) includes the main elements that Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak (1994) state are usually included in that section: the participants, materials and procedure. However, the methods section in this article also includes supplementary elements, such as a scoring section and an analysis section. Both the sources of data and the collection and analysis of data are included. A table is used to provide specific information related to the participants, and a diagram is used to provide a clear account of the study procedure.

In the article written by Cooper et al. (2011), the methods section is also very detailed and complete, though it has a different layout from the one commonly used in research articles. It includes data sources, the study population, information about the use of study drugs, study end points, a study oversight and a statistical analysis. The information related to the sources of data, collection and analysis of data are included in those sections. Tables are used to provide specific information about the participants, as well as some graphs that clearly show specific data related to the study.

In conclusion, both articles have a quite complete and detailed methods section, and though each one has a different style and layout, both include the main elements that must be present in the methods section of a research paper. However, the introductions are quite different in each article. While the introduction in the article written by Winke, Gass and Sydorenko (2010) is quite complete, including the main information that an introduction to a research paper should have, the article written by Cooper et al. (2011) has a very weak introduction, which is very brief. Though the latter intends to include the main elements that should be present in an introduction and in the right order, the information given is quite scarce, particularly as regards the past research, where neither a literature review nor citations have been included

  

References        

Cooper, W. O., Habel, L.A., Sox, C. M., Chan, K. A., Arbogast, P. G., Cheetham, T. C.,

…Ray, W. A. (2011). DHD Drugs and Serious Cardiovascular Events in Children and Young Adults. New England Journal of Medicine. 365 (20), 1896-1904. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1110212     

Pajares, F. (2007). Elements of a proposal. Emory University. Retrieved from

http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/proposal.html                                      

Swales, J.M. (1990).  Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings.

(Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Swales, J.M., & Feak, C.B. (1994).  Academic writing for graduate students: Essential

tasks and skills. Ann Harbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Wiersma, W. (1995). Research methods in education: An introduction (Sixth

edition). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Wilkinson, A. M. (1991). The scientist’s handbook for writing papers and

dissertations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Winke, P., Gass, S. & Sydorenko, T. (2010) The Effects of Captioning Videos Used for

Foreign Language Listening Activities. Language Learning and Technology Journal. 14 (1), 65–86. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/vol14num1/winkegasssydorenko.pdf    

This blog was created last year with the purpose of sharing my academic pieces of writing from the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) class at Universidad CAECE. This term the aim is to publish my academic papers produced in the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) class at that university. 

Academic Summary of an Article

In her article “Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing”, Tardy (2010) shows how writing an article for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) can help second language (L2) writers acquire academic writing skills. She mentions some of the challenges that students face while learning to write academic papers in English, explains why writing for Wikipedia can be useful in an academic writing class, and describes her approach to introduce academic literacy skills by getting students to participate in a project that involves them in the production of an article for Wikipedia. She also describes the necessary steps to carry out such a project.

Among the challenges that students face when learning to write in academic contexts, Tardy (2010) mentions that students  are required to “conduct research, summarize and paraphrase, cite sources, adopt genre conventions that meet audience expectations,  and  select  words  and grammatical  patterns  that  are  characteristic  of  less  personal  and  more formal genres of writing” (p. 12)

Tardy (2010) claims that Wikipedia is “an excellent forum for students to begin confronting the challenges of academic writing: research, citation of generic conventions, and style” (p. 13). She also explains that familiarizing students with Wikipedia and its publishing requirements also helps L2 students to become more aware of “the credibility and reliability of information” (Tardy, 2010, p.13) that they may find in Wikipedia.

In the project that Tardy (2010) describes, students produce Wikipedia articles with the purpose of publishing them on Wikipedia, thus making those articles visible to a global audience. In order to comply with Wikipedia’s demand that “information be supported by reliable sources” (p. 14) learners need to carry out research on what they want to write about, and while doing so, they will have to find credible sources. As Wikipedia also expects that the information should be “supported by footnotes and general references, which require students to engage in correct citation practices” (Tardy, 2010, p. 14), learners need to learn how to cite sources appropriately.

Tardy (2010) also mentions and explains the necessary steps in the process of composing an article for Wikipedia. These include getting students to examine and understand Wikipedia and its conventions, asking students to get information about the topics they can write about, doing research, getting students to produce an outline for their articles -thus planning what content they are going to include and how to organize it-, writing a draft, peer editing, citing sources according to Wikipedia conventions, proofreading and final editing, and publishing.

In conclusion, Tardy (2010) claims that carrying out a project that involves students in the production and publishing of an article on Wikipedia can help L2 writers acquire the necessary academic literacy skills they need in order to write appropriately in academic contexts. In her article, she explains the reasons why such a project can be useful with L2 writers and the steps that are involved in the process.

 References

Tardy, C. M. (2010).Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to Academic Writing. English Teaching Forum, 1, pp. 12-19, 27

Analysis of In-Text Citations in an Article

This paper intends to run an analysis of the use of in-text-situations in the article “Developing Voice by Composing Haiku: A Social-Expressivist Approach for Teaching Haiku Writing in EFL Contexts”, by Iida (2010). Although Iida seems to have followed some of the requirements of the American Psychological Association (APA) style for academic writing, his article also shows some inconsistencies in the use of in-text citations according to that style.

According to Purdue OWL (2013), direct quotations have to include the author, year of publication and the page number preceded by “p” after the quotation, or if the author and year of publication  have already been mentioned when introducing the quotation, just the page number preceded by “p” after the quotation. But Iida (2010) has not included “p” before page numbers and has sometimes included the page number when introducing the quotation, not after it.

            The Purdue OWL (2013) also suggests using a comma after the author’s last name and before the year of publication, and Ida (2010) has cited authors whose words he has paraphrased by writing their last name and year of publication of their work without using a comma to separate these two pieces of information.

            To conclude, Iida (2010) seems not to have met all the requirements established by the American Psychology Association as regards the use of in-text citations in academic writing.

References

Iida, A. (2010).  Developing Voice by Composing Haiku: A Social-Expressivist Approach for Teaching Haiku Writing in EFL Contexts. English Teaching Forum, Nbr. 1. DOI: EJ914886

Purdue OWL. (2013). APA formatting and style guide. Retrieved September 2013, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/1/