A Comparative Analysis of English Abstracts and Summaries of Chinese Research Articles Indexed by the Taiwan Social Science Citation Index: Arts Education, Sports & Exercise, and Management Journals as Examples

Abstract

In addition to English abstracts, several journal publishers in Taiwan provide English summaries (or extended abstracts) along with Chinese research articles. English summary is a unique research genre emerged in response to foreign readers’ needs for Taiwanese scholarship. It resolves the problems caused by the inadequacy of English abstracts and the difficulties in translating full research articles into English. This study took the initiative to analyze and compare English abstracts and summaries to understand their structural and compositional differences. English abstracts and summaries provided by three of the six journals indexed by the Taiwan Social Science Citation Index (TSSCI) in 2016 and 2017 were content analyzed. These include: Research in Arts and Education (RAE), Sports & Exercise Research (SER), and NTU Management Review (NTU MR). Disciplinary differences were reflected in the structure and composition of abstracts and summaries. RAE authors wrote unstructured summaries unanimously. SER enforced the structured approach strictly. SER abstracts and summaries exhibited consistent IMRC structure. RAE and SER authors focused on reporting their studies and provided practical suggestions in summaries. NTU MR authors elaborated the contributions their studies made, limitations, and future research directions in summaries. The IMRAD/IMRD structure was decomposed and combined with the sections outlined in the NTU MR guideline.

Keywords

• genre analysis
• english abstracts
• english summaries
• extended abstracts
• scholarly communication