Patterns of academic article abstracts in Turkey: An interdisciplinary analysis

This research aims to make an interdisciplinary analysis on the structural patterns of Turkish abstracts. For this purpose, 246 journals published in social and human sciences, engineering and basic sciences, life sciences, medicine and law databases derived from TUBITAK National Database were selected as corpus. Descriptive method and stratified sampling method were used in the study. At the end of the analysis, the purpose and background moves were frequently; but the method, findings and conclusion moves were found to be relatively less frequent. The background move was compulsory in the field of law; but traditional or optional in other databases. Also the method move was traditional only in the fields of life sciences, engineering and basic sciences. The findings and conclusion moves were traditional in the life sciences; but optionel in other databases. The purpose move was traditional in all databases. A statistically significant relationship was found between the databases and whether or not the background, method, findings and the conclusion were included. On the other hand, no statistically significant relationship was found between the databases and whether or not the purpose move was included. The most common move sequences were background =>purpose and background only. Although it is seen that an awareness has begun to emerge in the fields of life sciences and, to a certain extent, engineering and basic sciences, it has been evaluated that the abstracts are still far from the desired competence in other databases. The development of abstract writing strategies will pave the way for the realization of more fundamental scientific activities; on the other hand, it is thought that it will develop all professional and academic fields related to scientific activities, especially knowledge management.