An Analysis of Move Patterns in Abstracts of Social Sciences Research Articles

  • Kim, Eungi (Department of Library and Information Science, Keimyung University)
  • Received : 2014.05.30
  • Accepted : 2014.06.16
  • Published : 2014.06.30

Abstract

A rhetorical segment in traditional abstract displaying a sign of particular function is frequently referred to as a move. One of the most common moves is the Background, Aim, Method, Results, and Conclusion (BAMRC). The objective of this paper is to investigate the move patterns of research article abstracts in the field of social sciences based on BAMRC moves. Using the Scopus bibliographic database, a total of 467 abstracts from 298 research journals in the field of social sciences were analyzed. The result showed a wide range of move patterns. The implication of the result of this study suggests the existing traditional abstracts in social sciences might not be sufficiently "informative" due to missing moves and due to various move orders. To this end, automatically mapping moves in traditional abstracts to sub-headings in structured abstracts can be a more challenging task, requiring additional procedures to resolve these types of compatibility issues. Future studies can compare this study's result to other fields or disciplines within social sciences in order to find a more precise nature of abstracts in the field of social sciences.

문장이나 문단 내에서 특정 기능을 하는 표현을 이동마디라고 하며, 여러 이동마디는 논문의 초록에서 쉽게 발견된다. 대부분의 이동마디는 보편적으로 배경-목표-방법-결과-결론(이하 BAMRC)의 순서로 많이 사용한다. 이 논문은 이러한 BAMRC 이동마디에 기초하여 사회과학분야의 논문 초록 중에서 나타나는 일정한 패턴을 분석 하여 연구한 것이다. 기존 연구와 달리 이 연구에 사용된 데이터베이스는 Scopus로 사회과학분야의 학술지 298개에서 467편의 초록을 샘플로 삼아 막대한 데이터를 사용하였다. 분석결과 이동마디가 넓은 범위에서 패턴을 나타내므로 결국 논문 초록에서 논문에 대한 정보를 얻는데 한계가 있는 것을 알 수 있다. 이 연구 결과, 기존에 있는 전통적인 사회과학 논문초록은 결국 이동마디가 없거나 다양한 이동마디의 패턴이 있어, 결국 논문초록 내에서 충분한 정보가 제공되지 않는다는 것을 보여준다. 따라서 기존 서술형식의 초록에 있는 이동마디들을 일정 양식을 따르는 초록으로 자동적으로 옮기는 것은 적합하지 않는 방법이며, 이러한 작업은 확인 절차를 밟을 것이 요구되므로 어려운 작업일 수 밖에 없다. 이 연구 결과를 토대로 추후에 진행되는 연구에서는 사회과학분야 논문 초록의 본질을 보다 구체적이고 정확하게 알아내기 위하여 사회과학 외의 다른 분야와도 비교하는 것이 도움이 될 것이다.

Keywords

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