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Abstracts in Medical Science Journals: An Analysis of Subheadings in Structured Abstracts

의학 저널에서 사용되는 구조적 초록의 소표제들에 관한 분석

  • Received : 2016.02.26
  • Accepted : 2016.03.22
  • Published : 2016.03.31

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the current uses of subheadings that appear in medical science journal abstracts and to discuss its potential implications for medical science from the perspectives of library and information science. To conduct this study, the following nine sub-fields in medical science were selected: cancer, ethics, genetics, infectious disease, neurology, pediatrics, immunology, psychiatry, and cardiology. Random sample data were drawn based on the years 2010 to 2015 from the PubMed database. This study investigated the extent of the uses of subheadings, variants of subheadings, and common formation of subheadings with the help of a frequency analysis. The specific findings of this study are summarized as the following: 1) more traditional abstracts are used across almost all sub-fields of medical science; 2) on average, 4.1 subheadings were used in the sample dataset; and 3) the most frequently used set of subheadings is OBJECTIVES, METHODS, RESULTS, and CONCLUSIONS. This subheading set appears to be the de facto standard across all medical science journals. The analysis of subheadings in structured abstracts and the issues raised in this study can be beneficial for journal editors and other academics in medical science as well as library and information science.

본 논문은 의학분야 논문가운데 구조적 초록만을 선별하여 소표제들을 분석함으로서 문헌정보학 관점에서 의학분야의 논문초록양식에 소표제의 의미를 논의하였다. 다양한 의학분야 가운데 암, 윤리, 유전학, 감염성 질환, 신경과, 소아과, 면역학, 정신의학 및 심장학의 9개 세부분야를 선택하였고, PubMed 데이터베이스에서 샘플 데이터로 출판된 논문초록 정보를 추출하였다. 이러한 데이터는 최근 초록인 2010년부터 2015까지 5년 동안 출판된 초록들로 제한하였다. 연구는 추출된 샘플들의 양상과 구조적 형식에서 사용된 소표제들의 변종과 변종의 빈도 수 등을 분석하였다. 요약한 연구결과는 다음과 같다. 1) 대다수의 세부 의학분야에서 출판되는 논문들은 구조적 초록이 아닌 비구조화 초록을 주로 사용하고 있다는 것이 드러났다. 2) 의학분야의 논문에서는 소표제 항목을 평균적으로 4.1을 사용하는 것으로 나타났다. 3) 일반적으로 가장 자주 사용되는 부제는 OBJECTIVES(목적), METHODS(방법), RESULTS(결과), CONCLUSIONS(결론)이였다. 특히 이 연구에서 제기된 문제점들과 보고된 소표제 분석결과가 의료과학 저널 편집자와 의학 및 문헌정보학자들에게 유용한 정보가 될 것이다.

Keywords

References

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