Comparing the syntactic complexity of plain language summaries and abstracts: A case study of marine science academic writing

Plain Language Summary (PLS) has been increasingly required for manuscript submission by leading academic journals across various disciplines. While Abstract is an important academic genre for communication with fellow researchers, PLS targets the general public with limited disciplinary knowledge. Few studies to date have explored the linguistic differences between PLSs and Abstracts. Addressing this issue, however, is important for understanding how scholars adapt their language choices for different audiences and for providing guidance and affordance for the PLS writing practice. Drawing on a parallel corpus of Abstracts and PLSs of Marine Science research articles, this study investigates the variations in syntactic complexity between PLSs and Abstracts. Our results demonstrate that Abstracts utilize longer production units and more complex nominals than PLSs, while PLSs employ more subordinate clauses and nominal subjects per clause than Abstracts. Implications for PLS writing practice and pedagogy are discussed.