A MOVE STRUCTURE MODEL FOR DENTISTRY RESEARCH ARTICLE ABSTRACTS: A GENRE-BASED STUDY OF VARIATIONS AND SIMILARITIES IN EIGHT DENTISTRY SUBDISCIPLINES

The abstract is one of the most important sections in a research article (RA) because it is the first section researchers read to determine whether it is relevant to their research. The abstract provides an overview or summary of the entire article. In the dentistry discipline, the RA abstract can either be structured using headings or written as a summary. However, subdisciplinary investigations of intradisciplinary (within the same discipline) variations of move structures in dentistry RA abstracts are lacking. This study aimed to investigate the prototypical rhetorical move structure realizations of 119 English RA abstracts in eight dentistry disciplines: Oral Sciences, Periodontics, Restorative Dentistry, Endodontics, Operative Dentistry, Prosthodontics, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and Orthodontics. It also aimed to investigate whether there are any intradisciplinary variations and/or similarities between the eight dentistry subdisciplines in terms of move sequence and length. The findings showed a lack of intradisciplinary variations in the rhetorical four-move structure (Purpose-Method-Result-Conclusion) across the eight dentistry subdisciplines. The Introduction/Background move was not present in all the dentistry subdisciplines; therefore, it is optional in five subdisciplines but conventional in the Oral Sciences, Endodontics, and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery subdisciplines since its occurrence exceeded 60 per cent of investigated RA abstracts of those subdisciplines. The analysis of the move lengths indicated the importance of the Methods and the Results moves in dental research discourse because each move constituted over 25 per cent of text space. The findings revealed the importance of drawing learners’ attention to the research gap when establishing the context for a study. Future studies may employ the proposed move-analysis model for RA abstract analyses in other academic disciplines.