ENTREPRENEURIAL EDUCATION CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS: A RHETORICAL MOVES ANALYSIS OF ABSTRACTS 

 

Harison Mohd Sidek

Associate Prof., Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, MALAYSIA, harison@usim.edu.my  

 

Abstract

The first impression of an academic paper lies in its abstract because it provides the readers with an overview of the quality, relevancy and significance of the paper. Such first overall impression may determine the chances of the full paper being read or simply eliminated; which reader’s decision has an impact on the author’s opportunity either for his work to be cited and disseminated or disregarded. Therefore, it is critically important for academics at higher institutions to be able to present the summary of their works in the most comprehensive, systematic, clear and effective manner; one of the ways is by using the essential rhetorical moves framework as a guideline for abstract writing. The purpose of the present study was to analyze whether or not entrepreneurial educators include essential rhetorical moves in their conference proceedings abstracts using the revised model of Hyland’s (2000) rhetorical moves. In addition, the study also examined the types of rhetorical moves sequence presented in the selected abstracts. Purposive sampling was used for data collection.  Hyland’s (2000) five-moves classification was revised and expanded to include the sixth rhetorical move labeled as Implications of which modification results in a six-moves classification. The six rhetorical moves in the revised model were used as the coding in analyzing the moves structure of the selected abstracts and types of sequence. The data were analyzed using manifest and latent content analyses. The findings reveal that only one abstract satisfies the six rhetorical moves while the other abstract contains only parts of the rhetorical moves with the types of moves sequence being highly varied. The study concludes that while academics do include the essential rhetorical moves when presenting their abstracts, in majority, they are still lacking of awareness in what an abstract should be. The implications of the findings were discussed in terms of awareness-raising amongst academics concerning the importance of producing an abstract that is comprehensive, systematic, clear and effective.

Keywords: Abstract, academics, academic writing, rhetorical moves, conference proceedings