Writing business research article abstracts: A genre approach

A great deal has been published about oral and written genres in business (e.g., letters, research articles, oral presentations, etc.), and less attention has been paid to business research article abstracts as a written genre, as many experts would argue. This research intends to raise rhetorical awareness about the role of abstracts in today’s academic world. To this effect, the abstracts of two official publications of the Association of Business Communication, Journal of Business Communication and Business Communication Quarterly, have been analyzed and compared in terms of structure and content according to models published in the specialized literature. The results show an irregular and inconsistent presentation of abstracts, a good number of them following no set pattern and thus lacking in important information for researchers. These findings suggest, first of all, that abstracts have a specific mission to fulfil and should not be disregarded; and, secondly, that journal guidelines for authors should be more explicit in their instructions on how to write and structure abstracts.