Rhetorical patterns in abstracts of undergraduate students in a public university in Ghana

Abstract

This study investigated project abstracts of undergraduate students across three faculties in a public university in Ghana. This study set out to examine two research questions: What rhetorical patterns can be identified in undergraduate students’ abstracts? What functions do these rhetorical patterns perform within the abstracts? This study was qualitative, and the research design was a case study. A total of 20 were randomly sampled from the Faculty of Computing and Information Systems (FoCIS), the Faculty of Engineering (FoE), and the Business School (BS). However, only 18 abstracts were included in this study, as two of the projects did not have an abstract. The research instruments were the students’ abstracts and focus group interviews. The framework we adopted for an in-depth analysis of the rhetorical patterns in the abstracts was Hyland’s five move patterns. The product of this study indicated that the students applied different rhetorical patterns in the abstracts. The participants’ most significant rhetorical moves and choices were manifested in the sequencing and placement of these moves within the rhetorical patterns. The responses from the participants on the functions of abstracts in research were positive. The researchers concluded that there should be rules and conventions in writing abstracts across the disciplines and the writing of abstracts should be guided by a framework and carefully supervised to enhance the students’ writing skills.