This study examines master of art (MA) theses abstracts written in English in terms of their texual structures. In order to design a comparative study, abstracts are collected from universities (i) with a guideline in Turkey (ii) without a guideline in Turkey and (iii) with a guideline in the USA. 94 abstracts, randomly selected from these three groups of universities, are analyzed according to a content criteria list
developed on the basis of Swales (1981, 1990, 2004), and Hyland&rsquo / s (2000) textual structure models and content instructions provided in thesis writing guidelines. The
analysis of data is accomplished using MS Excel 2010 ve SPSS 16.0. The comparison between abstracts written at universities with and without a guideline in
Turkey revealed a significant difference in terms of methodology and statement of the problem. Also, with regards to the order of the rhetorical elements
(Introduction+Methodology+Results+Conclusion), universities with a guideline in Turkey displayed more consistency than the universities without a guideline. As for the comparison between the universities with a guideline in Turkey and the USA, the results showed that there is a significant difference between the two abstract sets in terms of their methodology, results, and conclusion parts. Besides, the texual pattern
analysis showed that abstracts collected from universities with a guideline in Turkey follow a more consistent order than their counterparts in the USA. The results of the thesis have pedagogical implicatons for students, teachers, academics who prepare thesis writing guidelines, and researchers who want to make publications internationally.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12614008/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 February 2012 |
| Creators | Ulker Eser, Meltem |
| Contributors | Sagin Simsek, Sultan Cigdem |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.A. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | Access forbidden for 1 year |
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