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  • 學位論文

社會科學學術期刊之摘要撰寫規範、內容結構及適讀性分析

An Analysis of the Guidelines, Structures and Readability of the Abstracts for the Social Science Scholarly Journals

指導教授 : 林奇秀

摘要


摘要可有效協助使用者從眾多學術文獻中,篩選出符合需要的資源,一則節省使用者的時間,二則可豐富文章的替代紀錄,提昇檢索系統的查全率和查準率,摘要在學術資源激長的現代更顯得重要。然摘要的品質至少會受到期刊稿約的要求、內容結構、以及適讀性(readability)的影響,因此,學術期刊對摘要做出了何種要求、現行摘要的內容結構為何,以及適讀性表現,便成了值得探討的議題。 本研究選定社會科學領域的期刊為研究對象,以高影響力的TSSCI以及SSCI期刊為研究樣本,先以內容分析法瞭解其稿約內容(TSSCI:84份;SSCI:375份)、摘要內容結構(IMRD)與內容完整性(TSSCI:585份;SSCI:598份),再以適讀性公式檢測摘要內文的適讀性。 首先,在期刊稿約對摘要提供的要求與說明方面,發現:TSSCI期刊對作者提供的寫作引導很少,而SSCI有較多期刊對摘要進行相對深入的要求;TSSCI期刊對英文摘要的字數限制較SSCI寬鬆;結構性摘要的採用情形並不普遍。而再進一步分析各期刊對摘要內容的實質要求時,發現SSCI期刊的要求較為多元而細緻,為作者提供了相對具體的指引。就本節的研究結果,本研究首先建議TSSCI期刊可參考SSCI期刊稿約的內容要求項目,進而仿效、修訂之。其次,本研究亦建議TSSCI期刊可多加採用結構性摘要,一方面提昇內容資訊的揭露程度、減少資訊遺漏的問題,另一方面亦讓作者、編輯有一定的架構可依循。第三,後續研究可繼續深究摘要字數限制與內容完整性,以及符合各學門需求的摘要篇幅長短的問題。 而在摘要內容結構分析方面,普遍而言,I、R的摘寫情形較佳,但M、D則較差,但也有部分學門有M不適用的問題;各學門之間的差異多數達統計上的顯著差異。若以各學門的內容結構資訊豐富程度是否高於整體的平均值觀察,TSSCI摘要整體表現較佳者為社會學和心理學,SSCI則為社會學。另外,本研究另以摘要的內容完整性進行分析,發現TSSCI與SSCI各約只有一成左右的摘要,為內容完整且各部資訊豐富的摘要。相對而言,即使納入結構略次的摘要,仍尚有三到四成的摘要資訊揭露程度不足,可能無法有效協助使用者選擇文獻。有鑑於社會科學領域同時有實徵和非實徵研究,後續相關研究可繼續探討如何精進內容分析的架構,以產出更符合領域現況的編碼框架。 最後,本研究透過適讀性分析工具檢測TSSCI與SSCI摘要的適讀性程度,發現TSSCI中文摘要的適讀年級值為6.34,SSCI英文摘要的Flesch Reading Ease值則為17.12,但同時也凸顯了現有適讀性工具是否適合檢測摘要的問題。未來相關領域的研究者應採用多元的角度檢視摘要的適讀性問題,並納入使用者的觀點與使用習慣,以使摘要更貼近現實情境中的需求。

並列摘要


Abstracts assist in users’ relevance judgment when they face a growing body of scholarly literatures. Abstracts play a key role in the scholarly communication system. Good abstracts save users’ time, serve as the surrogates of the original papers, and may enhance the effectiveness of search. However, the in the age of author-written abstracts, the quality of abstracts is affected by whether appropriate author guides are provided, whether the abstract content is well structured and readable. The aims of this study is to provide a survey of scholarly guidelines and to examine how informative and readable the current abstracts are. This study drew samples from highly influential social science journals. 84 TSSCI and 375 SSCI journals were selected for the author guides analysis. As to the abstract content structure and readability analyses, 585 TSSCI Chinese abstracts and 598 SSCI English abstracts were further drawn from the leading journals of six social sciences areas. The findings show that TSSCI journal guidelines provide less instruction on abstract writing than SSCI journals. Structured abstracts were not widely mandated. Compared with TSSCI’s guidelines, this study found that SSCI’s are more detailed and comprehensive. Based on the finding, this paper suggests that TSSCI journals may consider adopting structured abstracts to make it more informative for users and to provide authors and editors a structure to follow. This study also investigated how informative the author-written abstracts are, using an IMRD (introduction-methodology-results-discussion) content scheme. The finding shows, for most sample abstracts, I (introduction) and R (result) were well represented, while M (method) and D (discussion) were not. Chi-square test showed that the differences between subject disciplines reached statistical significance. In TSSCI, sociology and psychology journals’ abstracts perform better than the average. In SSCI, sociology also performed well above the average. Strictly speaking, in both the TSSCI and SSCI, only a small portion (approximately 10%) of abstracts can be called informative abstracts. Finally, this study examined the readability of TSSCI and SSCI’s abstracts. However, the result pointed out that current available readability tests may not be feasible for abstracts. Researchers of related fields can also examine readability issues of abstracts, and include users’ viewpoints and behaviors to fit real situation.

參考文獻


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