This study analyzed the textual structure of 30 thesis abstracts in Applied Linguistics by combining the corpus-based and genre-based approaches. It was found that the most typical schema comprises five moves: "Introduction-Purpose-Methodology-Product- Conclusion". It has also been found that there exist some problems in the structure and contents of students' works, including the lack of important move, imbalanced move distribution, overuse of sub-moves and the lack of conciseness. On the basis of these findings, some suggestions for abstract writing instruction are proposed.