A comparative analysis of lexico-grammatical features of moves in the research abstracts of students in a Ghanaian University

Abstract

Writing a high-quality research abstract is challenging for undergraduatestudents who use English as a Second Language at the University of Healthand Allied Sciences in Ho, Ghana. This paper compares the lexico-grammatical features in 150 research abstracts written by undergraduateMedical, Nursing, and allied Health students of UHAS. The data wasmanually coded and presented as frequency counts and percentages in tablesand a figure. The study found high usage of simple present, simple past,perfect tenses, hedges, boosters, and nominalization in research abstractswritten by undergraduate students of UHAS. The present tense dominatesintroduction moves, while simple past tense dominates method and productmoves. The findings revealed that hedges, boosters, are nominalizationdominate introductory, product, and conclusion moves of the researchabstracts. It is recommended that Ghanaian universities, including UHASteach students the effective writing of research abstracts, and morespecifically discipline-specific writing of research abstracts.