A great deal has been published about oral and written genres in business (e.g.,
letters, research articles, oral presentations, etc.), and less attention has been paid
to business research article abstracts as a written genre, as many experts would
argue. This research intends to raise rhetorical awareness about the role of
abstracts in today’s academic world. To this effect, the abstracts of two official
publications of the Association of Business Communication, Journal of Business
Communication and Business Communication Quarterly, have been analyzed and
compared in terms of structure and content according to models published in
the specialized literature. The results show an irregular and inconsistent
presentation of abstracts, a good number of them following no set pattern and
thus lacking in important information for researchers. These findings suggest,
first of all, that abstracts have a specific mission to fulfil and should not be
disregarded; and, secondly, that journal guidelines for authors should be more
explicit in their instructions on how to write and structure abstracts.