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Mainly from an interpretive standpoint corresponding with current discourse studies, this paper describes and analyzes using micro-sociolinguistic movement analysis techniques, two databases of Venezuelan education conference abstracts. The corpus, consisting of 273 abstracts from the two most important research events in this country, spans approximately twelve years (1990-2002). Depuration of abstracts representing both research projects and studies in process was conducted, leaving only those referring to completed research. According to the discourse movement analysis made, the most salient findings are: the most frequent type of abstract is one that shows only the introduction (I) movement. Also, about four out of ten abstracts do not evidence the methodology (M) movement. Additionally, less than half of the abstracts are structured using either three or four of the internationally recommended structures. Despite a slight improvement in abstract structuring along the first part of the time span (1990-1993 and 1994-1998), such improvement is lost in the third moment (1998-2002). As a conclusion, it can be said that these findings may have not only linguistic implications, but also epistemological and practical ones as well. In this sense, application of principles and techniques of discourse analysis in order to improve scientific communication in this regard is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]