An abstract is a stand-alone statement that briefly conveys the essential information of a paper, article, document or book; it presents the objective, methods, results, and conclusions of a study. The style of an abstract is concise and non-repetitive.
Often abstracts from papers are published alone in abstract journals or in on-line databases. Thus, an abstract might serve as the only means by which a researcher finds out the information in a paper. Moreover, a researcher might decide whether to read the paper or not based on the abstract alone. Because of this need for self-contained compactness, an abstract must convey the essential results of a paper.
Many publications have a specific style required for abstracts, for example, whether to use the present or past tense. This document describes general guidelines. For specifics, look for samples in journals from the field in which you are writing.
Qualities of a Good Abstract
In doing any research, a researcher has an objective, uses methods, obtains results, and draws conclusions. In writing the paper to describe the research, an author might discuss background information, a literature review, a technical report or proposal, and detailed procedures and methodologies. However, an abstract of the paper:
- uses one or more well-developed paragraphs, which are unified, coherent, concise, and able to stand alone;
- uses an introduction-body-conclusion structure in which the parts of the essay/report are discussed in order: objective, methods, findings, conclusions, and possibly a set of recommendations;
- provides logical connections between material included;
- should not contain background information, a literature review, or detailed description of methods;
- does not usually have references to other literatures (if absolutely necessary, use a full citation);
- adds no new information but simply summarizes the report; and
- is intelligible to a wide audience.
The Style of an Abstract
The style of an abstract should be concise and clear. Readers do not expect the abstract to have the same sentence flow as a paper. Rather, the abstract's wording should be direct. To achieve this, you should:
- avoid repetitions;
- generally use the past tense.
Two Types of Abstracts: Informational and Descriptive
Informational Abstracts
- communicate contents of reports;
- include purpose, methods, scope, results, conclusions, and recommendations;
- highlight essential points;
- are short—from a paragraph to a page or two, depending upon the length of the essay or report (10% or less of the essay or report); and
- allow readers to decide whether they want to read the essay or report.
- tell what the report contains;
- include purpose, methods, scope, but NOT results, conclusions, and recommendations;
- are always short-- usually under 100 words; and
- introduce a subject to readers, who must then read the report to learn study results.
Writing an Abstract
The process of writing an abstract involves boiling down a whole paper into one paragraph that conveys as much new information as possible. One good way of writing an abstract is to start with a draft of the complete paper and do the following:
Highlight the objective and the conclusions that are in the introduction and the discussion parts of the paper.- In the methods section of the paper, bracket sentences that contain key information.
- Highlight the results from the discussion or results section of the paper.
- Compile the above highlighted and bracketed information into a single paragraph.
- Condense the bracketed information into key words and phrases that identify—but do not explain—the methods used.
- Delete extraneous words and phrases.
- Delete any background information.
- Rephrase the first sentence so that it starts off with the new information contained in the paper rather than the general topic. One way of doing this is to start off the first sentence with the phrase "this paper" or "this study."
- Be sure that the abstract conveys the essential information and has a terse style.
ශිල්ප 64