Writing an Effective Abstract

By: Dr. Anastasios Karamanos

What is an abstract

An abstract is a self-contained, short, and powerful statement whereby the writer presents and explains all the main arguments and the important results and evidence of the complete work (an article/paper/book).

What is the purpose of an abstract?

Abstracts allow readers who may be interested in a longer work to quickly decide whether it is worth their time to read it. Also, many online databases use abstracts to index larger works.

How should I write an abstract?

Writing an efficient abstract is hard work, but will repay you with increased impact on the world by enticing people to read your publications. Make sure that all the components of a good abstract are included in the next one you write.

• Motivation:
  Why do we care about the problem and the results? If the problem isn't obviously "interesting" it might be better to put motivation first; but if your work is incremental progress on a problem that is widely recognized as important, then it is probably better to put the problem statement first to indicate which piece of the larger problem you are breaking off to work on. This section should include the importance of your work, the difficulty of the area, and the impact it might have if successful.
• Problem statement:
  What problem are you trying to solve? What is the scope of your work (a generalized approach, or for a specific situation)? What is the main argument/thesis/claim?
• Approach:
  An abstract of research work may include methodological approaches used in the larger study. How did you go about solving or making progress on the problem? Did you use simulation, analytic models, or analysis of field data. Abstracts may also describe the types of evidence used in the research.? What important variables did you control, ignore, or measure?
• Results:
  What's the answer? Put the result there. Avoid vague results, using words like such as "very", "small", or "significant." You should not provide numbers that can be easily misinterpreted.
• Conclusions:
  What are the implications of your answer? What changes should be implemented as a result of the findings of the work? Is it going to change the world (unlikely), be a significant "win", be a nice hack, or simply serve as a road sign indicating that this path is a waste of time (all of the previous results are useful). Are your results general, potentially generalisable, or specific to a particular case? How does this work add to the body of knowledge on the topic?

Other Considerations

• Use language that is understandable to a wide audience.
• Sometiemes abstracts uses passive verbs to downplay the author and emphasize the information. Check with your teacher if you're unsure whether or not to use passive voice.
• Do not refer extensively to other works.
• Do not add information not contained in the original work.
• Do not define terms.
• Meet the word count limitation.. An abstract word limit of 150 to 500 words is common. Ask the professor for a word limit.
• Any major restrictions or limitations on the results should be stated, using words such as "might", "could", "may", and "seem".
• Publications usually request "keywords". Think of a half-dozen search phrases and keywords that people looking for your work might use. Be sure that those exact phrases appear in your abstract, so that they will turn up at the top of a search result listing.

What to do next

Cut and paste: To create a first draft of an abstract of your own work, you can read through the entire paper and cut and paste sentences that capture key passages. This technique is useful for social science research with findings that cannot be encapsulated by neat numbers or concrete results. Isolate these sentences in a separate document and work on revising them into a unified paragraph.

References

Cremmins, E.T. (1996) The Art of Abstracting, Info Resources Press, MA.

Lancaster, F.W. (2003) Indexing and Abstracting in Theory and Practice, Facet, London.

Wilkinson, A.M. (1991) The Scientist's Handbook for Writing Papers and Dissertations.  Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall.