Abstract Writing

 Definition, types and styles of abstract

 Features of good abstract.
 Practice
What is an abstract?
• A concise summary of a research paper or thesis.

• Completely self-contained and makes sense itself, without reference to the external sources or
to the actual paper.

• Approximately 250 words in length

• Placed at the beginning of the paper

• It is the last thing that one should write.

Why write an abstract?

• Abstracts are important for

• Selection purpose

• Indexing Purpose

When do we write an abstract?

 • Submission of articles to journals.
• Application for research grants.
• Completion and submission of thesis.
• Submission of Proposals for conference papers

What to include – depending on the length

• Your research question
• Your main purpose
• The importance of your research
• A description of key previous research (optional)
• The gap you are addressing
• The approach/methodology you adopted (depending on the focus of your research)
• Your key findings
• The implications of your research

Questions to ask
 When working out what to include in your Abstract, it is helpful to ask the following
questions.
 What is the problem or question that my dissertation addresses?
 Why is it important?
 What have others written on the topic?
 How did I carry out the investigation?
 What did I find?
 What are the implications of my findings?

An alternative set of questions

Some might find this set of questions more useful.
 Why did I do my research? What was interesting/useful about my project?
 What was my methodology?
 What were my main findings/results?
  What were my principal conclusions?
 What do my findings mean?

Methods/apparatus focus
 If your dissertation is about a new method or apparatus, you will want to include:
 the advantages (of the method or apparatus)
 how well it works

Variations on the theme

 Abstracts written for the social sciences or sciences tend to focus on:
 the scope
 purpose
 results of the work
 Abstracts written for the arts tend to include:
 background to the study
 central thesis
  conclusions drawn

Conference abstract – a different type of abstract

 A conference abstract is submitted to a conference review committee.

 The purpose of the abstract is to convince the committee to accept your paper.

 If it is accepted, you will need to write a paper to correspond to your abstract.

o A conference provides you with an audience for your paper and an opportunity to
get
o feedback on your research
 Give a general idea of what the research is about.

 Introduce your research question.

 State why the research is important.

 Review the arguments of previous researchers ( two sentences).

 Indicate a gap or limitation in previous research.

 Report your findings.

 Mention the implications of your findings for the field of research.

The language of Abstracts – guidelines

 Use the past tense to refer to what was done and what was found at each stage of
the research.
 Use the present tense to comment on the significance of your research/findings.
 Use active verbs whenever possible, e.g. ‘the study tested’ instead of ‘it was tested by
the study’.
 Use non-evaluative language - report not comment on what you have done.

Qualities of a good abstract

• Uses well developed paragraphs.
• Structured into introduction-body –conclusion
• Introduction consists of Purpose
 • Body comprises of findings of the research
• Conclusion is based on recommendations
• Follows the chronology of the report strictly
• Provides logical connections between material included
• No new information is added
• Summarizes the report or research
• It intelligible to wide audience.

 Length : Not more than 300 words

What not to include?
 Definitions
 Citations
 Acronyms, abbreviations or symbols
 Information that is not in the paper
:
Keywords:
 Spend time thinking about appropriate keys words to put at the end of your Abstract.
 Appropriate key words help
 indexers
 researchers working in your area to find your work

Structure of Abstract:

Types of abstracts
Informative: It gives an overview of the research. Informative abstracts are like a
condensed version of your paper, giving an overview of everything in your research including
 the results. These are much longer than descriptive abstracts, and can be anywhere from a
single paragraph to a whole page long..

Descriptive: It explains the purpose, goal. and methods of research but leave out the results
section. Word limit is 100 to 200.

 The basic information included in both styles of abstract are the same, with the main
difference being that the results are only included in an informative abstract, and an
informative abstract is much longer than a descriptive one.

Critical Abstract: It critically discusses the work according to writer’s own research. A critical
abstract accomplishes the same goals as the other types of abstract, but will also relate the study
or work being discussed to the writer’s own research. It may critique the research design or
methods.

Steps for writing effective abstracts.

• Re read the report of research carefully with the purpose of abstracting in mind.
• Identify the main parts.- purpose, methods, scope, results, conclusions, and
recommendations.
• Write a rough draft considering the main parts discussed above.
• Revise the rough draft to
• Correct weakness in organization and coherence
• Drop any superfluous information
• Add important information if left out.
• Eliminate wordiness.
• Rectify grammar and mechanics errors.
• Carefully proof read before finalizing