Principles and

Concepts of
Abstracting
Commonly abstracted materials:

1. Books/monographs
2. Journal articles
3. Newspaper articles
4. Technical reports
5. Theses/dissertation
6. Patents and specifications
7. Conference proceedings/meetings
8. Reviews
 Factors in deciding which materials should have
abstracts:

1. Economic constraints – cost in terms of time and production

2. Significant materials – significant portions or areas in the
papers critical to the concerns of the would-be readers.
Notes, communications, and letter to the editor may have
minimal significance.
3. Publication source – items from disreputable or unknown
publishers may be ignored, whereas items from respected
publishers would always be abstracted
4. Subject interest of the user – some things will clearly be of
interest, others clearly not, and some items will be of
marginal interest.
Citation Formats in Abstract:
Some of the standards that provide for the formats of citations in
abstracts:

•ISO 690-1987 Bibliographic references- content, form, and

structure
•ISO/CD 690-1987 Content, form and structure
•ISO 690-2 : 1987 – Bibliographic references – Part 2: Electronic
document or parts thereof
 For monographs / books For journal articles

Surname/s of author/s, Forename/s Surname/s of author/s, Forename/s

Title of publication (underlined/italics/upper case) Title of article
Edition number Titles of journal (underline/italics)
Place of publication Volume number
Publisher Issue number in parentheses
Year of publication Inclusive pages
Total number of pages Date of publication of journal
Example: Example:
Cleveland, D.B. and Cleveland, A.D. Introduction to Indexing and Abstracting. Hutchins, W.J. The concept of “aboutness” in subject indexing. Aslib
3rd ed. Englewood, Colorado : Libraries Unlimited, 2001. 283 p. Proceedings 30(5):172-181.
 Parts of an Abstract:

Three (3) major parts of the Abstract:

• The bibliographic reference portion
• The abstract proper or the body
• The signature
1. The bibliographic reference portion - directs
the customer to the original document.

Significant parts of the reference portion of the

abstract are:
1. Document identification number – the number serves to
identify the particular abstract within the abstracting
periodical for easy retrieval.
2. Author (S)
3. Author Affiliation
4. Title of the document
5. Source of the document; volume and issue number, date of
publication, and specific pages
6. Original language (other than English)
1. The body of an abstract- it contains complete
idea or the basic content of the original document. It
is the portion where the customer is given a complete
idea of the basic content of the original document to
help him/her assess the feasibility of going through it.

To achieve the desired degree of brevity, many partsof

the document are omitted, and these are:
1. History
2. Introduction
3. Old information
4. Summaries
5. Details of procedures
The abstract proper contains the following parts:

1. Purpose – (10%)
2. Methodology – (15%)
3. Results and conclusion – (75%)
3. Signature- identifies the abstractor to give
him/her credit, and place responsibility upon
him/her, and also to indicate authority.

Signature may be full names or initials only.

Full names are written as means of positively
identifying the abstractor and also means of
rewarding him/her
 Content of Abstracts:
1. Purpose: these are the aims, objectives, or goal of the work reported in the abstracted document
2. Scope: the exact boundary or extension of the subject dealt with in the document
3. Method: the methodology or technique adopted for the experiment or research work reported in the
document
4. Data: the data or information collected during the experiment or research
5. Results: the findings of the experiment/research reported by the author
6. Conclusions: the conclusions drawn or interpretation of the findings
7. Specialized information: any special information that may be of importance in a particular field,
example, the details of dose and sample in a medical experiment
8. Collateral information- the information, which are incidental to the main objective of the study but of
importance to other fields, such as any new instrument designed or a new compound found
9. Additional information- information about tables, charts, diagram, references, etc. included in the
document
Style of Abstracting:
Writing an abstract gives foremost consideration on the need to be concise. The
following points may serve as a guide:
1. Write in fluent, easy-to-read prose and strive for simplicity and general
understandability.
2. Be exact, concise, and ambiguous. Avoid general statements where you can be
specific.
3. Condense but, as a general rule, do not personally interpret author’s remark.
4. Be consistent in tone and emphasis while the document is being abstracted.
5. Use short sentences, but with some variety in length and structure to avoid
monotony.
Style of Abstracting:
6. Use complete sentences and constructions, except when supplying the last bits
of descriptive information, e.g.”12 ref.”
7. Place the general statements, where needed, towards the end of the abstract.
8. Use active-voice verbs instead of passive ones. “A exceeds B” makes better
reading than “B is exceeded by A”
9. The noun form of verbs makes dull reading. “Separating Church from State”
reads better in an abstract than “the separation of church and state”.
10. Use the past tense to describe the specific activities that the author is
reporting, since these are already in the past. However, the conclusion that he
draws from these activities are facts and therefore prevail in the present;
accordingly they should be written in present tense.
Style of Abstracting:
11. Use short, simple, concrete, familiar words.
12. Try to avoid trade jargons and colloquialisms.
13. Avoid overusing and awkward omission of articles.
14. Use well known abbreviations and symbols in the field
15. Do use abbreviations commonly understood or easy intelligible.
for example : kg., km., ft., cm. etc.
16. Do not include history and background
17. Abbreviations and symbols to be used should be defined the first time they
occur in the abstract. For example, less develop country (LDC).
Style of Abstracting:
18. Since brevity is the essence of abstracting, verbosity and redundancy should be
avoided.

19. Additional information such as tables, figures, references, illustrations, charts,

and graphs should be included at the end of the abstract proper and enclosed
in parenthesis.
• Example: (4 tables; 6 figs.; 8 charts; 5 photos; 6 graphs)

20. When using abbreviations for units in combination with a number, write the
number as a numeral, e.g. 3 ft.; 150 yd.
Length of an Abstract:

Document Length

Articles, monographs 250 words

Notes. Short communications 100 words

Editorials, letters to editors 30 words

Theses and dissertations 300 word

Length of an Abstract:

Abstract of World Medicine (UK) – 500 words for informative abstracts

Documentation Abstracts (UK) – maximum of 250 words
Indian Science Abstract – 50 words for indicative abstracts
Horticultural Abstracts (UK) – does not exceed 19 words for indicative
abstracts
Biological Abstracts – 3% of the original document
Length of an Abstract:

Abstract of World Medicine (UK) – 500 words for informative abstracts

Documentation Abstracts (UK) – maximum of 250 words
Indian Science Abstract – 50 words for indicative abstracts
Horticultural Abstracts (UK) – does not exceed 19 words for indicative
abstracts
Biological Abstracts – 3% of the original document
Approximate Proportion of Parts of an
Abstract:

Parts of the abstract Approximate Proportion

Motivation (Purpose) 3%
Problem statement 7%
Methodology 15%
Results (Discussion) 70%
Conclusion/Recommendations 5%
TOTAL 100%