Abstract
An abstract is a concise summary of your entire paper or summary. Depending on the outlet you may have between 150 and 300 words to convey the findings of your entire study. This means that you have very little space to give a brief description of your work to both summarize (but an abstract is not just a summary) what you did and entice potential readers into reading further. In fact, with paywalls, many readers may only read your abstract in order to get an idea of what the paper is about (although the abstract is no substitute for the paper itself). Even before a publication is published the abstract may be used as a screening device. Abstracts allow readers who may be interested in a longer work to quickly decide whether it is worth their time to read it. However, an abstract is no substitute for a paper itself, look no further than a recent study found that while the most likely read part of the paper is the abstract, a high proportion of abstracts are deficient in their reporting of the findings. Lastly, many online databases use abstracts to index larger works. Therefore, abstracts should contain keywords and phrases that allow for easy searching.
With the limited space that you have, you should look to do a number of things in your abstract:
Motivation
What is the background of the research area and why is what you’re doing interesting? If the work builds on previous work, state that here. This part of the abstract should showcase the importance of the work and the impact that the work/paper will have.
Question/Problem
What is the question that you’re asking or the problem that you’re addressing? Your question or problem should be stated in as simple of language as possible.
Approach/Methods
What methods did you use? In areas where a problem could be approached with a number of techniques, you want to make sure that people know what you’re using. Are techniques, products or apparati things that everyone uses or are they unique/particular to your lab? This part is particularly important for the indexing aspect of abstracts. If I have a particular technique that I use in my research or that I want to use, I want to find papers to read how they use it.
Results
What are the answers to your question? Here you’ll include the findings to some of the most interesting/important questions that you asked. Not everything should be included here, but readers will want to know the answer to the question and how strong your answer is.
Conclusions
Finally, you want to place your results in a broader literature. What are the implications of the findings? Are the results generalizable or specific to the your technique or population? Are they surprising or expected?
The format of your abstract will depend on the venue that it is being published. Some conferences/journals require a structured abstract where they give you the specific sections, while most conferences/journals allow for unstructured abstracts. Although they are described as unstructured, they should follow the structure listed above.
Things to consider
Some journals will require specific search terms (keywords) that are separate from the abstract. If the journal doesn’t require search terms, write them down anyways and include them in the abstract. Further, some will require brief phrases, similar to the keywords, write them down anyway and think about how to include them in the abstract.
Think about the context of the outlet - Will the journal or presentation be very focused and limited or will it be broader? For a limited audience you can include a little bit more jargon since your readership should be quite specialized. For broader audiences you’ll want to appeal to the masses and look to hook people with broader interests in your work.
Guides
How to write a good abstract for a scientific paper or conference presentation
How to Write a Research Abstract
The University of Adelaide Writing Center
References and Further Reading
Andrade, C. (2011). How to write a good abstract for a scientific paper or conference presentation. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 52(2), 172-175.
Purdue OWL Writing Center. (2007). Writing scientific abstracts. [ppt]. Retrieved from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/media/ppt/20071026015924_706.ppt
UNC Writing Center. Abstracts. Retrieved from http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/abstracts/
Carroll, L. How to write an abstract: Tips and samples. Retrieved from http://hsp.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/HOW%20TO%20WRITE%20AN%20ABSTRACT.pdf
How to write a research abstract. Retrieved from http://www.uky.edu/academy/sites/www.uky.edu.academy/files/How%20to%20Write%20Research%20Abstract.pdf
UNLV writing center (2008). How to write an abstract/prospectus. Retrieved from http://writingcenter.unlv.edu/writing/abstract.html
UW-Madison writing center. Abstracts: Examples. Retrieved from https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/presentations_abstracts_examples.html
The University of Adelaide writing center. Writing an abstract. Retrieved from https://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/learning_guides/learningGuide_writingAnAbstract.pdf
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