Introduction to Abstract
Introduction to Abstract

Definition:

“Forming a general concept from consideration of particular instances’ and ‘theoretical summary” [5], which means concentrating on ideas instead of events. An abstract in a Research Paper or Thesis is the summarized version of the whole document which describes the major points, methodology and findings of the writing [2].

Types of Abstract:

There are four types of Abstracts.

  • An informative abstract follows the same structure as the whole paper is written. This type is useful for describing experimental work and documents considering a single theme.
  • The indicative abstract type on the other hand is useful when the document is not confined to a single theme but rather consists of review papers, lengthy texts and entire monographs [3].
  • Both informative and indicative types can be combined when there is no such restriction on the length, structure and style.
  • The critical Abstract provides information about the strengths and weaknesses of the study.
  • Highlight abstract is used in conferences and workshops and it provides information about the happenings of the conference.

Content of Abstract:

The contents of the abstract can vary discipline-wise but every abstract usually contains four main parts of information [4].

  • It should contain the Objective or Purpose of the writing.
  • It should mention the Methodology used in the writing to obtain the results.
  • It should describe the Results of the project (if the project is not yet completed then indicate the intended results)
  • It should outline the conclusions [4].

An abstract is usually the only part of any paper freely available via electronic search engines and is read by many people. It is crucial, as a reader who is seeking new knowledge to grasp the information quickly from the most important results and conclusions obtained from a research paper, thesis or project; therefore, it is of utmost need to sum up the paper in a few hundred words [1].

Objective / Purpose:

  • This part answers the questions like “What is the problem or main issue? Why did you want to do this research/project in the first place?” [4]. In other words, the scope and reason for writing the research paper.
  • Some authors write hypotheses in this section while some leave it to the conclusion section. It contains little background of the existing system and problems in the existing system and your objectives in two or three lines.

Methodology:

  • This section answers the questions like “What did you do? And how did you do it” [4].
  • In this section, we mention how we solve some particular problem or how we get to the solution of some particular problem and briefly state our new proposed approach.

Results:

  • This section answers the questions like “What did you find? [4].
  • This section describes the outcome of experimental and theoretical work concisely [3].
  • One important aspect to consider here is whether the result/outcome is derived from a single observation or consists of too many repeated measurements. If it consists of too many findings then we have to adopt some structural procedure so that the results can be described in this section of an [3].

Conclusion:

  • This section answers the questions like “What did you learn?”.
  • It is also called a Research Paper / Thesis statement or “statement of the project implications.” [4].
  • It tells the reader that the paper is interesting and worth reading.

Keyword Selection:

To make your abstract visible and help your readers to find your article and abstract in the sea of knowledge you have to select a keyword that represents your article. Here are some tips:

  • Don’t overuse your keywords.
  • You can find particular keywords from famous paid tools and also online databases.
  • Well focus keywords represent your eye for detail and that increases your impact factor.

Presentation and Style of Abstract:

This section covers some presentation appearance techniques of abstract, how its structural style and location should look like. Two main factors should be kept in mind while writing an abstract [3].

  • Location of the Abstract
  • Completeness, Length of the Abstract and Style

Location of the Abstract:

  • The location of the abstract varies depending on the type of paper publishers (IEEE, Springer, Elsevier, Wiley etc).
  • Most of the time abstract is placed on or after the title page of the Research Paper and Thesis.
  • In a book, the abstract is placed on the back of the title page [3].

Completeness of an Abstract:

The first impression is the last impression, a poorly presented abstract reflects in lack of interest [5].

  • With the completeness of the abstract, we mean that do not include any information that is not mentioned in the paper or document.
  • Since the abstract does not contain any references it should be stand-alone and knowledgeable [3].
  • It should not contain repeating sentences [4] and be very precise and to the point.

Length of an Abstract:

  • The length of the abstract also varies depending on the publisher.
  • A journal abstract contains at least 100-150 words.
  • For short notes, an abstract of 100 words is enough.
  • For lengthy Reports, Thesis and documents an abstract should not exceed 500 words [3].

Style of an Abstract:

  • An abstract is written for a particular area of people so that’s why there are some standard styles which must be followed to make the abstract more interesting and worth reading.
  • Use a 10-12 font size, a smaller font size causes poor reading and a large font is considered to occupy more space using fewer words, both these have a negative impact on the reviewer.
  • Use the past tense as it places more stress on the implications.
  • Use Active voice sentences and do not include figures, tables and citations in the abstract [5].

Uses of Abstracts in Different Types of Documents:

Every document should include a good abstract so that the reader can get enough information he/she wants. Following are some publications where the abstract is usually used [3].

  • Journals
  • Conferences
  • Workshops
  • Reports and Thesis
  • Monograms and Books

Abstract vs. Summary:

Abstract and summary are often considered to be the same but they are different terminologies. A summary is the condensed form of findings and conclusion which comes at the end of the document. It recalls in the reader’s mind the main findings of a document after thoroughly reading the whole document. One can say that a summary is somehow a conclusion presented at the end of the paper.

References

  1. Fiona Moss, “How to write a paper”, “chapter 6, Titles, abstracts, and authors”.
  2. Greg Bond, February 2009, “Writing Abstracts for Bachelor’s and Master’s Theses”, North Karelia University, Finland.
  3. American National Standards Institute, 1977, “American National Standard for Writing Abstracts”, IEEE Transactions on professional communication.
  4. http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/presentations_abstracts.html

Jane Coad,  Patric Devitt, 2006, “Research dissemination: The art of writing an abstract for conferences”, Elsevier.