Abstract Thinking (4 Tips for Writing an Abstract)

Abstract Thinking (4 Tips for Writing an Abstract) Abstract Thinking (4 Tips for Writing an Abstract) An abstract is a short summary of a larger work, providing a convenient way for readers to quickly comprehend its contents. This makes abstracts an essential part of academic writing. In fact, students and academics have to write abstracts for everything from funding applications and conference papers to PhD dissertations and textbooks. Learning how to write an effective abstract is, therefore, highly advised. 1. Descriptive or Informative? There are two main kinds of abstract: descriptive and informative. A descriptive abstract briefly describes the subject area and issue addressed by a paper. This may include the aims of the research and methods used, but not the results or conclusions. An informative abstract, meanwhile, should do everything that a descriptive abstract does plus outline any results, conclusions and recommendations made by the author. This makes it like a shortened version of the paper, rather than simply a description. Make sure you know what kind of abstract you’ve been asked to write. As a general rule, descriptive abstracts will be shorter (often no more than 100 words), while informative abstracts can be longer (check your style guide or ask your supervisor if you’re unsure). 2. Keywords You may be asked to provide a list of keywords as well as an abstract. These are important terms used for indexing and searching articles, making them vital to your work being found. Even if you’re not required to provide a list of keywords, including important terminology in your abstract is a good way of making it easier to access via databases and search engines. 3. Keeping it Self-Contained An abstract should be self-contained and tell readers everything they need to know before deciding whether to read a work in full. As such, avoid vague statements that require further explanation or confusing terminology that needs defining. One tip here is to have your abstract checked by someone who hasn’t read your work. If they can understand what your research is about from the abstract, you’re on the right track. If they react like this, however, redrafting might be a good idea. (Photo: LaurMG/wikimedia) 4. The Anatomy of an Abstract The exact content of your abstract will depend on the type of abstract you’ve been asked to write. Nevertheless, we can set out a few questions that a good abstract should answer: Motivations – Why is the research important? Why should the reader be interested? Problem – What problem are you addressing? What is the scope of your argument? Methodology – How do you attempt to solve the problem? Which variables are tested? What kind of data is gathered? Results – What results did you achieve? Is there key data that can be included here? Conclusion – What conclusions are drawn on the basis of the findings? Are any recommendations made as a result? If you touch upon all these factors, while being careful to stick to the word limit, you should end up with a high quality abstract suitable for publication.