Writing an Abstract for your Research Paper

Category: Education

Abstract is a usually a short and concise summary of your study. The abstract is read to obtain a prompt overview. It generally tells the reader about your study and on what your article is based on. Research abstracts are used throughout the scientific community to provide a concise explanation about the study. If the abstract is written well, it makes the reader learn more about your study. Although all abstracts accomplish basically the same purpose, there are two primary types of abstract: descriptive and informative. Typically, informative abstracts are used for longer and technical articles, whereas descriptive abstracts for shorter articles. The abstract is seldom the last section that you write of the research paper, but it is the first thing that people read when they want to know about what the entire paper is. The basic elements of an abstract in any field are as follows: Motivation or Problem Statement: The reason behind selecting a particular topic for your research. How your study fills the gap practically, scientifically, theoretically, or artistically? The problem that motivated you to work on it. Methods, Approach, or Procedure: The methods used to obtain your results. Results, Product, or Findings: By completing the aforementioned procedure, what did you learn, invent, or create? Conclusion or Implications: What are the major inferences of your findings, particularly for the problem or gap identified? Steps to write an abstract: First step is to re-read your article for getting an overall view of the paper. Then, read every part of your article and summarize the information in 1–2 sentences for each section. Then, read these sentences again to ensure that they cover the major points of your article. Ensure that you have not missed any of the key points outlined above for the descriptive or informative abstract. Review the word count and further reduce your words as per the target journal, if required, by removing unnecessary terms or rewriting some of the sentences into a single or more succinct sentence. Finally, you may edit your paper for flow and expression. You may get also in touch with academic editing and proofreading service providers for this purpose. Features of a good abstract: Uses a well-developed paragraph that is unified, coherent, concise, and able to stand alone as the unit of information. Is written in a specific format following the introduction, body, and conclusion structure, which represents the aim, findings, conclusions, and suggestion in order. Sticks to the chronology of the paper. Connects the information included in the article. Does not include any new information rather simply summarizes the paper. Is written in simple English such that wider range of audience as well as field-specific audience can easily understand the article. Covers all the necessary research elements of the article, namely the background, aim, methods, results, and conclusions. Does not include the information that is not provided in the paper. Uses passive structures to report the findings, focusing on the issues rather than people. Typically does not include any reference citations. Don’ts Do not begin with “this paper…,” "this article…," or similar. Write more about the research than the paper. Do not describe the sections of the article. Avoid sentences that end with "…is described," "…is analyzed," "…is reported," or similar. Avoid sentences that begin with "it is suggested that…,” "it is felt that…," "it is believed that…," or similar. In each case, these four words can be deleted without harming the necessary information. Do not repeat or rephrase the title. Do not include any such information in the abstract that is not in the paper. If possible, avoid using trade names, abbreviations, acronyms, references, or symbols in the abstract.