Requirements to Abstracts

An abstract is a brief summarizing statement, usually between 75 and 150 words. Descriptive abstracts provide a description of the paper’s main topic and purpose, together with an overview of the contents.

Descriptive abstract is short and includes the following elements:

• purpose of the work (objectives);

• method used;

• scope of the work.

It doesn’t include results, conclusions and recommendations. Reader is prompted to read the document.

The title and abstract should function as a self-contained unit — eg they might be used in an indexing and abstracting service like Compendex or Science Citation Index.

Begin the abstract by providing some condensed background information and a statement of overview or purpose, much like the kind of material an author provides in an introduction and a thesis statement.

Decide on topics by selecting key information from your source. Use the section headings, conclusions, topic sentences, and key terms from your paper to determine the topics.

Point out relationships among topics, especially via transition words.

Use present tense verbs generously, both to describe ideas or events and to present the author’s goals.

Use the names of key cited authors, especially those who represent particular theories, directly in the text. However, you typically do not cite sources in the abstract itself; the reader understands that all of the ideas in a descriptive abstract come from a particular source unless you note otherwise.

Try to avoid a number of very common errors made in writing abstracts.

• Don’t repeat the title of the paper as it is already in the title (and the more you repeat the title, the more boring it gets and the more space it wastes).

• Don’t include references to literature (eg Bloggs, 1999), figures and tables in the paper.

• Don’t use obscure abbreviations and acronyms. You may define abbreviations and acronyms in your text — but the reader will have to read your paper to find out what your abstract is about. However some abbreviations are OK — eg “A.D.” and “B.C.E.” and acronyms like “NATO”.