What is an Abstract?
- An abstract is a brief SUMMARY of a scientific paper. It gives information about the authors, the hypotheses tested, a brief description of the methods used, and the conclusions obtained.
- An abstract is a summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject or discipline and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper’s purpose.
- An abstract always appears at the beginning of a manuscript, acting as the point-of-entry for any given academic paper.
How to Write an Effective Abstract
Clarify your objective of the paper: what you are going to tell
Identify the themes of the conference and formulate your paper accordingly.
Understand the submission procedure and the abstract format. For example:
Title, Name of presenter, Contact details, Category of presentation paper, poster etc. and the Keywords
Stick closely to the length given.
(Ex. 250-words)
Ask yourself the following questions: (When writing an abstract)
a. What is the purpose of my paper?
b. What approach am I using?
c. What are my findings?
d. Why are my findings so important?
How to Identify a Good Abstract?
Uses one or more well developed paragraphs: these are unified, coherent, concise, and able to stand alone.
Uses an introduction/body/conclusion structure which presents the article, paper, or report’s purpose, results, conclusions, and recommendations in that order.
Follows strictly the chronology of the article, paper, or report.
Provides logical connections (or transitions) between the information included.
Adds no new information, but simply summarizes the report.
Understandable to a wide audience.