Chapter 02: Writing scientific

abstracts
 Introduction
▪ Abstracts are an important part of any thesis or scientific articles, which usually
occupy the beginning of any paper.

▪ Most international writing systems focus on the importance and value of the abstract
because abstract summarizes the essential idea, findings and interests of the paper in
about few hundred words which clearly can reflect the summarized contents of the
article, hence the abstract reflects the mind of the author of the research paper.
▪ Abstract is of the entire chapter while summary can be of any of the parts of the
chapter or represents the main points in the article.
 What is an abstract?
An abstract is a short statement about your paper designed to give the reader a
complete, concise, understanding of your paper's research and findings. It is a mini-
version of your paper.

As abstracts are generally the first part of your research that will be read, it is crucial that
they are well structured and written to convey the key aspects of your work.
A well-prepared abstract allows a reader to quickly and accurately identify the basic
content of your paper. Readers should be able to read your abstract to see if the related
research is of interest to them.

The abstract should never give any information or conclusion that is not in the body of
the paper. normally the abstract should not include or refer to tables or figures.
 The value of your abstract
✓ Reviewers only see the title and abstract of an article before they decide to review
it or not.

✓ A title and abstract are the only parts of an article that are freely available to
everyone
✓ The reader will decide whether the rest of your article is interesting to them while they
are reading your abstract.

✓ The value of your abstract is the difference between your article being read or not.

✓ The more researchers who want to read your article the more chance you have it will
be cited in further research papers.

✓ Although the abstract is one of the last elements of an article to be written, it is one of
the first elements that will be read
General structure of the Abstract
 An abstract summarizes, usually in one paragraph, the major aspects of the entire
paper in the following prescribed sequence:

• The purpose or specific objectives of the study or investigation, (from Introduction)

• The basic methodology used, (from Material and Methods) (e. g. the number and
type of patients involved, experimental animals, analytic methods, and key
techniques used)

• The major findings including key results achieved (from Results)

• The principal conclusions (from Discussion), which should be stated clearly and
briefly without lengthy discussion.
 When would you need to write an abstract?
An abstract can be used:
• to submit for a conference, to be accepted to present,
• to submit to a journal, so your paper or chapter can be published, or
• as a summary of your thesis/dissertation.

What language do you use?

•The use of tenses in writing English abstract is really important. Different components of
abstract use different tense.

• For background and conclusion, it should use present tense (both simple present tense
and present perfect tense) because the components usually show the statement, fact,
and the implication of the findings.
• Simple past tense (also past perfect tense) is applied in purpose, method, and
result as the aspects tell about the past event.
Examples
“The research aimed to determine.....” for purpose

“ Data analysis using the statistical test showed a significance value of ..... ”
All animals exhibited significantly an increase………………….For results
 Types of Abstracts
There are several different types of abstract, which can be broadly divided into :
critical, descriptive, and informative

Critical Abstract

A critical abstract provides, in addition to describing main findings and information, a

judgement or comment about the study’s validity, reliability, or completeness. The
researcher evaluates the paper and often compares it with other works on the same
subject. Critical abstracts are generally 400-500 words in length due to the additional
interpretive commentary. These types of abstracts are used infrequently.

Descriptive Abstract
A descriptive abstract indicates the type of information found in the work. It makes no
judgments about the work, nor does it provide results or conclusions of the research. It does
incorporate key words found in the text and may include: background, purpose and particular
interest/focus of paper.
Essentially, the descriptive abstract only describes the work being summarized, they are usually
very short, 100 words or less.
 Informative Abstract

The majority of abstracts are informative. While they still do not critique or evaluate a work,
they do more than describe it. A good informative abstract act as a surrogate for the work
itself. That is, the researcher presents and explains all the main arguments and the important
results and evidence in the paper.

An informative abstract includes the information that can be found in a descriptive abstract
[purpose, methods] but it also includes the results and conclusions of the research and the
recommendations of the author. The length varies according to discipline, but an
informative abstract is usually no more than 300 words in length.
Abstracts should NOT contain
Lengthy background or context-based information

Needless phrases, unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, and repetitive information

References to other literature [say something like, "current research shows that..." or
"studies have indicated..."]

Words or terms that may be confusing to the reader (slang)

Any sort of image, illustration, figure, or table, or references to them

 An example of an abstract from a biology report

Many plants in Australia have their seeds buried in

Background Information
order for the species to survive fires. The seeds
start to germinate under the soil at certain
temperatures. Seeds of Acacia terminalis and Outline of what was investigated in this
experiment
Dillwynia floribunda were examined in this
experiment. It was hypothesised that the seeds Hypothesis
need heat for the germination to start. Seeds of the
two species were treated in hot and cold water and Summary of Method
left to start germinating. Acacia terminalis showed
a significant response in germination after the hot
water treatment while Dillwynia floribunda did not.
Neither seed showed a response in germination Summary of Results
after cold water treatment. The results for
Dillwynia floribunda were unexpected but may be
explained by factors such as water temperature
and the length of time the seeds remained in the
Summary of Discussion
heated water.