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An effective abstract is crucial for scientific papers as it helps readers decide whether to read the full paper and prepares them for its details. It should focus on the motivation and outcome of the work, paralleling the paper's Introduction and Conclusion sections, while being accessible to a broad audience. The abstract must stand alone, avoiding references to figures or bibliographies, and should clearly present the context, task, findings, and implications of the research.

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20 views2 pages

File 4

An effective abstract is crucial for scientific papers as it helps readers decide whether to read the full paper and prepares them for its details. It should focus on the motivation and outcome of the work, paralleling the paper's Introduction and Conclusion sections, while being accessible to a broad audience. The abstract must stand alone, avoiding references to figures or bibliographies, and should clearly present the context, task, findings, and implications of the research.

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The abstract

An effective abstract
In just under 200 words, the abstract reproduced here conveys the motivation for and the outcome of the work with
some accuracy but without intimidating readers by its length.

The readers of a scientific paper read the abstract for two purposes: to decide
whether they want to (acquire and) read the full paper, and to prepare themselves for
the details presented in that paper. An effective abstract helps readers achieve these
two purposes. In particular, because it is typically read before the full paper, the
abstract should present what the readers are primarily interested in; that is, what
they want to know first of all and most of all.
Typically, readers are primarily interested in the information presented in a
paper's Introduction and Conclusion sections. Primarily, they want to know the
motivation for the work presented and the outcome of this work. Then (and only
then) the most specialized among them might want to know the details of the work.
Thus, an effective abstract focuses on motivation and outcome; in doing so, it
parallels the paper's Introduction and Conclusion.
Accordingly, you can think of an abstract as having two distinct parts — motivation
and outcome — even if it is typeset as a single paragraph. For the first part, follow
the same structure as the Introduction section of the paper: State the context, the
need, the task, and the object of the document. For the second part, mention your
findings (the what) and, especially, your conclusion (the so what — that is, the
interpretation of your findings); if appropriate, end with perspectives, as in
the Conclusion section of your paper.
Although the structure of the abstract parallels
the Introduction and Conclusion sections, it differs from these sections in the
audience it addresses. The abstract is read by many different readers, from the most
specialized to the least specialized among the target audience. In a sense, it should
be the least specialized part of the paper. Any scientist reading it should be able to
understand why the work was carried out and why it is important (context and need),
what the authors did (task) and what the paper reports about this work (object of the
document), what the authors found (findings), what these findings mean (the
conclusion), and possibly what the next steps are (perspectives). In contrast, the full
paper is typically read by specialists only; its Introduction and Conclusion are more
detailed (that is, longer and more specialized) than the abstract.
An effective abstract stands on its own — it can be understood fully even when
made available without the full paper. To this end, avoid referring to figures or the
bibliography in the abstract. Also, introduce any acronyms the first time you use
them in the abstract (if needed), and do so again in the full paper (see Mechanics:
Using abbreviations).
eBooks
This page appears in the following eBook

English Communication for Scientists, Unit 2.1

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