Finally, it includes a few examples of abstracts broken down into their component parts. An abstract is a self-contained, short, and powerful statement that describes a larger work.
Components vary according to discipline. An abstract of a social science or scientific work may contain the scope, purpose, results, and contents of the work. An abstract of a humanities work may contain the thesis, background, and conclusion of the larger work.
An abstract is not a review, nor does it evaluate the work being abstracted. While it contains key words found in the larger work, the abstract is an original document rather than an excerpted passage. You may write an abstract for various reasons. The two most important are selection and indexing. Abstracts allow readers who may be interested in a longer work to quickly decide whether it is worth their time to read it. Also, many online databases use abstracts to index larger works.
Therefore, abstracts should contain keywords and phrases that allow for easy searching. A good first place to start your research is to search Dissertation Abstracts International for all dissertations that deal with the interaction between newspapers and politics. That is still a fair number of dissertations.
Titles can sometimes help winnow the field, but many titles are not very descriptive. One option would be to download or order the entire dissertation on the chance that it might speak specifically to the topic. A better option is to read the abstract. In this case, the abstract reveals the main focus of the dissertation:. This dissertation examines the role of newspaper editors in the political turmoil and strife that characterized late First Empire Rio de Janeiro Newspaper editors and their journals helped change the political culture of late First Empire Rio de Janeiro by involving the people in the discussion of state.
As the newspapers became more numerous and powerful, the Emperor lost his legitimacy in the eyes of the people. To explore the role of the newspapers in the political events of the late First Empire, this dissertation analyzes all available newspapers published in Rio de Janeiro from to Newspapers and their editors were leading forces in the effort to remove power from the hands of the ruling elite and place it under the control of the people.
In the process, newspapers helped change how politics operated in the constitutional monarchy of Brazil. From this abstract you now know that although the dissertation has nothing to do with modern Brazilian politics, it does cover the role of newspapers in changing traditional mechanisms of power.
After reading the abstract, you can make an informed judgment about whether the dissertation would be worthwhile to read. Besides selection, the other main purpose of the abstract is for indexing. Most article databases in the online catalog of the library enable you to search abstracts. However, for an abstract to be useful in an online retrieval system, it must incorporate the key terms that a potential researcher would use to search.
Without an abstract, the search engine would be forced to search titles, which, as we have seen, may not be fruitful, or else search the full text. By incorporating keywords into the abstract, the author emphasizes the central topics of the work and gives prospective readers enough information to make an informed judgment about the applicability of the work. Most often, the author of the entire work or prospective work writes the abstract. In a work with multiple authors, the first author usually writes the abstract.
There are two types of abstracts: descriptive and informative. And in some cases, some of this information is implied, rather than stated explicitly. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , which is widely used in the social sciences, gives specific guidelines for what to include in the abstract for different kinds of papers—for empirical studies, literature reviews or meta-analyses, theoretical papers, methodological papers, and case studies.
And in an abstract, you usually do not cite references—most of your abstract will describe what you have studied in your research and what you have found and what you argue in your paper. In the body of your paper, you will cite the specific literature that informs your research. What follows are some sample abstracts in published papers or articles, all written by faculty at UW-Madison who come from a variety of disciplines. We have annotated these samples to help you see the work that these authors are doing within their abstracts.
The social science sample Sample 1 below uses the present tense to describe general facts and interpretations that have been and are currently true, including the prevailing explanation for the social phenomenon under study.
That abstract also uses the present tense to describe the methods, the findings, the arguments, and the implications of the findings from their new research study. The authors use the past tense to describe previous research.
The humanities sample Sample 2 below uses the past tense to describe completed events in the past the texts created in the pulp fiction industry in the s and 80s and uses the present tense to describe what is happening in those texts, to explain the significance or meaning of those texts, and to describe the arguments presented in the article.
The science samples Samples 3 and 4 below use the past tense to describe what previous research studies have done and the research the authors have conducted, the methods they have followed, and what they have found. In their rationale or justification for their research what remains to be done , they use the present tense. Gonalons-Pons, Pilar, and Christine R. Analyzing underground pulp fiction publications in Tanzania, this article makes an argument about the cultural significance of those publications.
Emily Callaci. Reporting a new method for reprogramming adult mouse fibroblasts into induced cardiac progenitor cells. Lalit, Pratik A. Salick, Daryl O. Discover why ANU is the right choice for you. Information for. ANU has a huge variety of support services, programs and activities to enhance your student experience. Although it is usually brief typically words , an abstract is an important part of journal article writing as well as for your thesis and for conferences.
Done well, the abstract should create enough reader interest that readers will want to read more! Whereas the purpose of an introduction is to broadly introduce your topic and your key message, the purpose of an abstract is to give an overview of your entire project, in particular its findings and contribution to the field.
An abstract should be a standalone summary of your paper, which readers can use to decide whether it's relevant to them before they dive in to read the paper. Do they include the same kinds of information as listed above? What structure do they follow? You can model your own abstract on these conventions. Search query. Governance Our history National Institutes Grant. Study with us Choosing the right university is a defining decision.
Student experience Accommodation Events Contacts. Undergraduate students. Critical abstracts are generally 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 the purpose, methods, and scope of the research. Essentially, the descriptive abstract only describes the work being summarized. Some researchers consider it an outline of the work, rather than a summary. Descriptive abstracts are usually very short, 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 acts 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, scope] 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 words in length.
In that a highlight abstract cannot stand independent of its associated article, it is not a true abstract and, therefore, rarely used in academic writing. Writing Style. Use the active voice when possible , but note that much of your abstract may require passive sentence constructions.
Regardless, write your abstract using concise, but complete, sentences. Get to the point quickly and always use the past tense because you are reporting on a study that has been completed.
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