Sturgess Fall 2007

How to Write the Abstract Section

The primary purpose of an abstract is to guide readers.

An abstract is a summary of a body of information in a paragraph—100-350 words for a descriptive abstract, 100-250 words an informative abstract. An abstract expresses the main claim and argument of a paper. In most disciplines, it never includes bibliographic citations. An abstract concisely highlights or reviews the major points covered along with the content and scope of the writing.
An abstract can also be a useful tool for writers to check that they have a clear grasp of their thesis and argument. If the writer can state the thesis and argument clearly in a few sentences—and in such a way that someone who doesn't know the subject will still be able to understand the main idea—then the writer knows she has a good grasp of the ideas she is trying to express. An abstract says everything of central importance in a way that gives the reader a clear overview of what is contained in the essay.

Writing an abstract involves boiling down the essence of a whole paper into a single paragraph that conveys as much new information as possible. The abstract section of your paper is written after you have completed the rest of your paper.

One way of writing an effective abstract is to start with a draft of the complete paper and do the following:

  1. Highlight the objective and the conclusions that are in the paper's introduction and the discussion.
  2. Bracket information in the methods section of the paper that contains keyword information.
  3. Highlight the results from the discussion or results section of the paper.
  4. Compile the above highlighted and bracketed information into a single paragraph.
  5. Condense the bracketed information into the key words and phrases that identify but do not explain the methods used.
  6. Delete extra words and phrases.
  7. Delete any background information.
  8. Rephrase the first sentence so that it starts off with the new information contained in the paper, rather than with the general topic. One way of doing this is to begin the first sentence with the phrase "this paper" or "this study."
  9. Revise the paragraph so that the abstract conveys the essential information.

Checklist: Parts of an Abstract

Despite the fact that an abstract is quite brief, it must do almost as much work as the multi-page paper that follows it. In a computer architecture paper, this means that it should in most cases include the following sections. Each section is typically a single sentence, although there is room for creativity. In particular, the parts may be merged or spread among a set of sentences. Use the following as a checklist for your next abstract:

  • Motivation:
    Why do we care about the problem and the results? This section should include the importance of your work, the difficulty of the area, and the impact it might have if successful.
  • Problem statement:
    What problem are you trying to solve? What is the scope of your work (a generalized approach, or for a specific situation)? In some cases it is appropriate to put the problem statement before the motivation, but usually this only works if most readers already understand why the problem is important.
  • Approach:
    How did you go about solving or making progress on the problem? Did you use simulation, analytic models, prototype construction, or analysis of field data for an actual product? What was the extent of your work (did you look at one application program or a hundred programs in twenty different programming languages?) What important variables did you control, ignore, or measure?
  • Results:
    What's the answer? Specifically, put the result there, in numbers. Avoid vague, hand-waving results such as "very", "small", or "significant."
  • Conclusions:
    What are the implications of your answer? Is it going to change the world (unlikely), be a significant "win", or simply serve as a road sign indicating that this path is a waste of time (all of the previous results are useful). Are your results general, potentially generalizable, or specific to a particular case?

Types of Abstracts

There are two types of abstracts: Descriptive and Informative. They have different aims, so as a consequence they have different components and styles.

Descriptive: 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 describes the work being abstracted. Some people consider it an outline of the work, rather than a summary. Descriptive abstracts are usually very short—100 words or less.

Informative: 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 writer presents and explains all the main arguments and the important results and evidence in the complete article/paper/book. An informative abstract includes the information that can be found in a descriptive abstract (purpose, methods, scope) but 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 rarely more than 10% of the length of the entire work. In the case of a longer work, it may be much less.

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Sources: Koopman, P. (1997). Carnegie Mellon University, ~koopman/essays/abstract.html, University of Mississippi Writing Center, center/grabstract.html and Renselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY,