Abstract is a mandatory element of the paper, used mainly in scientific publications and dissertations. This is a sort of a preview of the paper, containing clear and concise basic information about it. It is with the abstract that the reader's acquaintance with your research begins. It often happens that upon selecting materials for their studies, other researchers familiarise themselves only with the abstract and draw a conclusion on its basis whether your findings will be suitable for citation or not. Therefore, writing an abstract is an essential stage of research. A well-written abstract can increase the level of citation and basic scientometric indicators.
Scientific Publications offers step-by-step instructions for writing a high-quality abstract.
Step 1. Finish your research paper
An abstract is usually written based on a finalised scientific article or dissertation research. Therefore, at this stage, it is necessary to reread your study again, highlight key theses, and, if necessary, rephrase or shorten the wording. Please note that the abstract does not allow citations or references to other researchers. Abstract is a short description of a finalised study, so it is not allowed to give hypotheses or theses that are not described in the study.
Step 2. Carefully read the requirements
Usually, a number of requirements are put forward for a scientific article. These can be both the actual requirements of the journal for the design of publications, and the methodological recommendations of the institution based on which the research is conducted, etc. These also contain the requirements for the layout of an abstract. The most common requirements are the volume of approximately 100–300 words and the availability of the abstract in other languages.
Step 3. Follow a clear structure
To write an abstract, the IMRAD structure, which is often used in writing articles, can come in handy. In other words, a high-quality abstract should conditionally contain the introduction, methods, results, and discussion of the study, but in a much conciser formulation. Special attention should be paid to the following points:
• The purpose and objectives of the study. To identify them, it is necessary to clearly formulate which research problem should be solved by the study.
• Methods. Indicate the methods used in your study. This will help you understand and outline an individual approach to scientific research.
• Results. Based on your purpose and objectives and using the selected methods, analyse the results you have obtained.
• Discussion and conclusions. When summarising the research, it is worth presenting the conclusions you have come up with and emphasising their scientific importance. In addition, if necessary, it is worth analysing the originality of the author's approach, its common and distinctive features, in comparison with other developments available in the given scientific area.
Step 4. Proofreading
As the world's leading researchers emphasise, an abstract is an advertisement for your scientific paper. Therefore, it is highly undesirable to allow various grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors. It is worth maintaining a scientific style.
Checklist of high-quality abstracts.
1. The abstract is placed after the information about the author(s) or the title page, acknowledgements (if any) and before the title of the scientific paper.
2. The abstract is small in volume and consists of 100–300 words (depending on the requirements).
3. The text does not contain references to other studies and citations.
4. Abstracts are concise and correspond to the content of the paper.
5. The purpose and objectives are formulated clearly.
6. The abstract briefly describes the methodology of the study.
7. The main results of the study are presented.
8. The conclusions and features of the author's original approach are highlighted.
9. The abstract is written in a scientific style, and is proofread for any errors.
10. The text of the abstract is clear and reflects the key aspects of your study.
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