3/1/2020 Abstracts - The Writing Center

Abstracts

What this handout is about

This handout provides de nitions and examples of the two main types of abstracts: descriptive and
informative. It also provides guidelines for constructing an abstract and general tips for you to keep in mind
when drafting. Finally, it includes a few examples of abstracts broken down into their component parts.

What is an abstract?
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 scienti c 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.

Why write an abstract?

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.

Selection
Say you are beginning a research project on how Brazilian newspapers helped Brazil’s ultra-liberal president
Luiz Ignácio da Silva wrest power from the traditional, conservative power base. A good rst place to start
your research is to search Dissertation Abstracts International for all dissertations that deal with the
interaction between newspapers and politics. “Newspapers and politics” returned 569 hits. A more selective
search of “newspapers and Brazil” returned 22 hits. That is still a fair number of dissertations. Titles can
sometimes help winnow the eld, but many titles are not very descriptive. For example, one dissertation is
titled “Rhetoric and Riot in Rio de Janeiro.” It is unclear from the title what this dissertation has to do with
newspapers in Brazil. One option would be to download or order the entire dissertation on the chance that it
might speak speci cally to the topic. A better option is to read the abstract. In this case, the abstract reveals
the main focus of the dissertation:

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This dissertation examines the role of newspaper editors in the political turmoil and strife that characterized
late First Empire Rio de Janeiro (1827-1831). 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. This change in
political culture is apparent in Emperor Pedro I’s gradual loss of control over the mechanisms of power. 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 1827 to 1831. 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.

Indexing
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. This allows for quick retrieval by users and limits the
extraneous items recalled by a “full-text” search. 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. For example, if you
search Dissertation Abstracts International using the keywords “France” “revolution” and “politics,” the search
engine would search through all the abstracts in the database that included those three words. 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. It’s likely that a lot more than 60 dissertations have been written with those three
words somewhere in the body of the entire work. 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.

When do people write abstracts?

• when submitting articles to journals, especially online journals
• when applying for research grants
• when writing a book proposal
• when completing the Ph.D. dissertation or M.A. thesis
• when writing a proposal for a conference paper
• when writing a proposal for a book chapter

Most often, the author of the entire work (or prospective work) writes the abstract. However, there are
professional abstracting services that hire writers to draft abstracts of other people’s work. In a work with
multiple authors, the rst author usually writes the abstract. Undergraduates are sometimes asked to draft
abstracts of books/articles for classmates who have not read the larger work.

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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. There is also a third type called critical, but it is rarely used. If you
want to nd out more about writing a critique or a review of a work, see the UNC Writing Center handout on
writing a literature review. If you are unsure which type of abstract you should write, ask your instructor (if the
abstract is for a class) or read other abstracts in your eld or in the journal where you are submitting your
article.

Descriptive abstracts
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 abstracts
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.

Here are examples of a descriptive and an informative abstract of this handout on abstracts.
Descriptive abstract:

The two most common abstract types—descriptive and informative—are described and examples of
each are provided.

Informative abstract:

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Abstracts present the essential elements of a longer work in a short and powerful statement. The
purpose of an abstract is to provide prospective readers the opportunity to judge the relevance of
the longer work to their projects. Abstracts also include the key terms found in the longer work and

the purpose and methods of the research. Authors abstract various longer works, including book
proposals, dissertations, and online journal articles. There are two main types of abstracts:
descriptive and informative. A descriptive abstract brie y describes the longer work, while an
informative abstract presents all the main arguments and important results. This handout provides
examples of various types of abstracts and instructions on how to construct one.

Which type should I use?

Your best bet in this case is to ask your instructor or refer to the instructions provided by the publisher. You
can also make a guess based on the length allowed; i.e., 100-120 words = descriptive; 250+ words =
informative.

How do I write an abstract?

The format of your abstract will depend on the work being abstracted. An abstract of a scienti c research
paper will contain elements not found in an abstract of a literature article, and vice versa. However, all
abstracts share several mandatory components, and there are also some optional parts that you can decide
to include or not. When preparing to draft your abstract, keep the following key process elements in mind:

• Reason for writing: What is the importance of the research? Why would a reader be interested in the
larger work?
• Problem: What problem does this work attempt to solve? What is the scope of the project? What is the
main argument/thesis/claim?
• Methodology: An abstract of a scienti c work may include speci c models or approaches used in the
larger study. Other abstracts may describe the types of evidence used in the research.
• Results: Again, an abstract of a scienti c work may include speci c data that indicates the results of the
project. Other abstracts may discuss the ndings in a more general way.
• Implications: What changes should be implemented as a result of the ndings of the work? How does
this work add to the body of knowledge on the topic?

(This list of elements is adapted with permission from Philip Koopman, “How to Write an Abstract.”)

All abstracts include:

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• A full citation of the source, preceding the abstract.

• The most important information rst.
• The same type and style of language found in the original, including technical language.
• Key words and phrases that quickly identify the content and focus of the work.
• Clear, concise, and powerful language.

Abstracts may include:

• The thesis of the work, usually in the rst sentence.
• Background information that places the work in the larger body of literature.
• The same chronological structure as the original work.

How not to write an abstract:

• Do not refer extensively to other works.
• Do not add information not contained in the original work.
• Do not de ne terms.

If you are abstracting your own writing

When abstracting your own work, it may be di cult to condense a piece of writing that you have agonized
over for weeks (or months, or even years) into a 250-word statement. There are some tricks that you could
use to make it easier, however.

Reverse outlining:

This technique is commonly used when you are having trouble organizing your own writing. The process
involves writing down the main idea of each paragraph on a separate piece of paper–see our short video. For
the purposes of writing an abstract, try grouping the main ideas of each section of the paper into a single
sentence. Practice grouping ideas using webbing or color coding.

For a scienti c paper, you may have sections titled Purpose, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Each one of
these sections will be longer than one paragraph, but each is grouped around a central idea. Use reverse
outlining to discover the central idea in each section and then distill these ideas into one statement.

Cut and paste:

To create a rst draft of an abstract of your own work, you can read through the entire paper and cut and
paste sentences that capture key passages. This technique is useful for social science research with ndings
that cannot be encapsulated by neat numbers or concrete results. A well-written humanities draft will have a
clear and direct thesis statement and informative topic sentences for paragraphs or sections. Isolate these
sentences in a separate document and work on revising them into a uni ed paragraph.

If you are abstracting someone else’s writing

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When abstracting something you have not written, you cannot summarize key ideas just by cutting and
pasting. Instead, you must determine what a prospective reader would want to know about the work. There
are a few techniques that will help you in this process:

Identify key terms:

Search through the entire document for key terms that identify the purpose, scope, and methods of the work.
Pay close attention to the Introduction (or Purpose) and the Conclusion (or Discussion). These sections
should contain all the main ideas and key terms in the paper. When writing the abstract, be sure to incorporate
the key terms.

Highlight key phrases and sentences:

Instead of cutting and pasting the actual words, try highlighting sentences or phrases that appear to be
central to the work. Then, in a separate document, rewrite the sentences and phrases in your own words.

Don’t look back:

After reading the entire work, put it aside and write a paragraph about the work without referring to it. In the
rst draft, you may not remember all the key terms or the results, but you will remember what the main point
of the work was. Remember not to include any information you did not get from the work being abstracted.

Revise, revise, revise

No matter what type of abstract you are writing, or whether you are abstracting your own work or someone
else’s, the most important step in writing an abstract is to revise early and often. When revising, delete all
extraneous words and incorporate meaningful and powerful words. The idea is to be as clear and complete as
possible in the shortest possible amount of space. The Word Count feature of Microsoft Word can help you
keep track of how long your abstract is and help you hit your target length.

Example 1: Humanities abstract

Kenneth Tait Andrews, “‘Freedom is a constant struggle’: The dynamics and consequences of the Mississippi
Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1984” Ph.D. State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1997 DAI-A 59/02, p.
620, Aug 1998

This dissertation examines the impacts of social movements through a multi-layered study of the Mississippi
Civil Rights Movement from its peak in the early 1960s through the early 1980s. By examining this historically
important case, I clarify the process by which movements transform social structures and the constraints
movements face when they try to do so. The time period studied includes the expansion of voting rights and
gains in black political power, the desegregation of public schools and the emergence of white- ight
academies, and the rise and fall of federal anti-poverty programs. I use two major research strategies: (1) a
quantitative analysis of county-level data and (2) three case studies. Data have been collected from archives,
interviews, newspapers, and published reports. This dissertation challenges the argument that movements
are inconsequential. Some view federal agencies, courts, political parties, or economic elites as the agents
driving institutional change, but typically these groups acted in response to the leverage brought to bear by

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the civil rights movement. The Mississippi movement attempted to forge independent structures for
sustaining challenges to local inequities and injustices. By propelling change in an array of local institutions,
movement infrastructures had an enduring legacy in Mississippi.

Now let’s break down this abstract into its component parts to see how the author has distilled his entire
dissertation into a ~200 word abstract.

What the dissertation does

This dissertation examines the impacts of social movements through a multi-layered study of the Mississippi
Civil Rights Movement from its peak in the early 1960s through the early 1980s. By examining this historically
important case, I clarify the process by which movements transform social structures and the constraints
movements face when they try to do so.

How the dissertation does it

The time period studied in this dissertation includes the expansion of voting rights and gains in black political
power, the desegregation of public schools and the emergence of white- ight academies, and the rise and fall
of federal anti-poverty programs. I use two major research strategies: (1) a quantitative analysis of county-
level data and (2) three case studies.

What materials are used

Data have been collected from archives, interviews, newspapers, and published reports.

Conclusion
This dissertation challenges the argument that movements are inconsequential. Some view federal agencies,
courts, political parties, or economic elites as the agents driving institutional change, but typically these
groups acted in response to movement demands and the leverage brought to bear by the civil rights
movement. The Mississippi movement attempted to forge independent structures for sustaining challenges
to local inequities and injustices. By propelling change in an array of local institutions, movement
infrastructures had an enduring legacy in Mississippi.

Keywords
social movements
Civil Rights Movement
Mississippi
voting rights
desegregation

Example 2: Science Abstract

Luis Lehner, “Gravitational radiation from black hole spacetimes” Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 1998 DAI-B
59/06, p. 2797, Dec 1998

The problem of detecting gravitational radiation is receiving considerable attention with the construction of
new detectors in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The theoretical modeling of the wave forms that would
be produced in particular systems will expedite the search for and analysis of detected signals. The
characteristic formulation of GR is implemented to obtain an algorithm capable of evolving black holes in 3D

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asymptotically at spacetimes. Using compacti cation techniques, future null in nity is included in the
evolved region, which enables the unambiguous calculation of the radiation produced by some compact
source. A module to calculate the waveforms is constructed and included in the evolution algorithm. This
code is shown to be second-order convergent and to handle highly non-linear spacetimes. In particular, we
have shown that the code can handle spacetimes whose radiation is equivalent to a galaxy converting its
whole mass into gravitational radiation in one second. We further use the characteristic formulation to treat
the region close to the singularity in black hole spacetimes. The code carefully excises a region surrounding
the singularity and accurately evolves generic black hole spacetimes with apparently unlimited stability.

This science abstract covers much of the same ground as the humanities one, but it asks slightly different
questions.

Why do this study

The problem of detecting gravitational radiation is receiving considerable attention with the construction of
new detectors in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The theoretical modeling of the wave forms that would
be produced in particular systems will expedite the search and analysis of the detected signals.

What the study does

The characteristic formulation of GR is implemented to obtain an algorithm capable of evolving black holes in
3D asymptotically at spacetimes. Using compacti cation techniques, future null in nity is included in the
evolved region, which enables the unambiguous calculation of the radiation produced by some compact
source. A module to calculate the waveforms is constructed and included in the evolution algorithm.

Results
This code is shown to be second-order convergent and to handle highly non-linear spacetimes. In particular,
we have shown that the code can handle spacetimes whose radiation is equivalent to a galaxy converting its
whole mass into gravitational radiation in one second. We further use the characteristic formulation to treat
the region close to the singularity in black hole spacetimes. The code carefully excises a region surrounding
the singularity and accurately evolves generic black hole spacetimes with apparently unlimited stability.

Keywords
gravitational radiation (GR)
spacetimes
black holes

Works consulted
We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the
handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to nd additional publications. Please do not
use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are
using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. We revise these
tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Belcher, W. L. Writing your Journal Article in 12 Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success (Sage,
2009).

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Koopman, Philip. “How to Write an Abstract.” (Carnegie Mellon University, 1997).

http://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/essays/abstract.html
Kilborn, Judith. “Writing Abstracts.” (St. Cloud University, LEO, 1998).
http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/bizwrite/abstracts.html
Lancaster, F.W. Indexing and Abstracting in Theory and Practice, 3rd edition (London: Facet, 2003), 95.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0

License.
You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The
Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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