DACUMOS, SOFHIA NICOLE A.

12-PARMENIDES

Abstracts

Many research publications require an abstract, which is a brief synopsis of the text outlining its
major points. As Samuel Johnson (1755) defined the term, an abstract is "a smaller quantity
containing the virtue or power of a greater" (quoted in Oxford English Dictionary).

In terms of importance, abstracts tend to possess a prominent position among academic genres,
as stated by Lorés (2004): "They [abstracts] constitute the gateway that leads readers to take up
an article, journals to select contributions, or organisers of conferences to accept or reject papers"
(p. 281).

In research writing, there are different formats for abstract writing. The information below is
therefore of a general kind; students will need to check with their supervisors if their department
has specific guidelines for abstract writing.

The length of the abstract will be decided by the supervisor, publisher, etc. Generally, though,
the word count for abstracts for research articles is 100-200 words.

The function of the abstract is to inform prospective readers of the content and argument of the
text, but also to attract readers to read the whole text. Vintzileos & Ananth (2010) describe the
abstract as "the 'mirror' of the full manuscript" and that it is the part of an article that is most
widely read (p. 344e2).

Hernon & Schwartz (2001) point out that abstract authors "need to adopt the art of persuasion—
convincing a reader of the worth of reading the paper and perhaps subsequently of using and
citing it" (p. 173). These persuasive powers must be coupled with accuracy and
straightforwardness: after having read the abstract the reader should be able to understand the
main points of the argument in the text that it sums up.

Types of abstract
Two common types of abstracts are article abstracts and conference abstracts.

Article abstract
Abstracts usually accompany research articles - in many journals the abstract is published as part
of the article, between the title and the proper text. Abstract services and journal providers
publish abstracts, which serve to inform prospective readers about the contents of the article.
At many departments, students writing their degree projects are required to include an abstract.
These are sometimes made available in university repositories of degree projects and theses, such
as LUP Student Papers at Lund University.

Conference abstracts
Another kind of abstract is the one that is submitted to conference CFPs (Call For Papers).
Researchers wishing to present a paper at a conference send an abstract outlining their proposed
paper.

A call for papers is sent out well in advance of the actual conference. Because of the long-term
planning that is necessary for conference participants, conference abstracts are sometimes written
before the papers they describe have been written. Therefore, they cannot always show the same
level of specificity as will be found in article abstracts.

To attract the attention of conference organisers, conference abstracts need to be to the point.
The author must show his or her command of the topic and the abstract has to be structured in a
way that gives an idea of the organisation of the proposed presentation.

Format of abstracts
Graetz (1985) claims that the most common structure for abstracts is Problem-Method-Results-
Conclusions, i.e. four parts. Many abstracts indeed more or less follow the IMRD structure,
consisting of an introduction to the topic, a section on method and results, and finally a
concluding part that discusses the findings presented in the article.

In a study of research abstracts within the field of applied linguistics, Santos (1996) identified a
pattern consisting of five "moves". These moves constitute the transitions between the different
stages of the abstract, each fulfilling a "communicative purpose" (Santos, p. 485).

In brief, the pattern that Santos identified looks like this:

Situating the research

Presenting the research
Describing the methodology
Summarising the results
Discussing the research
(from Santos 1996 p. 485)
This pattern can be applied to abstracts in other fields as well. As seen in the example below,
Santos's pattern highlights the transitions of the text. Not all stages will be found in every
abstract, and the order of the moves may vary. Still, Santos's list of moves can be used as a kind
of template for abstract writing.

DEFINITION AND PURPOSE OF ABSTRACTS

An abstract is a short summary of your (published or unpublished) research paper, usually about
a paragraph (c. 6-7 sentences, 150-250 words) long. A well-written abstract serves multiple
purposes:

an abstract lets readers get the gist or essence of your paper or article quickly, in order to decide
whether to read the full paper;
an abstract prepares readers to follow the detailed information, analyses, and arguments in your
full paper;
and, later, an abstract helps readers remember key points from your paper.
It’s also worth remembering that search engines and bibliographic databases use abstracts, as
well as the title, to identify key terms for indexing your published paper. So what you include in
your abstract and in your title are crucial for helping other researchers find your paper or article.

If you are writing an abstract for a course paper, your professor may give you specific guidelines
for what to include and how to organize your abstract. Similarly, academic journals often have
specific requirements for abstracts. So in addition to following the advice on this page, you
should be sure to look for and follow any guidelines from the course or journal you’re writing
for.

THE CONTENTS OF AN ABSTRACT

Abstracts contain most of the following kinds of information in brief form. The body of your
paper will, of course, develop and explain these ideas much more fully. As you will see in the
samples below, the proportion of your abstract that you devote to each kind of information—and
the sequence of that information—will vary, depending on the nature and genre of the paper that
you are summarizing in your abstract. 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.

Here are the typical kinds of information found in most abstracts:

the context or background information for your research; the general topic under study; the
specific topic of your research
the central questions or statement of the problem your research addresses
what’s already known about this question, what previous research has done or shown
the main reason(s), the exigency, the rationale, the goals for your research—Why is it important
to address these questions? Are you, for example, examining a new topic? Why is that topic
worth examining? Are you filling a gap in previous research? Applying new methods to take a
fresh look at existing ideas or data? Resolving a dispute within the literature in your field? . . .
your research and/or analytical methods
your main findings, results, or arguments
the significance or implications of your findings or arguments.
Your abstract should be intelligible on its own, without a reader’s having to read your entire
paper. 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.

WHEN TO WRITE YOUR ABSTRACT

Although you might be tempted to write your abstract first because it will appear as the very first
part of your paper, it’s a good idea to wait to write your abstract until after you’ve drafted your
full paper, so that you know what you’re summarizing.

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.

CHOOSING VERB TENSES WITHIN YOUR ABSTRACT

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 1970s 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. They also use the present tense to introduce their
study (in Sample 3, “Here we report . . .”) and to explain the significance of their study (In
Sample 3, This reprogramming . . . “provides a scalable cell source for. . .”).

SAMPLE ABSTRACT 1
FROM THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Reporting new findings about the reasons for increasing economic homogamy among spouses

Gonalons-Pons, Pilar, and Christine R. Schwartz. “Trends in Economic Homogamy: Changes in

Assortative Mating or the Division of Labor in Marriage?” Demography, vol. 54, no. 3, 2017, pp.
985-1005.

“The growing economic resemblance of spouses has contributed to rising inequality by

increasing the number of couples in which there are two high- or two low-earning partners.
[Annotation for the previous sentence: The first sentence introduces the topic under study (the
“economic resemblance of spouses”). This sentence also implies the question underlying this
research study: what are the various causes—and the interrelationships among them—for this
trend?] The dominant explanation for this trend is increased assortative mating. Previous
research has primarily relied on cross-sectional data and thus has been unable to disentangle
changes in assortative mating from changes in the division of spouses’ paid labor—a potentially
key mechanism given the dramatic rise in wives’ labor supply. [Annotation for the previous two
sentences: These next two sentences explain what previous research has demonstrated. By
pointing out the limitations in the methods that were used in previous studies, they also provide a
rationale for new research.] We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to
decompose the increase in the correlation between spouses’ earnings and its contribution to
inequality between 1970 and 2013 into parts due to (a) changes in assortative mating, and (b)
changes in the division of paid labor. [Annotation for the previous sentence: The data, research
and analytical methods used in this new study.] Contrary to what has often been assumed, the
rise of economic homogamy and its contribution to inequality is largely attributable to changes in
the division of paid labor rather than changes in sorting on earnings or earnings potential. Our
findings indicate that the rise of economic homogamy cannot be explained by hypotheses
centered on meeting and matching opportunities, and they show where in this process inequality
is generated and where it is not.” (p. 985) [Annotation for the previous two sentences: The major
findings from and implications and significance of this study.]

SAMPLE ABSTRACT 2
FROM THE HUMANITIES
Analyzing underground pulp fiction publications in Tanzania, this article makes an argument
about the cultural significance of those publications

Emily Callaci. “Street Textuality: Socialism, Masculinity, and Urban Belonging in Tanzania’s
Pulp Fiction Publishing Industry, 1975-1985.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol.
59, no. 1, 2017, pp. 183-210.

“From the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, a network of young urban migrant men created an
underground pulp fiction publishing industry in the city of Dar es Salaam. [Annotation for the
previous sentence: The first sentence introduces the context for this research and announces the
topic under study.] As texts that were produced in the underground economy of a city whose
trajectory was increasingly charted outside of formalized planning and investment, these novellas
reveal more than their narrative content alone. These texts were active components in the urban
social worlds of the young men who produced them. They reveal a mode of urbanism otherwise
obscured by narratives of decolonization, in which urban belonging was constituted less by
national citizenship than by the construction of social networks, economic connections, and the
crafting of reputations. This article argues that pulp fiction novellas of socialist era Dar es
Salaam are artifacts of emergent forms of male sociability and mobility. In printing fictional
stories about urban life on pilfered paper and ink, and distributing their texts through informal
channels, these writers not only described urban communities, reputations, and networks, but
also actually created them.” (p. 210) [Annotation for the previous sentences: The remaining
sentences in this abstract interweave other essential information for an abstract for this article.
The implied research questions: What do these texts mean? What is their historical and cultural
significance, produced at this time, in this location, by these authors? The argument and the
significance of this analysis in microcosm: these texts “reveal a mode or urbanism otherwise
obscured . . .”; and “This article argues that pulp fiction novellas. . . .” This section also implies
what previous historical research has obscured. And through the details in its argumentative
claims, this section of the abstract implies the kinds of methods the author has used to interpret
the novellas and the concepts under study (e.g., male sociability and mobility, urban
communities, reputations, network. . . ).]

SAMPLE ABSTRACT/SUMMARY 3
FROM THE SCIENCES
Reporting a new method for reprogramming adult mouse fibroblasts into induced cardiac
progenitor cells

Lalit, Pratik A., Max R. Salick, Daryl O. Nelson, Jayne M. Squirrell, Christina M. Shafer, Neel
G. Patel, Imaan Saeed, Eric G. Schmuck, Yogananda S. Markandeya, Rachel Wong, Martin R.
Lea, Kevin W. Eliceiri, Timothy A. Hacker, Wendy C. Crone, Michael Kyba, Daniel J. Garry,
Ron Stewart, James A. Thomson, Karen M. Downs, Gary E. Lyons, and Timothy J. Kamp.
“Lineage Reprogramming of Fibroblasts into Proliferative Induced Cardiac Progenitor Cells by
Defined Factors.” Cell Stem Cell, vol. 18, 2016, pp. 354-367.

“Several studies have reported reprogramming of fibroblasts into induced cardiomyocytes;

however, reprogramming into proliferative induced cardiac progenitor cells (iCPCs) remains to
be accomplished. [Annotation for the previous sentence: The first sentence announces the topic
under study, summarizes what’s already known or been accomplished in previous research, and
signals the rationale and goals are for the new research and the problem that the new research
solves: How can researchers reprogram fibroblasts into iCPCs?] Here we report that a
combination of 11 or 5 cardiac factors along with canonical Wnt and JAK/STAT signaling
reprogrammed adult mouse cardiac, lung, and tail tip fibroblasts into iCPCs. The iCPCs were
cardiac mesoderm-restricted progenitors that could be expanded extensively while maintaining
multipo-tency to differentiate into cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle cells, and endothelial cells in
vitro. Moreover, iCPCs injected into the cardiac crescent of mouse embryos differentiated into
cardiomyocytes. iCPCs transplanted into the post-myocardial infarction mouse heart improved
survival and differentiated into cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle cells, and endothelial cells.
[Annotation for the previous four sentences: The methods the researchers developed to achieve
their goal and a description of the results.] Lineage reprogramming of adult somatic cells into
iCPCs provides a scalable cell source for drug discovery, disease modeling, and cardiac
regenerative therapy.” (p. 354) [Annotation for the previous sentence: The significance or
implications—for drug discovery, disease modeling, and therapy—of this reprogramming of
adult somatic cells into iCPCs.]Note: This journal calls this paragraph at the beginning of the
article a “Summary,” rather than an “Abstract.” This journal provides multiple ways for readers
to grasp the content of this research article quickly. In addition to this paragraph-length prose
summary, this article also has an effective graphical abstract, a bulleted list of highlights list at
the beginning of the article, and a two-sentence “In Brief” summary.

SAMPLE ABSTRACT 4, A STRUCTURED ABSTRACT

FROM THE SCIENCES
Reporting results about the effectiveness of antibiotic therapy in managing acute bacterial
sinusitis, from a rigorously controlled study

Note: This journal requires authors to organize their abstract into four specific sections, with
strict word limits. Because the headings for this structured abstract are self-explanatory, we have
chosen not to add annotations to this sample abstract.

Wald, Ellen R., David Nash, and Jens Eickhoff. “Effectiveness of Amoxicillin/Clavulanate
Potassium in the Treatment of Acute Bacterial Sinusitis in Children.” Pediatrics, vol. 124, no. 1,
2009, pp. 9-15.
ABSTRACT
“OBJECTIVE: The role of antibiotic therapy in managing acute bacterial sinusitis (ABS) in
children is controversial. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of high-
dose amoxicillin/potassium clavulanate in the treatment of children diagnosed with ABS.

METHODS: This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Children 1 to 10

years of age with a clinical presentation compatible with ABS were eligible for participation.
Patients were stratified according to age (<6 or ≥6 years) and clinical severity and randomly
assigned to receive either amoxicillin (90 mg/kg) with potassium clavulanate (6.4 mg/kg) or
placebo. A symptom survey was performed on days 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 20, and 30. Patients were
examined on day 14. Children’s conditions were rated as cured, improved, or failed according to
scoring rules.

RESULTS: Two thousand one hundred thirty-five children with respiratory complaints were
screened for enrollment; 139 (6.5%) had ABS. Fifty-eight patients were enrolled, and 56 were
randomly assigned. The mean age was 6630 months. Fifty (89%) patients presented with
persistent symptoms, and 6 (11%) presented with nonpersistent symptoms. In 24 (43%) children,
the illness was classified as mild, whereas in the remaining 32 (57%) children it was severe. Of
the 28 children who received the antibiotic, 14 (50%) were cured, 4 (14%) were improved,
4(14%) experienced treatment failure, and 6 (21%) withdrew. Of the 28children who received
placebo, 4 (14%) were cured, 5 (18%) improved, and 19 (68%) experienced treatment failure.
Children receiving the antibiotic were more likely to be cured (50% vs 14%) and less likely to
have treatment failure (14% vs 68%) than children receiving the placebo.

CONCLUSIONS: ABS is a common complication of viral upper respiratory infections.

Amoxicillin/potassium clavulanate results in significantly more cures and fewer failures than
placebo, according to parental report of time to resolution.”