Writing an Abstract

Writing an abstract is deceivingly hard. They are short but need to be packed with a lot of information. In addition everyone thinks they are easy and leaves them to the night before to write. This is a mistake. What is the first thing a person reads on your proposal or thesis? The abstract!!!! A bad abstract will put the reader off and start off the process with a bad impression. A good abstract sets you up for succcess!!!!! We provide a sentence by sentence guide below and then a review of an abstract. Good luck and start soon!

Sentence 1. Overview of problem but not as grand a sentence as beginning of
introduction.

Sentence 2. Focused overview of what is unknown. This could almost state
the goal or hypothesis of the work. Some abstracts actually use goal or
hypothesis in the sentence.

Sentence 3+ (1-3 sentences). Methods your undertook to address the problem.
State the field site, type of analyses, how many samples. The big important
methods.

Sentence 4+ (2-4 sentences). Significant results and correlations with as
many numbers as possible to give credence to any claim.

Sentence 5+ (1-2 sentences). Most important discussion point.

Sentence 6 (The last sentence). Large scale implications and importance of
result.

EXAMPLE
Martin Stute recently had a paper published in Water Resources Research. Lets read Martin's absract and then critique how he did following the rules above.

There are a total of 5 sentences and 156 words. Read the abstract yourself and then open our comments and see if you agree. PDF is Marked up. Overall a very nice abstract. A few
areas could have been extended but a nice abstract that follows the rules!