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!