You would like to write an abstract for your research paper or thesis? But how should you structure the abstract? What should be included in the abstract?
Here you get all the answers.
Why write an abstract?
The purpose of an abstract is to summarize your research paper or thesis in a short paragraph. The abstract serves as a guide for the readers as to what they can expect in the paper. It contains all the important information about the paper, such as the context, the research relevance and method, and also the main results of the paper.
The abstract is a kind of a mini-version of a research paper.
It is important to understand that the abstract is NOT a teaser. Nothing should be hidden from the reader here, and there must not be a cliffhanger at the end. All the most important findings and contributions should be presented concisely. Hence, no artificial tension should be created in the abstract. The reader’s curiosity automatically results from the relevance of the topic.
Especially in research articles, the abstract is one of the most important parts of a text. This is because it allows an interested reader to decide whether the results obtained or the content of the text are relevant to him. And not only the reader. A paper will also be indexed by databases such as Google Scholar based on the abstract. So make sure all important concepts appear in your abstract.
Even if you are a student and have no interest in publishing your paper whatsoever, your professors want you to come as close as possible to actual scientific work. Therefore, they ask you to write an abstract.
How should the abstract look like?
There are no generally accepted standards for an abstract. In research, they result from the requirements of the publisher, at university from the requirements of your supervisor. If you are unsure, ask for the criteria in the next office hour or check the thesis requirements of your department. A typical abstract is between 150 and 200 words.
Although the criteria are not set in stone, there is a common practice of how how to write an abstract. If you follow these 7 steps, there is not much that can go wrong when writing your abstract.
#1 Context
What is the context of your research? (1 sentence) By context, I mean the real world events that frame your scientific work.
I will now give you an example for each step. At the end, we will have a complete abstract that connects all the steps with each other. All you need to do then is to transfer this example onto your own paper and topic. The example is from a paper by Suh et al. (2010).
So for the context sentence, one could write the following:
“Retweeting is the key mechanism for information diffusion in Twitter.”
Note that the key concepts are already mentioned: Retweeting, information diffusion, and Twitter.
#2 Relevance
Why is this topic relevant to your research field? (1 sentence)
This is where your argument practically begins. Why should anyone care about this topic? “Anyone” often means the researchers that are the potential audience of your paper or thesis. But your work could also be of societal or practical importance.
So for the relevance sentence, one could write the following:
“It (retweeting) emerged as a simple yet powerful way of disseminating information in the Twitter social network.”
#3 Problem Definition
What is your research problem? (2 sentences) The research problem is often grounded in the scientific debate. What do we know already? What do we not know? And why is that a problem? Why should we conduct research to address this problem?
So for the problem definition, one could write the following:
“Even though a lot of information is shared in Twitter, little is known yet about how and why certain information spreads more widely than others. In this paper, we examine a number of features that might affect retweetability of tweets.”
#4 Method
What method do you use to approach the problem? (1 sentence) The choice of method is linked precisely to the research problem. It is the toolkit you use to explore and address the problem.
So for the method sentence, one could write the following:
“We gathered content and contextual features from 74M tweets and used this data set to identify factors that are significantly associated with retweet rate. We also built a predictive retweet model.”
#5 Main Results
What are the main results of your paper or thesis? (2 sentences) Remember that the abstract is not a teaser but should include everything there is to know about the study. It is a challenge how to write an abstract but you should be able to summarize the essence of your results in two very concise sentences.
So for the main results, one could write the following:
“We found that, amongst content features, URLs and hashtags have strong relationships with retweetability. Amongst contextual features, the number of followers and followees as well as the age of the account seem to affect retweetability, while, interestingly, the number of past tweets does not predict retweetability of a user’s tweet.”
#6 Contributions
How can researchers (or practitioners) benefit from your work? (1-2 sentences) How would dealing with the research problem advance our knowledge? What part of the research literature would it enrich and how? Theoretically? Methodologically?
And how might possible findings help practice, i.e., professional individuals or organizations?
Here you need to sell your paper a little bit to the audience. For the contribution sentences, one could write:
“This research proposes a framework that explains the theoretical relationships between platform features and information diffusion on microblogging platforms. Moreover, this work informs the design of sensemaking and analytics tools for social media streams.”
#7 Keywords
An abstract most often comes with keywords. Name the 3 to 5 core concepts of your paper or thesis. Those could be: microblogging, Twitter, information diffusion, retweeting.
Conclusion
If you stick to this structure, you will automatically have included all the important information in your abstract. In addition, you can easily use your introduction and adopt some of the sentences you have used there. Do not copy and paste them but change the wording and grammar slightly.
Also make sure that the abstract flows. You can use words such as “Therefore”, “hence”, “consequently”, or “moreover” to connect your sentences and create one coherent piece.
It couldn’t be easier, could it? 🙂