Standards for Writing Abstracts By Ben H. Weil

Th YEAR MODULE DIPLOMA ABSTRACT WRITING

Content:

1. STANDARDS FOR WRITING ABSTRACTS
2. STRUCTURE OF DIPLOMA ABSTRACT
3. USEFUL EXERCISES
4. USEFUL LANGUAGE FILE
5. SOME EXAMPLES

A dissertation abstract is the first piece of work that readers come across in your dissertation. It is a summary of your work and normally appears after your Title Page and Acknowledgements. It should capture the essence of your research in a lucid and succinct way. Some institutions differentiate between a descriptive abstract and an informative abstract: the former concentrates on the structure of the dissertation and not its content (and so is of limited value), whereas the latter provides a condensed summary of the actual work carried out by the researcher.

Standards for Writing Abstracts By Ben H. Weil

· Introduction

The growing volume of scholarly, scientific, technical, and other informational and instructional documents makes it increasingly important that the basic content of each document be quickly and accurately identifiable by readers. This ready identification is aided if the author of the document begins it with a meaningful title and a well-prepared abstract. Indeed, authors must bear in mind that many people will read no more than the titles and abstracts of their documents.

For these reasons, a proposed American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard for writing abstracts has been drafted primarily to assist authors as well as the editors who guide them to prepare abstracts with maximum usefulness. The specialized knowledge of an author together with the wide view of a field provided by an editor can be expected to yield a good abstract if the proposed standard is followed.

· Definitions and Scope

In the proposed standard the term abstract signifies an abbreviated, accurate representation of a document without added interpretation or criticism and without distinction as to who wrote the abstract. Thus, an abstract differs from a brief review of a document in that, while a review often takes on much of the character of an informative-indicative abstract, its writer is expected to include suitable criticism and interpretation. While the word synopsis was formerly used to denote a resume prepared by the author, as distinct from an abstract (condensation) prepared by some other person, this distinction no longer has real meaning.

An abstract should be as informative as is permitted by the type and style of the document; that is, it should present as much as possible of the quantitative and/or qualitative information contained in the document. Informative abstracts are especially desirable for texts describing experimental work and documents devoted to a single theme. However, some discursive or lengthy texts, such as broad overviews, review papers, and entire monographs, may permit the preparation of an abstract that is only an indicative or descriptive guide to the type of document and what it is about. A combined informative-indicative abstract must often be prepared when limitations on the length of the abstract or the type and style of the document make it necessary to confine informative statements to the primary elements of the document and to relegate other aspects to indicative statements.

Abstracts should not be confused with the related, but distinct, terms annotation, extract, and summary. An annotation is a note added to the title or other bibliographic information of a document by way of comment or explanation. An extract signifies one or more portions of a document selected to represent the whole. A summary is a restatement within a document (usually at the end) of its salient findings and conclusions, and is intended to complete the orientation of a reader who has studied the preceding text. Because other vital portions of the document (e.g. purpose, methods) are not usually condensed into this summary, the term should not be used synonymously with “abstract”; i.e., an abstract as defined above should not be called a summary.

· Use of Abstracts

A well-prepared abstract enables readers to identify the basic content of a document quickly and accurately, to determine its relevance to their interests, and thus to decide whether they need to read the document in its entirety. Readers for whom the document is of fringe interest often obtain enough information from the abstract to make their reading of the whole document unnecessary. Therefore, every primary document should include a good abstract. Secondary publications and services that provide bibliographic citations of pertinent documents should also include good abstracts if at all possible.

The following recommendations are for authors and editors of specific documents and publications.