How to Write an Abstract for a Research Paper

An abstract summarizes the major features of a research paper in a given order. It includes the overall idea behind the research, the basic study design, important findings of your analysis, a short summary of your analysis, and conclusions. The abstract allows a writer to explain each feature of the paper and makes the paper valuable for the readers who want to study your work.

Kinds of Abstract

A simple rule to know whether the abstract is good is to check if it provides sufficient information about your research. Here are the different kinds of abstracts that you can incorporate into your paper:

·         Descriptive Abstract

A descriptive abstract specifies the kind of information that the paper provides. It incorporates keywords that occur in the text and includes the objective, scope, and methodologies used in the research. It doesn’t offer any opinion or conclusions about the research. The descriptive abstract only summarizes the work described in the paper so it is often considered as an outline of the research. These abstracts are typically very short, around 100 words or less.

·         Informative Abstract

The informative abstracts provide a detailed explanation of all the arguments, evidence, and the results in the paper. While an informative abstract doesn’t criticize or evaluate the research, it includes information about the purpose, scope, and methodologies along with the results, recommendations, and conclusion of the research. The length of the informative abstract can vary depending on your discipline, but it is usually not more than 300 words.

·         Critical Abstract

A critical abstract describes key information and findings in addition to offering an opinion about the authenticity and reliability of the research. The researcher assesses the paper and draws a comparison with other research work on the same topic. Critical abstracts are usually long, 400 -500 words, and are used rarely in A+ essay writing.

·         Highlight Abstract

A highlight abstract serves to captures reader’s interest towards the research. Instead of providing the overall picture, incomplete remarks and hints are used to catch reader’s attention. Since a highlight abstract is meaningless without its related article, it is seldom used in research writing.

Writing an abstract

A concise and clear abstract provides an insight into researcher’s work and encourages the readers to read further. Here are some rules to follow when writing an abstract for a research paper:

1.   Try to use active voice as much as possible, but occasionally you may be required to use a passive sentence.

2.      Use short but complete sentences to quickly get to the point.

3.  Always write in the past tense as you are describing a research that has already been completed.

4.  Write the abstract in the end as it will help you summarize all the contents of the paper. Compose your abstract by picking sentences or main phrases from every section and organizing them in a logical order that sums up the paper.

5.      Review or add words or phrases to make the abstract logical and clear to the readers.

6.     Ensure that the information provided in the abstract entirely agrees with the contents of the  paper.

7.   Avoid extensive background information in the abstract. Do not include references to past research such as ‘studies indicate that...’

8.     Avoid incomplete sentences, abbreviations, or jargons that may confuse the readers.

9.     Do not include any image, table, or figure in the abstract.

A clear abstract lays the foundation of good essay writing. Arab essay can help students and professionals to create solid abstracts for their research papers. Follow abstract writing rules and consult our experts to write quality papers for your academic research.