How to Write a Research Paper Abstract: Guide With Examples, write abstract for research paper.

If you are writing a paper as a student, your institution or professor may require a specific word count requirement.

Choosing keywords is a study in itself. In general, however, effective keywords should represent the content of your paper and be specific to your discipline or industry. Mahboobi et al. (2010) recommend that keyword selection should be no less than three and no more than 10.

A good abstract is concise and straightforward

• What problems does this study solve?
• What is the main gap in knowledge that your study intends to fill?
• Why are the results of this study important?

Formatting

Abstracts should at least be 150 words long but never exceed 250 words. However, account for the length of the study and the data collected and analyzed. A whole dissertation will take up to 250 words, while a shorter one may merit about 150-160 words. The type of abstract will also play a role in length considerations.

Descriptive abstracts, as you can glean from its name, describes the type of information about the work. Of the two major types, descriptive abstracts are infrequently used in research papers because of their dearth of information. It may, however, contain keywords and some information about the purpose, scope, and methodology of the research.

Funding agencies often look at the hypothesis and the significance of the research to judge whether the study merits their attention or, most importantly, a grant. As more research is done to open up new vistas of knowledge, so do funding, as visualized by the chart below.

Here is an example of an informative abstract based on an experiment by Palmquist, M., & Young, R. (1992).

“It is an important and difficult job to write an eye catching abstract. A large percentage of the manuscripts that are submitted to academic journals are rejected because their abstracts are poorly written. This paper provides a new and step by step approach for writing a good structured abstract.”

Additionally, ask yourself a few things when writing the introduction:

• Use the same font choice, spacing, and page placement as the abstract.
• Place the “Keywords” (without the quotes) label one line below the abstract, in italic but not in bold.
• Indent the first line of the keywords, written one line below the label.
• Write in lowercase, except proper nouns.
• Separate keywords with a comma and space.
• List keywords in any order you choose.
• If the keywords run into a second line, you need not indent the second line.

Finally, after reading an abstract, a reader should know why the study was conducted to begin with, what the research has concluded, and how it can be applied or how it can be useful. This role in any academic paper means the abstract is the single most-read part of any research article. As such, it should cover all major points of the paper (Winker, 1999).

4. Abstract Types and Examples

Informative abstracts take on a more important role in medicine as well, where some physicians and clinicians refer to it as structured abstracts (Haynes, 1990). With a structured abstract, authors are required to systematically “disclose the objective, basic research design, clinical setting, participants, interventions (if any), main outcome measurements, results, and conclusions

Here is a checklist of requirements as far as the APA-recommended abstract writing style is concerned.

Abstracts should at least be 150 words long but never exceed 250 words. However, account for the length of the study and the data collected and analyzed. A whole dissertation will take up to 250 words, while a shorter one may merit about 150-160 words. The type of abstract will also play a role in length considerations.

• What problems does this study solve?
• What is the main gap in knowledge that your study intends to fill?
• Why are the results of this study important?

The abstract is the single most important paragraph in your entire paper, according to the APA Publication Manual.

First, write your whole paper. While the abstract will be at the beginning of your paper, it should be the last section that you write. Once you have completed the final draft of your psychology paper, use it as a guide for writing your abstract.

An abstract must also be objective and accurate. The abstract's purpose is to report rather than provide commentary. It should accurately reflect what your paper is about. Only include information that is also included in the body of your paper.

If your paper is a meta-analysis or literature review, your abstract should:  

Experimental Report Abstracts

A good abstract lets the reader know that your paper is worth reading. According to the official guidelines of the American Psychological Association, an abstract should be brief, but packed with information. Each sentence must be written with maximum impact in mind. To keep your abstract short, focus on including just four or five of the essential points, concepts, or findings.

The format of your abstract also depends on the type of paper you are writing. For example, an abstract summarizing an experimental paper will differ from that of a meta-analysis or case study. For an experimental report, your abstract should:  

The abstract is the second page of a lab report or APA-format paper and should immediately follow the title page. Think of an abstract as a highly condensed summary of your entire paper.

• Use proper tense. The choice of tense is still debated because many academic scholars consider using past tense as a preferable option in academic texts. Yet, as a rule of thumb, you should use past tense to describe previous research (yours and that of other scholars) and apply past-tense forms to describe the events that ended in the past. In all other cases – when you describe general facts or offer your interpretations of the research subject – use the present tense.
• Don’t be defensive or evaluative. Remember, your abstract’s task is to present your study, not to advertise or defend it. So, avoid any evaluative language and stick to an objective presentation of facts.
• Use keywords. Don’t forget that most researchers (and your supervisor as well) look through abstracts quickly, looking for some keywords and phrases that serve as attention anchors. Thus, to make the audience interested in your study and urge them to read further, you need to carefully stuff the abstract with relevant keywords encapsulating your research focus.
• Stay focused. Since you only have 150-250 words, don’t write extended, complex sentences. Be brief and concise in presenting the central research problem.

Regardless of the comprehensive legislation serving to eradicate racial discrimination in the USA, race-based gaps still exist in access to numerous social resources, such as healthcare and education. African Americans are statistically worse positioned in academic achievement, school graduation, and higher education access. This retrospective quantitative study examines the racial gap statistics of school graduation in three mid-sized public schools in Austin, Texas. The researcher analyzes school graduation rates in 2010-2020 in terms of race/ethnicity. The data for analysis were taken from official state registers on school graduation, with student profiles containing socio-demographic information about the students. Data were analyzed with the help of SPSS statistical software. ANOVA test was done to test the statistical significance of race’s effect on school graduation, while descriptive statistics were used to quantify the gap. The findings suggest a considerable 7-12% gap between White and African American schoolers, though the gap has reduced within the past three years. ANOVA results show a statistically significant difference in school completion rates among African American and non-African American students. The far-reaching consequences of racial disparities in school achievement and policies to target racial gaps in school graduation and academic achievement are discussed.

Following these rules, you’re sure to make your abstract much more readable and way more understandable for the target audience.

Sample #2 Arabic language acquisition through role-playing in Saudi kindergartens

Contents of an abstract

Those still unsure about how to write an abstract for a scientific paper can look at the following examples and try to create their abstracts.

With several million newcomers every year, Saudi Arabia faces the challenge of immigrant adaptation and enculturation. Arabic language learning places a key role in acculturation. Yet, while adults can effectively learn Arabic language courses, minor children of immigrants have a limited arsenal of language skills (listening and speaking) to acquire a new language. This observational case study focuses on five 4-year-old children of immigrants from Europe attending a Saudi kindergarten. The researcher utilizes Bandura’s social learning theory to examine the way children learn from their teachers and Arabic-speaking peers during kindergarten role play. The observation took place for three months, with the researcher focusing on Arabic speech comprehension and speed reproduction trends. The Arabic language progress is discussed, focusing on adopted speech patterns based on the researcher’s dialogue fragments. The study’s findings suggest that oral competency (speaking and listening) is sufficient for effective Arabic language acquisition through role-play, with children learning the best in the exciting, interactive role-play sessions. Teacher scaffolding in English serves as a powerful accelerator for Arabic language acquisition.

• The abstract typically starts with a context description and a brief account of the study phenomenon’s background.
• Then come the topic and objective of the study.
• It’s good to include the central research question in the abstract
• If space allows, make sure to give a brief account of previous research on your subject so that the reader understands what is known and not known about it, what gaps researchers point out, what urgency the issue represents, etc.
• Research methodology, data collection, and analysis methods
• Key findings derived from the study
• Implications of your findings and recommendations for improving the situation/solving an issue.

Different types of style and formatting can be used, including the APA and MLA. For the MLA style, the abstracts aim at summarizing the methods, findings, discussion and objective, and conclusion of the paper.

It is advisable to state the critical techniques used in your research briefly. A guide on how to write an abstract for a research paper emphasizes this as it enables you to summarize the basic design of your study.

The first 2-3 sentences should inform your reader why you have undertaken the particular research.

An abstract is essential because people head to it to learn about your findings. Maximize the amount of information that you include here.

6-Steps on How to Write an Abstract

Abstract example: “The importance of drinking water – hydration – in keeping the body fit, tissues and muscles strengthened and preventing diseases.”

For example: “Five hundred athletes participating in a marathon in hot climatic regions were interviewed and water levels tested across five days.”

In these ten extensive but straightforward steps, you will learn the secret to what to include in an abstract with professional examples of abstract on each level.