How to Write an Abstract for a Paper, Thesis, or Journal

Informative / IMRaD paper:

[Problem or gap in one sentence]. This study [design, sample or materials, and analysis]. Results showed [the main finding with a number, effect, or comparison the paper actually reports]. These findings [the implication the Discussion earned], with the main limit that [the constraint that changes interpretation].

Humanities / argument paper:

This [essay / article / dissertation] examines [object or corpus] in order to argue that [the claim]. Drawing on [kinds of evidence], it shows that [the main reading]. The contribution is [what changes in the scholarly conversation], not a plot summary of the text.

Descriptive abstract (scope only):

This paper describes [the topic, the sources or method, and the sections covered]. It does not report results. Use this shape only when the assignment or journal asks for a descriptive abstract of about 100 words.

Structured medical / trial abstract (copy the journal's headings):

Background. [context]. Objective. [purpose]. Methods. [participants, setting, interventions, primary outcome, allocation, blinding]. Results. [n per group; primary-outcome effect with precision; important harms]. Conclusions. [principal claim without overinterpretation]. Trial registration. [registry and number]. Put funding where the journal asks — CONSORT 2025 lists it in the abstract; ICMJE lists it after the abstract.

Nature-style summary paragraph (only if that journal asked for it):

[2–3 sentences that introduce the field to a scientist outside it]. [Background and the specific unsolved problem]. Here we show [the main conclusion]. [2–3 sentences that say what that result changes in the field]. Nature wants this paragraph referenced and usually free of numbers and abbreviations; IEEE wants the opposite — no numbered citations.

APA 7 professional format (not required for most student papers):

Page 2. Centered bold heading Abstract. One unindented paragraph, at most 250 words. Next line, indented: Keywords: term one, term two, term three

An abstract is a self-contained, short, and powerful statement that describes a larger work.

An abstract is not a review, nor does it evaluate the work being abstracted. While it contains key words found in the larger work, the abstract is an original document rather than an excerpted passage.

Abstracts allow readers who may be interested in a longer work to quickly decide whether it is worth their time to read it. Also, many online databases use abstracts to index larger works. Therefore, abstracts should contain keywords and phrases that allow for easy searching.

Typically, an informative abstract answers these questions in about 100-250 words:

Why did you do this study or project?

What did you do, and how?

What did you find?

What do your findings mean?

An abstract will nearly always be read along with the title, so do not repeat or rephrase the title. It will likely be read without the rest of the document, however, so make it complete enough to stand on its own.

Do not refer in the abstract to information that is not in the document.

Avoid using I or we, but choose active verbs instead of passive when possible (the study tested rather than it was tested by the study).

While the application may necessarily change the length of the abstract (a conference program may only allow for 50-75 words, for instance), the purpose and structure remains fairly constant.

Abstracts are generally kept brief (approximately 150-200 words).

A reliable strategy is to write the abstract as a condensed version of your article, with 1-2 sentences summarizing each major section.

Abstracts and keywords are not typically required for student papers. Students should consult their instructor or institution to determine whether to include an abstract and/or keywords.

The abstract needs to provide a brief but comprehensive summary of the contents of your paper. It provides an overview of the paper and helps readers decide whether to read the full text. Limit your abstract to 250 words.

The abstract addresses the following (usually 1–2 sentences per topic):

• key aspects of the literature review
• problem under investigation or research question(s)
• clearly stated hypothesis or hypotheses
• methods used (including brief descriptions of the study design, sample, and sample size)
• study results
• implications (i.e., why this study is important, applications of the results or findings)

Keywords need to be descriptive and capture the most important aspects of your paper. They are used for indexing in databases and as search terms for readers. Include three to five words, phrases, or acronyms as keywords.

A descriptive abstract indicates the type of information found in the work. It makes no judgments about the work, nor does it provide results or conclusions of the research.

Descriptive abstracts are usually very short—100 words or less.

A good informative abstract acts as a surrogate for the work itself. That is, the writer presents and explains all the main arguments and the important results and evidence in the complete article/paper/book.

You can also make a guess based on the length allowed; i.e., 100-120 words = descriptive; 250+ words = informative.

Descriptive:

The two most common abstract types—descriptive and informative—are described and examples of each are provided.

Informative:

Abstracts present the essential elements of a longer work in a short and powerful statement. The purpose of an abstract is to provide prospective readers the opportunity to judge the relevance of the longer work to their projects. Abstracts also include the key terms found in the longer work and the purpose and methods of the research. Authors abstract various longer works, including book proposals, dissertations, and online journal articles. There are two main types of abstracts: descriptive and informative. A descriptive abstract briefly describes the longer work, while an informative abstract presents all the main arguments and important results. This handout provides examples of various types of abstracts and instructions on how to construct one.

• Placement: second page of the paper
• Section label Abstract: centered and bold, first line of the page
• Text: one line below the label, not indented, single paragraph, double-spaced
• Length: 250 words unless the instructor or journal sets another limit
• Keywords label: indented, italic, not bold — Keywords:
• Keyword text: same line, one space after the label; lowercase except proper nouns; commas and spaces; no period after the last term; any order, not necessarily alphabetical
• If keywords wrap, double-space and do not indent the second line

Keywords: social movements, Civil Rights Movement, Mississippi, voting rights, desegregation

Your abstract should provide a brief summary of the research conducted, the conclusions reached, and the potential implications of those conclusions.

Consist of a single paragraph up to 250 words, with correct grammar and unambiguous terminology

Be self-contained; without abbreviations, footnotes, references, or mathematical equations

Highlight what is novel in your work

Include 3-5 keywords or phrases that describe the research, with any abbreviations clearly defined, to help readers find your article

Most authors write the abstract last and edit it multiple times before article publication to ensure it accurately captures the entire article.

IEEE recommends that you do not include mathematical symbols in your article title or abstract because they may not display properly.

Abstract, must be one paragraph and between 150 to 250 words.

They shall not contain numbered mathematical equations, numbered reference citations, nor footnotes.

Every published article must contain an Abstract.

All articles must contain Index Terms. These are keywords provided by the authors. Index Terms appear in alphabetical order and as a final paragraph of the Abstract section. Capitalize the first word of the Index Terms list; lowercase the rest unless capitalized in text. Include the definition of an acronym followed by the acronym in parentheses.

Index Terms—Abstraction, computer-aided system engineering (CASE), conceptual schema, data model, entity type hierarchy, ISO reference model, layered architecture meta model, reverse engineering.

Because on-line search databases typically contain only abstracts, it is vital to write a complete but concise description of your work to entice potential readers into obtaining a copy of the full paper. This article describes how to write a good computer architecture abstract for both conference and journal papers. Writers should follow a checklist consisting of: motivation, problem statement, approach, results, and conclusions. Following this checklist should increase the chance of people taking the time to obtain and read your complete paper.

Original research, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses require structured abstracts.

The abstract should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study's purpose, basic procedures (selection of study participants, settings, measurements, analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical and clinical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations, note important limitations, and not overinterpret findings.

Because abstracts are the only substantive portion of the article indexed in many electronic databases, and the only portion many readers read, authors need to ensure that they accurately reflect the content of the article. Unfortunately, information in abstracts often differs from that in the text.

The ICMJE recommends that journals publish the clinical trial registration number at the end of the abstract.

If the data have been deposited in a public repository and/or are being used in a secondary analysis, authors should state at the end of the abstract the unique, persistent data set identifier, repository name and number.

Funding sources should be listed separately after the abstract to facilitate proper display and indexing for search retrieval by MEDLINE.

We strongly recommend the use of structured abstracts for reporting randomised trials.

Structured summary of the trial design, methods, results, and conclusions

Do not report information that does not appear in the body of the paper

CONSORT 2025 expanded checklist — facts the structured abstract should name:

• Specific objectives
• Trial design (for example parallel group or cluster) and framework (superiority, equivalence, non-inferiority, or exploratory)
• Eligibility criteria and settings
• Intervention(s) and comparator(s) for each group
• Primary outcome(s)
• How participants were allocated (for example centralised computer-generated randomisation)
• Who was blinded after assignment
• Number randomised to each group
• Number analysed in each group for the primary outcome
• Primary-outcome result for each group, with estimated effect size and precision
• Important harms or unintended events for each group
• General interpretation of the results
• Name of trial register and identification number
• Sources of funding — CONSORT lists this in the abstract; ICMJE lists the funding statement after the abstract. Follow the journal.

Articles start with a fully referenced summary paragraph, ideally of no more than 200 words, which is separate from the main text and avoids numbers, abbreviations, acronyms or measurements unless essential. It is aimed at readers outside the discipline.

This summary paragraph should be structured as follows: 2-3 sentences of basic-level introduction to the field; a brief account of the background and rationale of the work; a statement of the main conclusions (introduced by the phrase 'Here we show' or its equivalent); and finally, 2-3 sentences putting the main findings into general context so it is clear how the results described in the paper have moved the field forwards.

Reason for writing: What is the importance of the research? Why would a reader be interested in the larger work?

Problem: What problem does this work attempt to solve? What is the scope of the project? What is the main argument/thesis/claim?

Methodology: An abstract of a scientific work may include specific models or approaches used in the larger study. Other abstracts may describe the types of evidence used in the research.

Results: Again, an abstract of a scientific work may include specific data that indicates the results of the project. Other abstracts may discuss the findings in a more general way.

Implications: What changes should be implemented as a result of the findings of the work? How does this work add to the body of knowledge on the topic?

Do not refer extensively to other works.

Do not add information not contained in the original work.

Do not define terms.

This dissertation examines the role of newspaper editors in the political turmoil and strife that characterized late First Empire Rio de Janeiro (1827-1831). Newspaper editors and their journals helped change the political culture of late First Empire Rio de Janeiro by involving the people in the discussion of state. This change in political culture is apparent in Emperor Pedro I’s gradual loss of control over the mechanisms of power. As the newspapers became more numerous and powerful, the Emperor lost his legitimacy in the eyes of the people. To explore the role of the newspapers in the political events of the late First Empire, this dissertation analyzes all available newspapers published in Rio de Janeiro from 1827 to 1831. Newspapers and their editors were leading forces in the effort to remove power from the hands of the ruling elite and place it under the control of the people. In the process, newspapers helped change how politics operated in the constitutional monarchy of Brazil.

Kenneth Tait Andrews, “'Freedom is a constant struggle': The dynamics and consequences of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1984,” Ph.D. State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1997. DAI-A 59/02, p. 620, Aug 1998.

This dissertation examines the impacts of social movements through a multi-layered study of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement from its peak in the early 1960s through the early 1980s. By examining this historically important case, I clarify the process by which movements transform social structures and the constraints movements face when they try to do so. The time period studied includes the expansion of voting rights and gains in black political power, the desegregation of public schools and the emergence of white-flight academies, and the rise and fall of federal anti-poverty programs. I use two major research strategies: (1) a quantitative analysis of county-level data and (2) three case studies. Data have been collected from archives, interviews, newspapers, and published reports. This dissertation challenges the argument that movements are inconsequential. Some view federal agencies, courts, political parties, or economic elites as the agents driving institutional change, but typically these groups acted in response to the leverage brought to bear by the civil rights movement. The Mississippi movement attempted to forge independent structures for sustaining challenges to local inequities and injustices. By propelling change in an array of local institutions, movement infrastructures had an enduring legacy in Mississippi.

Luis Lehner, “Gravitational radiation from black hole spacetimes,” Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 1998. DAI-B 59/06, p. 2797, Dec 1998.

The problem of detecting gravitational radiation is receiving considerable attention with the construction of new detectors in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The theoretical modeling of the wave forms that would be produced in particular systems will expedite the search for and analysis of detected signals. The characteristic formulation of GR is implemented to obtain an algorithm capable of evolving black holes in 3D asymptotically flat spacetimes. Using compactification techniques, future null infinity is included in the evolved region, which enables the unambiguous calculation of the radiation produced by some compact source. A module to calculate the waveforms is constructed and included in the evolution algorithm. This code is shown to be second-order convergent and to handle highly non-linear spacetimes. In particular, we have shown that the code can handle spacetimes whose radiation is equivalent to a galaxy converting its whole mass into gravitational radiation in one second. We further use the characteristic formulation to treat the region close to the singularity in black hole spacetimes. The code carefully excises a region surrounding the singularity and accurately evolves generic black hole spacetimes with apparently unlimited stability.

Dana Lynn Driscoll, H. Allen Brizee, Michael Salvo, and Morgan Sousa, “Usability and User-Centered Theory for 21st Century OWLs,” in The Handbook of Research on Virtual Workplaces and the New Nature of Business Practices, edited by Kirk St. Amant and Pavel Zemlansky (Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing, 2008).

This article describes results of usability research conducted on the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). The Purdue OWL is an information-rich educational website that provides free writing resources to users worldwide. Researchers conducted two generations of usability tests. In the first test, participants were asked to navigate the OWL and answer questions. Results of the first test and user-centered scholarship indicated that a more user-centered focus would improve usability. The second test asked participants to answer writing-related questions using both the OWL website and a user-centered OWL prototype. Participants took significantly less time to find information using the prototype and reported a more positive response to the user-centered prototype than the original OWL. Researchers conclude that a user-centered website is more effective and can be a model for information-rich online resources. Researchers also conclude that usability research can be a productive source of ideas, underscoring the need for participatory invention.

• The assignment, journal, or graduate office actually wants an abstract
• A reader who never opens the PDF can still state the claim and the main result
• Every number, sample size, and limitation also appears in the paper (ICMJE / CONSORT 2025)
• The type matches the limit: descriptive at ~100 words, informative when the venue wants results
• APA format is correct if you are in APA: page 2, unindented paragraph, italic Keywords line
• IEEE abstracts have no numbered citations, footnotes, or numbered equations, and Index Terms are alphabetical
• Medical structured abstracts include effect sizes and, for trials, the registration number
• Nature summaries are referenced and use “Here we show” only when that is the venue
• Keywords or Index Terms name topic, population, or method — not every heading
• Sources the paper cites are formatted in the assigned style; generate that list with the citation generator